Brain Uploading: Difference between revisions

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** Tony Stark being the tech geek he is, he couldn't resist the temptation to make a back-up of his brain on a portable hard drive. Came in handy after he ended up wiping his mind at the end of the ''Worlds Most Wanted'' arc.

** The stand-alone comic book ''Hypervelocity'' is entirely about Tony Stark 2.0, a digital version of himself that occupies his suit. As the comic progresses, he slowly gets corrupted by a rogue virus girl program.

* The [[Ultimate Universe]] [[Continuity Reboot]] of [[Paperinik New Adventures]] had this trope when {{spoiler|Lyonard [[Punny Name|D'Aq]] uploaded his brain as a side result of him exploring a virtual world}}. Then this trope became a [[Chekhov's Gun]] when {{spoiler|after Lyonard got [[Killed Off for Real]] (or, more precisely, got [[One-Winged Angel|devolved into the monstrous Lyozard]] ''and then'' got killed off) [[Back ~~From~~ the Dead|and Uno downloaded the data version of his brain into a (superpowered, of course) bionic body]].}}

* The [[Ultimate Universe]] [[Continuity Reboot]] of [[Paperinik New Adventures]] had this trope when {{spoiler|Lyonard [[Punny Name|D'Aq]] uploaded his brain as a side result of him exploring a virtual world}}. Then this trope became a [[Chekhov's Gun]] when {{spoiler|after Lyonard got [[Killed Off for Real]] (or, more precisely, got [[One-Winged Angel|devolved into the monstrous Lyozard]] ''and then'' got killed off) [[Back from the Dead|and Uno downloaded the data version of his brain into a (superpowered, of course) bionic body]].}}

* This happened to Cliff Steele (Robotman) in [[Grant Morrison]]'s [[Doom Patrol]] after the Candlemaker crushed his brain. Fortunately, he was hooked up to the Chief's computer at the time, and his intelligence was downloaded on a disk. Once he figured out what happened, he was able to return to his body, though he was pretty freaked out by the entire process.

* The Battlestar Galactica comic 'The Final Five'has this as the origin of the Thirteenth Tribe. Originally, they were members of the other 12 tribes but after uploading their consciousnesses into new cybernetic bodies were treated as a new group. This includes the idea that the Thirteenth Tribe have committed some kind of 'sin', apparently borne out by the intervention of supernatural/sufficiently advanced beings.

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* This is the entire plot of ''Circuit of Heaven'' by Dennis Danvers. 99% or so of humanity has uploaded their consciousness into "The Bin", a giant computer storage that lets them all live virtual lives. Those who chose to remain behind live in a [[Crapsack World]] where everything's been abandoned. They are allowed to temporarily visit their relatives within The Bin, doing a temporary brain uploading.

* ''Mindscan'' by Robert Sawyer has this technology being commercialized. Rich people get what's essentially a super MI that creates a perfect duplicate of the brain at the time and it gets uploaded in to an android body. The real people then retire to a lunar colony that's extra-legal and the droids will claim to be the humans and designed to look like them at their peak of life. The book then revolves over [[What Measure Is a Non-Human?]] as the android version has to fight over its personhood.

* This is common in ''[[Down and Out In ~~The~~ Magic Kingdom]]'' by [[Cory Doctorow]]; anyone with enough Whuffie can backup themselves at will, a restore is made using a clone body. Since the process is so easy and basically free, it's common for people to swap their body for a clone-and-restore for things like the common cold.

* This is common in ''[[Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom]]'' by [[Cory Doctorow]]; anyone with enough Whuffie can backup themselves at will, a restore is made using a clone body. Since the process is so easy and basically free, it's common for people to swap their body for a clone-and-restore for things like the common cold.

* In the [[Star Wars Expanded Universe]]:

** There is an alien species that likes uploading the minds of prisoners and putting them through some kind of programming to make them [[A Is]] for small fightercraft and various systems in their ships. We're never shown or told what this does to the minds, but Luke thinks they're all suicidal.

