I, Rowboat links

I, Rowboat:
In “I, Rowboat” Doctorow uses some science fiction tropes (common themes, patterns, motifs, concepts) that may be better understood with some context provided:
noosphere: http://noosphere.cc/ -- Doctorow uses “noosphere” here to indicate a level of existence which is purely on the mental/idea level, without a necessary physical substrate for the thought to be founded in, as, say, someone’s mind is founded in his or her body.

Further definition of and links about the noosphere:
http://fusionanomaly.net/noosphere.html

the Noosphere and the Internet:
http://jonudell.net/LSAMag2009.html

Navigating and staking claims in the Noosphere, as in open source software: http://www.catb.org/~esr/writings/homesteading/homesteading/

Embodied consciousness / Incarnation / Downloaded mind patterns:
Some science fiction has dealt with the possible separation of mind from body, of reproducing someone’s mind as an electronic configuration, then downloading it into a computer or another physical body:

meat puppets: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gaFZTAOb7IE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lmD8I0jztWY&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EgOKY87at3c
Bisson text: http://baetzler.de/humor/meat_beings.html

alien email: http://www.setileague.org/articles/alienmsg.htm

Rachel in Love: http://www.brazenhussies.net/murphy/Rachel.html
Rachel in Love, the Game: http://www.rachelinlove.com/index.php
blog: http://sciencefictionbiology.blogspot.com/2006/09/rachel-in-love.html
movie: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1058561/

mind uploading: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mind_uploading
http://www.transtopia.org/uploading.html
http://valley-of-the-shadow.blogspot.com/2009/05/us-politics-ais-and-uploading-minds.html
http://www.acceleratingfuture.com/michael/blog/2009/01/what-are-the-benefits-of-mind-uploading/
http://www.sl4.org/archive/0510/12444.html
http://www.hplusmagazine.com/articles/virtual-reality/mind-uploading-and-mind-children
http://www.tech-faq.com/mind-uploading.shtml
http://hplusbiopolitics.wordpress.com/2009/08/08/uploading-your-min/

Doctorow on Science Fiction: http://jetpress.org/v19/doctorow.htm

uplifting nonhuman animals: http://jetpress.org/v18/dvorsky.htm

storytelling and future empathy: http://jetpress.org/v19/manney.htm

human-robot relations: http://jetpress.org/v19/kenyon.htm

Journal of Evolution and Technology (relevant issues): http://hplusbiopolitics.wordpress.com/2009/05/26/journal-of-evolution-and-technology-ha-some-reading-material/