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"I suspect that religion is a necessary evil in the childhood of our particular species. And that's one of the interesting things about contact with other intelligences: we could see what role, if any, religion plays in their development."
- Arthur C. Clarke
 |
| Cortical Stack | ||
| Implanted hardware device that contains a backup copy of your mental self. |
It would be a shame to be killed if you could just copy your mental self and then record it somewhere at regular intervals. That way, if you were killed, your mental self could just be downloaded into a new body, and you would be as good as new.
| "You can't kill me just by wiping out my cortical stack." "You've got remote storage. How regular is the update?" Bancroft smiled. "Every 48 hours." He tapped the back of his neck. "Direct needlecast from here into a shielded stack over at the PsychaSec installation at Alcatraz." |
| Technovelgy from Altered Carbon,
by Richard Morgan. Published by Del Rey in 2003 Additional resources -
|
However, the problem is that you would be missing the interval of time that extends from your last backup to the point where you were killed. You might want to know what happened in that interval; Lauren Bancroft certainly does.
Compare to the virtual immortality that Arthur C. Clarke offers in his 1956 novel The City and the Stars.
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Additional
resources:
More Ideas
and Technology from Altered Carbon
More Ideas
and Technology by Richard Morgan
Tech news articles related to Altered Carbon
Tech news articles related to works by Richard Morgan
Cortical Stack-related
news articles:
- 'Mind Uploading' Issue Now Downloadable
- Neural Implant To Treat Memory Loss
- Will You Upload Your Mind Anytime Soon?
- Save Your Brain's Connectome, Upload Yourself Elsewhere
| Muxcard Redditor's DIY Credit Card-Sized Computer |
| Cortex 1 - Today A Warehouse, Tomorrow A Calculator Planet |
| Is Agentic AI The Wrong Kind Of Smartness? |
| Jetson Orin Nano Super 70 Just $249 |
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'I don't have to tell you about the seven two-mile-diameter orbital mirrors that circulate around the satellite, making it habitable.'
'The steel tortoise gave MacKinnon a feeling of Crusoe- like independence.'
'...then back to their work, though little enough it was on these automatic cultivators.'
't came out into plain view. Darkington glimpsed a slim body and six short legs of articulated dull metal.'
'The suit stands up and starts walking, gripping me round the calves and waist, taking the bulk of my weight off my throbbing feet.'
'Internally it’s made up of millions of components, but the most important ones are the thinking and memory parts of the Mind proper.'
'I could look down at that face of carefully molded synthetic rubber, tinted the exact shade of the doctor's living flesh.'
