The atheist bus

[Menolly]

I actually think a perfect digital replica of a personality is possible [will be, anyway].

You can never have a perfect digital replica of an analog phenomenon. Just take music. No matter how fine you slice up an analog waveform into discrete values, it will never contain all the information in the original. That's because the original isn't digital. A replica is never perfect. "Close enough" doesn't change the fact that it's exists on fundamentally different level than what it is replicating. You could simulate a personality, but you could never replicate it without replicating the brain itself. Consciousness may very well be a phenomenon that arises out of the quantum nature of matter--something that digital or algorithmic processes could never replicate.

There was a story I read somewhere, but for the life of me title, author, and source alludes me. The gist of it was a famous 19th century composer, I want to say Beethoven but I am really unsure, is experiencing his moment of death and then opens his eyes in a new body. A body that is younger, healthier, perfect in every physical way, compared to what he died in.

Turns out he has been brought back to life in the body of a volunteer like 150 years in the future or so, and all that is asked of him in return is for him to compose a new major work.

The story is told completely from his point of view. His memories are perfect and after a period of adjustment he happily tackles his work. However, the point of the story is made as he conducts his new work. He realizes the work is all technicality; there is no heart, no soul to the piece. As he realizes that is what his existence in this second life his: a textbook creation of what he was.

The story ends with the head of the project addressing the audience at the end of their standing ovation for the new piece, explaining that now the piece has debuted, all that needs to be done is to say some code and the volunteer's memories and personality will reassert themselves, putting the memories and personality of the composer back in to oblivion. All the while the composer listens to this speech, and welcomes death, knowing he is not truly who he thinks he is and missing his soul.

Is this story familiar to anyone? It might be a good read for those interested in this topic.

[Fist and Faith]

That's a freaky story ya got there! Never heard of it.

[Vraith]

I actually think a perfect digital replica of a personality is possible [will be, anyway].

You can never have a perfect digital replica of an analog phenomenon. Just take music. No matter how fine you slice up an analog waveform into discrete values, it will never contain all the information in the original. That's because the original isn't digital. A replica is never perfect. "Close enough" doesn't change the fact that it's exists on fundamentally different level than what it is replicating. You could simulate a personality, but you could never replicate it without replicating the brain itself. Consciousness may very well be a phenomenon that arises out of the quantum nature of matter--something that digital or algorithmic processes could never replicate.

There was a story I read somewhere, but for the life of me title, author, and source alludes me. The gist of it was a famous 19th century composer, I want to say Beethoven but I am really unsure, is experiencing his moment of death and then opens his eyes in a new body. A body that is younger, healthier, perfect in every physical way, compared to what he died in.

Turns out he has been brought back to life in the body of a volunteer like 150 years in the future or so, and all that is asked of him in return is for him to compose a new major work.

The story is told completely from his point of view. His memories are perfect and after a period of adjustment he happily tackles his work. However, the point of the story is made as he conducts his new work. He realizes the work is all technicality; there is no heart, no soul to the piece. As he realizes that is what his existence in this second life his: a textbook creation of what he was.

The story ends with the head of the project addressing the audience at the end of their standing ovation for the new piece, explaining that now the piece has debuted, all that needs to be done is to say some code and the volunteer's memories and personality will reassert themselves, putting the memories and personality of the composer back in to oblivion. All the while the composer listens to this speech, and welcomes death, knowing he is not truly who he thinks he is and missing his soul.

Is this story familiar to anyone? It might be a good read for those interested in this topic.

I read that story, or one incredibly similar to it, sometime in '79 or '80...can't recall the title/author, but it inspired a novel that I never wrote with the opening line "It started with the screaming of Einstein-17."
Now I have to search to find what it was...[opens a new window]...bah...I can't find it.

[Menolly]

Is this story familiar to anyone? It might be a good read for those interested in this topic.

I read that story, or one incredibly similar to it, sometime in '79 or '80...can't recall the title/author, but it inspired a novel that I never wrote with the opening line "It started with the screaming of Einstein-17."
Now I have to search to find what it was...[opens a new window]...bah...I can't find it.

Were you a reader of The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction? That was my source of science fiction and fantasy short stories around that time. Maybe it was published in there?

[Vraith]

yea, I read all the mags back then [even 'Omni'], and all the "years best" sf collections.

[Menolly]

I read Omni for a brief time as well, but my faint visualization of the story is more in the pulp mag style of TMoF&SF than the more glossy style of what I recall of Omni. I just can't quite make out the title in the lower right of the page in what my mind's eye is seeing.

...perhaps I'll see it in a dream tonight.