Over the years, I have been convinced that my computer has had a mind of its own. I consider myself quite tech-savvy, and even I find myself frustrated by technology.

While I am intrigued by new technology, and readily adopt any and every new gadget that is developed, others are not quite as trusting. In fact, Ive know many a Luddite who claims that machines actually hate them, when in fact, the only entity equipped with the capacity for hatred is man.

Ive often wondered why people actively hate technology they dont understand.

Thats not to say technology isnt frustrating at times. It is. Air-conditioning usually breaks on the hottest day of the year. Cars fail to start when their owners are running late. Computers crash right in the middle of term papers that have not yet been saved. Technology always seems to fail when it is most needed. Or at least it seems that way.

The fact is technology fails, and most likely, people notice those failures because they need the item at the time. How many people are likely to notice their air-conditioner failing in the middle of winter, or their furnace breaking down in the dog days of summer? Not many. The fact is, technology serves us well most of the time, but people like to obsess about the times it doesnt. Its human nature to complain about that which we cant fully control.

Mans conflict with machines has been well represented in science-fiction over the years. From HAL the computer in 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) to the Terminator and Matrix franchises, there is no shortage of major motion pictures focused on the malevolent nature of machines. Lesser quality efforts such as Maximum Overdrive (1986) and The Lawnmower Man (1992) also deserve mention for creating worlds where machines gain control.

A trip to the small screen also reveals a number of memorable episodes that have dealt with this theme. The classic series The Twilight Zone featured a couple episodes that shown not on mans fear of machines, but also his reliance on them. One of the most memorable episodes, The Monsters are Due on Maple Street (1960), shows aliens manipulating technology to turn members of a suburban neighborhood into killers. A Thing about Machines (1960) lacks the quality of the previously mentioned episode, but does show a man terrorized by various household appliances.

More recently, the tendency to merge humanistic qualities into machines has been taken to a new level. The remake of Battlestar Galactica began this process by featuring Cylons that were seemingly as human, if not more so, than most humans. However, its spinoff prequel series Caprica explores the realm of a virtual world as an afterlife, posing the possibility of life after death in a digital realm.

Though I have been greatly disappointed by many elements of Caprica — namely its plodding pace and an abundance of characters I couldnt care less about — I do have to admit that the digital purgatory it has established is fascinating. One might be tempted to point out that The Matrix established a virtual world for its inhabitants and left their real selves trapped in a death like existence.

But Caprica goes one step further: the characters are indeed dead, and their essence lives on in V-World. While this is a literal life-after-death scenario, it really is a bit scary to think of how close we are to such a reality.

With video games, social networking profiles, and online roleplaying, people regularly create a sense of self that exists in the virtual realm. Data is gathered and collected, and if certain people really care, they probably could create a reasonably accurate profile of you, based on information you willingly provided. Of course this would not be the real you — just a reflection of who you really are, or what you want people to believe you are.

As technology continues to evolve, and the more we divide ourselves between the real world and the digital one, the implication becomes clear: The ghost in the machine that we fear the most is ourselves.