I see dead people

...and hear them too.

In the UK there was a sitcom from the 1960s called 'Are You Being Served' which was very successful at the time, and even years later it was still revered by many and repeated on some channels.  Even today you can still see it on some channels that show old TV programmes because of its popularity.

I used to watch re-reuns of the show when I was a kid and I quite liked it; so feeling nostalgic I decided to watch an old episode.  It is still as funny as ever, it hasn't aged a day, and I still find the writing relevant despite how much the world has moved on in the last 50 years.  In a way that's a reminder of how much of the world can change but social constructs and interactions remain relatively constant.

One thing that did strike me however was after watching the episode I took to Wikipedia to read a bit more about the show and indulge my nostalgic fever.  Of the characters in the episode I watched all but one of the actors have now died.  To be fair it was 50 years ago and the majority of the cast were relatively old at the time anyway but it still brought something home.  In the summary box of the 22 headline actors that wikipedia lists only 6 are still alive, the other 16 have all passed.  Of those 6 that remain, only 1 I would personally consider a main character, the rest I would consider to be recurring or minor characters of note.

Thinking about this however made me reflect on a strange fact.  My generation, my parents, and to an extent my grandparents are the first generations that can actually say they can see and hear dead people.  While they are not alive and they can not interact with them, we do live in an age where we can see them walk around and play out the scenes they acted in, we can hear them speak, we can hear them sing too in the case of singers, and in the case of comedians they can still make us laugh.  I realise that paintings have existed for quite a bit longer so in terms of sight you could argue previous generations weren't so hard done by, however I would argue no matter how true the artist can depict a person, the depiction is never truly lifelike.

I also realise that photography has existed quite a bit longer too as did wax cylinders and other examples of capturing sound but I would argue with these they were such at the time that only those with considerable wealth had access.  No, only the 3 generations I stated were the first really to have widespread access to technology that made this possible.  What's even more poignant is that there's no way of telling who is alive and who is not without actually going and finding out through research.  I can only imagine what people would have thought thousands of years ago, or hundreds even, if you were to say that you could let them see and hear people who were dead.  Even today when you phrase it like that it takes a while for the reality to sink in.  We have so much technology that has become so ubiquitous to us that provides us with things such as this.  Like the fact you sit listening to music in the middle of a flight across the Atlantic and think about the reality of what you are doing - flying without wings half way around the world listening to the voice of someone recorded days, weeks, months, even years ago as if you were in the same room.

I can only begin to imagine what future generations will be able to do with the technology they are given.  Maybe one day we will be able to upload a copy of our consciousness to a computer so that when we pass, our loved ones will be able to interact with it as if we were actually there - or maybe one day we will be able to extend our lives indefinitely through technology like that.