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* A destructive variation happens to the main character of ''Loop'', by Koji Suzuki, where he volunteers to messily get himself uploaded to a virtual reality to [[It Makes Sense in Context|save the world from super-cancer]]

* The [[Strugatsky Brothers]]' ''[[Noon: 22nd Century|Noon Twenty Second Century]]'' includes a short story, in which the brain uploading technology is first attempted on a dying genius's brain. This procedure involves shutting down an area for miles lest any EM emissions interfere with the process. For the same reason, perpetual rain clouds are induced in the area to block solar radiation. The containers for the mind are large buildings full of gel. This makes one character to wonder if everyone will take up as much space after an upload. The other character thinks that anyone else's mind will probably fit into a suitcase. Unfortunately, the subject dies with only 98% of the process complete, making this a partial success.

* This becomes the plot point in the ''[[~~Starcraft~~]]'' [[Expanded Universe]] ''Dark Templar Trilogy'', where a Protoss female named Zamara copies her consciousness into the brain of Jake Ramsey, a human archaeologist. While she is able to communicate with him and grant him some of her [[Psychic Powers]], the process will ultimately kill Jake. They travel to a Dark Templar world where priests record memories of still-living Protoss onto [[Green Rocks|Khaydarin crystals]]. This is different from what is done by the Khala-worshiping Protoss, who have specialized individuals known as Preservers, who store entire consciousnesses (not just memories) in their heads, "uploaded" through the [[Hive Mind]] at the moment of death. Zamara is the last Preserver. The goal is to put Zamara's consciousness onto one such crystal. Unfortunately, Zamara realizes that the Dark Templar only copy ''memories'', not entire individuals. However, the unusually large crystal they use not only manages to contain the entire consciousness of a Preserver but also that of a [[Eldritch Abomination|Dark Archon]] who threatens to destroy everything.

* This becomes the plot point in the ''[[StarCraft]]'' [[Expanded Universe]] ''Dark Templar Trilogy'', where a Protoss female named Zamara copies her consciousness into the brain of Jake Ramsey, a human archaeologist. While she is able to communicate with him and grant him some of her [[Psychic Powers]], the process will ultimately kill Jake. They travel to a Dark Templar world where priests record memories of still-living Protoss onto [[Green Rocks|Khaydarin crystals]]. This is different from what is done by the Khala-worshiping Protoss, who have specialized individuals known as Preservers, who store entire consciousnesses (not just memories) in their heads, "uploaded" through the [[Hive Mind]] at the moment of death. Zamara is the last Preserver. The goal is to put Zamara's consciousness onto one such crystal. Unfortunately, Zamara realizes that the Dark Templar only copy ''memories'', not entire individuals. However, the unusually large crystal they use not only manages to contain the entire consciousness of a Preserver but also that of a [[Eldritch Abomination|Dark Archon]] who threatens to destroy everything.

* In the ''[[Animorphs]]'' series, there is one book in which a species of intelligent birds on the Hork-Bajir homeworld have the technology to create computer-backups of a person's mind, which can be inserted into someone else's brain after the original's death, to temporarily share their body. {{spoiler|The Andalite female Aldrea}} was stored in this way. In the Ellimist Chronicles {{spoiler|the ellimist is captured by a creature the size of a moon, who can absorb memories of any being it entangled. He eventually breaks free by downloading all the memories into himself. The trope appears again later when he starts making copies of himself, until he has become an entire starfleet. The copies never branch off to become separate people, however, as their minds are always in contact with each other via ship-to-ship communication.}}

* In [[Robert A. Heinlein]]'s Future History series, specifically ''[[Time Enough for Love]]'' and its sequels, this capability is identified as part of the [[Fountain of Youth|medical rejuvenation technology]] used in cases of extreme physical deterioration, wherein a human being's brain is scanned and uploaded to a computer while a new one is cloned; said clone then has the saved brain downloaded back into it. The same technology is used in reverse when the computer Minerva decides to [[Pinocchio Syndrome|become human]]—she creates a [[Mix-and-Match Man|composite]] [[Wetware Body|clone body]] and downloads herself into it once it's mature.

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* This is what makes the Cylons of ''[[Battlestar Galactica Reimagined]]'' functionally immortal. Their memories and consciousness are stored upon their death and then downloaded to identical bodies, {{spoiler|until the Resurrection Hub is destroyed.}} It's also their origin, by way of [[Replacement Goldfish]]. {{spoiler|Maybe. It seems a bit more complicated than that.}}

* Turns up in, of all places, ''[[Red Dwarf]]'' as the technology behind hologrammatic characters—every crew member has their personality and memories uploaded and stored so they are available come back as a [[Virtual Ghost]] after they die. Whether it is possible to activate a hologram while the crew member is still alive has never been raised. We do know it's possible to activate a single hologram multiple times - as shown with Rimmer times two.

