Upload

Upload
Image from Bernd Helfert

Definition [1]: To transfer the consciousness and mental structure of a person from a biological (or other) matrix to an electronic or informational or virtual matrix. This process is sometimes called Whole Brain Emulation (although modern uploading techniques also upload a great deal of information about the rest of the persons' physical body). The term <{A4f5430c9ee716,"Downloading"}> is also sometimes used, mainly to denote transferring the mind to a slower or less spacious matrix.

Definition [2]: The resulting infomorph sentient; a type of virtual.

Uploads are also sometimes called ghosts if the original did not survive the process. These are former modosophonts who have had their brains (and possibly bodies) scanned and turned into a digital emulation.

Although suggested by Alan Turing in the 1940's (Old Earth calendar) and a major research goal during the early Interplanetary ages, the sheer complexity and difficulty of precisely translating and reproducing the entire human brain with all its encoded memories and experiences, meant that even destructive nanotech uploading was only partially successful prior to the 4th century AT. Early uploads consisted of just parts of the original neural net, with the rest interpolated. Since the Federation Era first destructive and then non-destructive uploading has become essentially perfect, allowing the creation of entities that are subjectively identical to the original.

Even today nearly all simple nanotech methods of uploading are destructive to the scanned brain, but there exists some advanced nanotech methods that can perform a non-destructive scan, and these are generally used wherever possible. Partial uploading methods are also commonly used to create backup copies of minds.

Copies usually live in virtual environments with virtual bodies, although it is possible for them to download themselves into suitable equipped vec or android bodies. Given their ontological state they can easily make backup copies, copy themselves or edit their own neural network with the right software. While copies do not age, over time they tend to either get stuck in a static personality or extend themselves beyond recognition in various ways.

Terms

Alpha Upload - An uploaded copy with a personality practically indistinguishable from that of the original entity.

Beta Upload a copy (or a copy of a copy) of the alpha that is degraded somewhat from the original entity

Exemplar - The original entity, whether biont or aioid


See also Uploading and Souls FAQ

 
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    To upload somebody by scanning their neural patterns and simulating them directly with little or no change.
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    Use of nondestructive uploading to create an infomorph version of oneself while still keeping the old biological version.
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    The crime of illegally copying an uploaded or stored personality, generally obtained during or after the backup procedure. These illegal copies can then be sold on the black market as virtual slaves, for use in computation or for entertainment.
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    Any digital space or environment; pertaining to virch or a cybercosm.
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    A virtual world; usually at least partially self-contained, or apparently so, may or may not include sentient beings; generally part of a cultural community across computer/cyberspace/matrix networks. The Known Net consists of literally trillions of interconnected virchworlds.
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    One's av (avatar), the body one takes when 'facing in virtual reality. By means of the virtual body, even the sensorium of the ordinary body is transformed to appear and feel different than it does in rl.
  • Virtual Rights - Text by Max More in Anders Sandberg's Transhumanist Terminology
    Rights given for convenience to a partial; these rights are really rights of the person whose partial it is, rather than of the partial itself. Similar in some respects to currently existing corporate rights.
 
Appears in Topics
AioidHigh Tech SocietiesSoftware
VirtualVirtual/Infotech
 
Development Notes
Text by Anders Sandberg in his Transhuman Terminology

Initially published on 15 December 2001.