* ''[[Overdrawn at the Memory Bank]]'' called it a "dopple" (as in doppelganger). Once your brain was uploaded to a [[When Things Spin Science Happens|spinning cube]] you could take a vacation and experience life as an animal. Aaron Fingle's dopple was botched when the technicians lost his body and were forced to upload his consciousness to a mainframe as an interim solution. The film indicated he had a limited amount of time before his consciousness degraded to the point of non-functionality. It wasn't really made clear if this was a function of the transfer, the inability of his body to continue function without the mind or some other factor, but then again it was a made for TV movie aired on PBS. It was also lampooned on [[Mystery Science Theater 3000]].

* ''[[Overdrawn at the Memory Bank]]'' called it a "dopple" (as in doppelganger). Once your brain was uploaded to a [[When Things Spin, Science Happens|spinning cube]] you could take a vacation and experience life as an animal. Aaron Fingle's dopple was botched when the technicians lost his body and were forced to upload his consciousness to a mainframe as an interim solution. The film indicated he had a limited amount of time before his consciousness degraded to the point of non-functionality. It wasn't really made clear if this was a function of the transfer, the inability of his body to continue function without the mind or some other factor, but then again it was a made for TV movie aired on PBS. It was also lampooned on [[Mystery Science Theater 3000]].

* A similar plot happens in an episode of ''Amazing Stories'' called "The Eternal Mind".

* How the titular character of ''[[Max Headroom]]'' came to be. The same process is brought up in one episode as a way to save the life of a terminally ill millionaire. Though Max and his "original" coexist and interact regularly, the implications of having multiple copies of the same personality around are discussed very little.

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*** In the PeTI DLC, it turns out that in an [[Alternate Universe]] Cave {{spoiler|succeeded in uploading himself. He quickly goes insane from boredom, and decides he needs to kill everyone so he can ascend to Olympus like Hercules}}. When Cave Prime hears this, he decides to cancel research into Brain Uploading, strongly suggesting "Earth 1" is not the same universe the main story takes place in.

* In the ''[[Black Market (video game)|Black Market]]'' universe, people can be downloaded into Soul Jars, while machine minds are relegated to Turing Jars. Pirates use this method to endlessly reincarnate; one of the main characters is a "Ghost" in this fashion.

* ''[[Ace Combat 3 Electrosphere]]'' had this with "sublimation", the act of uploading your mind inside a computer. Among other things, Ouroboros is a secret faction hell-bent on sublimating all the people in the world, and Fiona is unable to forgive her sister Cinthia after she tells Fiona she wants to sublimate her mind. (Don't panic if you don't know that: all that stuff is exclusive from the Japanese original; the American release had [[Macekre|this engaging storyline replaced]] with a generic [[AI Is a Crapshoot]] plot).

* ''[[Ace Combat 3 Electrosphere]]'' had this with "sublimation", the act of uploading your mind inside a computer. Among other things, Ouroboros is a secret faction hell-bent on sublimating all the people in the world, and Fiona is unable to forgive her sister Cinthia after she tells Fiona she wants to sublimate her mind. (Don't panic if you don't know that: all that stuff is exclusive from the Japanese original; the American release had [[Macekre|this engaging storyline replaced]] with a generic [[A.I. Is a Crapshoot]] plot).

* The Doctor, a [[Playful Hacker]] of ''[[City of Heroes]]'' is revealed to be one of these, and created an easily produced process to upload personalities. Oddly enough for the genre, it didn't destroy her original mind or body; [[Mega Corp|Crey]] took care of that some time after she had already gone on the net. She's treated as a [[What Measure Is a Non-Human?|human]], although she does recognize that she's not one any longer. ''[[City of Heroes]]'' also features this trope's inversion : Paragon Protectors are revealed to run on home-built personalities downloaded into clone bodies, using the same underlying technology and copied on a massive scale. [[Cloning Blues|They're fairly expendable]], in a world where normal clones or uploaded personalities are treated fairly well, but [[Mega Corp|Crey]] does tend to harvest the original copies for those personalities from the rotting corpses of dead heroes and rip out whatever higher brain functionality is left before slapping the Paragon Protector together.

* Occurs at the end of ''[[Space Quest]] 4'', when [[Big Bad]] former-"human" AI Vohaul not only uploads Roger's son's mind to a disk (1.44mb! Who knew the mind was so... compressable?), but then uploads his own mind to Roger's son. Roger then has to defeat Vohaul by putting his son's mind back in place, and transferring Vohaul's mind to the computer just seconds before a system format.

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* In ''[[Defense Grid the Awakening]]'', the general who won the war against the aliens 1000 years ago had his brain uploaded in case they came back, which they have. He usually plays the part of the [[Exposition Fairy]], but he can't seem to get raspberries off his mind.

* In ''[[Total Annihilation]]'', this is what sparks the game's galaxy-wide [[Apocalypse How|class 4 apocalypse]].

* In ''[[Starsiege]]'', this is how the Immortal Brotherhood came to be; individuals who were part of the Lazarus Project team, or who were exceptionally loyal to Emperor-to-be Solomon Petresun, were transferred into biomechanoid brains which could then be transplanted from body to body. Since the brains have their own power supply and were extremely durable, the immortal could be killed without actually dying... however, the nature of the brain/body interface could cause severe personality shifts from one 'lifetime' to the next. [[Big Bad|Prometheus]], the [[AI Is a Crapshoot|Cybrid]] who invented the technique, later used it to create infiltration units as weapons against its creators.

* In ''[[Starsiege]]'', this is how the Immortal Brotherhood came to be; individuals who were part of the Lazarus Project team, or who were exceptionally loyal to Emperor-to-be Solomon Petresun, were transferred into biomechanoid brains which could then be transplanted from body to body. Since the brains have their own power supply and were extremely durable, the immortal could be killed without actually dying... however, the nature of the brain/body interface could cause severe personality shifts from one 'lifetime' to the next. [[Big Bad|Prometheus]], the [[A.I. Is a Crapshoot|Cybrid]] who invented the technique, later used it to create infiltration units as weapons against its creators.

* In ''[[Perfect Dark]]'', Dr. Carroll uploads his personality into a "sapient" (floating laptop-looking thing) before his death.

* A real [[Tear Jerker]] example in ''[[Mass Effect 2]]'' which has David Archer, whose mind was uploaded so he could control an army of [[Mecha-Mooks|Geth]]. Unfortunately, his mind is unable to take the strain of being in charge of a highly advanced computer network, and he goes insane.

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** It also gets into the idea of a [[Our Souls Are Different|soul]]. From a strictly biological definition, there does not appear to be a soul in human consciousness, and our minds could possibly never be truly emulated, relying heavily on the interactions of various chemicals and having involuntary subconscious changes, like mood fluctuations. Drawing a distinct delineation in the parts of the brain where aspects of the mind are solely housed too may prove impossible, as for instance personality, intelligence, and memory for instance are likewise impossible to completely separate.

** Of course, going by the strictly biological/physical approach, one would be able to create a copy simply by creating a computer simulation that takes into account every single cell and chemical reaction in the body itself, falling into the commonly accepted concept of a truly accurate simulation requiring a system at least as complex as the system being simulated. Of course, this does not get into the philosophical questions of what truly defines consciousness.

* It is now theoretically possible to upload someone's memories to a computer at this point in time. You would need, however, advanced programming and algorithms to tell the computer how to read said memories; it is likely that it would work like an emulation program, e.g. [[~~DOS Box~~]]. However, the only current way to ''get'' said memory data is to scan the brain with a special machine that builds a 3D computer image of whatever is scanned. Unfortunately, it can only scan objects that are as thin as paper. This and other complications means that the brain must be flash-frozen while still alive, cut out of your head, and sliced into paper-thin pieces.

* It is now theoretically possible to upload someone's memories to a computer at this point in time. You would need, however, advanced programming and algorithms to tell the computer how to read said memories; it is likely that it would work like an emulation program, e.g. [[DOSBox]]. However, the only current way to ''get'' said memory data is to scan the brain with a special machine that builds a 3D computer image of whatever is scanned. Unfortunately, it can only scan objects that are as thin as paper. This and other complications means that the brain must be flash-frozen while still alive, cut out of your head, and sliced into paper-thin pieces.