Well, they transfered mind in, but I don't believe they ever got one out. (Except for rumours...)
I am going to assume, (for now,) that you know how Netrunning works in 2020...
The Soulkiller program, (created - mostly - by Alt Cunningham, for Arasaka,) could be commanded to attack a netrunner. It would create a copy of their consiousness within some form of secure storage device or partition within the Arasaka Mainframe. The program would then kill the netrunners body via neural feedback, essentially cooking their brain from the inside out.
Not a nice way to go...
So, when you look at it that way, transfer is an innapropriate term because you are actually copying the mind, not moving it. There could, potentially, be duplicates of the same 'personality'. Now that is messier than than an all female royal rumble in a sticky toffee pudding factory.
SPOILER ALERT!! Below there is info on the adventure in the main book.
Did they change things from the main book? According to the main book Alt made the original for ITS. She remade it for Arasaka after they kidnapped her. She intended to transfer back into her body but her connection was broken.
The origional design was ITS, but the really scary one was made for Arasaka.CP2020 said:
Hi you again. I have right to my wishes!
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What comes to transferring consciousness, I don't see it happening. You guys were right to bring up copy-problem: At least the consciousness doesn't move itself automatically (unless there is some spirit world), because, something has to happen for the consciousness to move. A copy is just a copy.
So, you have two identical bodies. How do you make the first body suddenly the other one? You can't. The first one is the first one, not the copy.
You're missing a big old chunk of information.
1 - the consciousness copying process can only take place when the host interacts with the soulkiller program in a virtual environment, (such as the NET or an isolated server.)
2 - the consciousness is copied to a digital storage medium.
3 - the hosts mind is then, for want of better words, 'wiped'. It will only survive in this state on life support. Soulkiller can also 'fry' the host brain, resulting in immediate brain death. Cardiac Arrest is another option.
the copied consciousness can be tranfered into a physical host, (including the origional body or even a cloned body.) This is all rumour and conjecture however, as there are no documented instances of it occurring.
You could, theoretically, duplicate people in this manner. (Imagine an army of Sards...)
EVE online had a cloning/conciousness transfer thing going on. The idea behind it is quite nifty.
No place for it in Cyberpunk as a respawn mechanic as far as I am concerned though.
I was talking more about what is / could be possible in the real life. I mean, what is consciousness? The state of the brain at a certain moment? You would need a biological clone to get a similar brain in order to be able to inject the state to the target brain. And what is a state of brain? How do you copy the position of every atom? How do you modify the atoms in the receiving body? How do you grab onto atoms inside a brain? You would need relatively massive changes, as a clone that is grown up in a pool doesn't have any proper forming happened on its brain, and there are many atoms in small bits of matter. If you don't actively train, areas of your brain will close up somewhat and further training is not that easy anymore at later age.
When you are in your current body, all of your nerves give feedback to your brain, which is you along with the rest of the body. Now, what if your nerves didn't give feedback to your brain anymore? Wouldn't you be dead? How do you make the nerves of the clone to give feedback to your brain? You can't, because you are dead and supposed to be ressurrected. The nerves of the clone will give feedback to the brain of the clone. But wait a minute. Your brain died. What are you transferring from your brain so that you continue getting feedback to your brain, which died? There is nothing. You die and that is it, unless there is some world of spirits.
You can't copy the existence itself, because if something dies, it dies.
You could speculate that just before you die your brain starts to somehow compete with the brain of the clone. You could think that your brain starts to take feedback from the nerves of the clone through the internet. But that doesn't work, because your brain really doesn't send anything away. It is just being copied. Sure you can send a virtual copy of your brain, but hey, also it is a copy, not the real thing of you. No matter what signals you send through the internet, they are all copies. You can get feedback from the internet directly to your brain, but it is only feedback. When your brain then eventually dies, your brain doesn't get anymore feedback from the internet, and with a copy out there or not, your brain - you - die.
Am I right?
Wait... in the canon, what about the change from Johnny Silverhand to Mr. John Silverhand? John 2.0 was a clone, rezzed by Alt, iirc.
@ Designer5
If you talk about real life, it is normally a good idea to say so, particularly in that sort of situation.
So, you are half right.
If you talk about real life, it is normally a good idea to say so, particularly in that sort of situation.
Presently it is not possible to 'copy' the 'essence/conciousness/personality/mind' of any creature. That is mainly because we cannot currently replicate the human brain; digitally or physically. The other major hurdle is that we do not fully understand how the brain works. Once we get that down, it will probably snowball from there. To that end, there are several labs working on it.
So, you are half right.
No, I am still fully on the subject. It doesn't matter how many copies you make, they are all just copies. I mean, what if they make 100 copies of your brain and install them into other bodies. Will there be 100 of you alive? And how does that appear to you? You see the things that the 100 copies see? I don't think so. But if there are 100 copies there must be at least one of them that is you? But which one is it? Is it the copy number 1? No? Or if it is the copy number 1, then what are the other 99 copies?
There is no answer to your question without going into religeon. I am not going there. (I may be a bit stupid sometimes, but i'm not that fucking stupid.)
Yes, that is right. The only way out of this problem is that IF there is a spirit world, then maybe spirits can travel. But we don't know, and we don't know can technology interact with the supposed world. But ressurrecting into other body requires something more than a copy, that is for sure.
You could send droids to fight for you though. Then the droids can report to you.
Mmm... pretty sure it was in That Series That Wisdom Shall Not Name (that is, CyberGeneration.)
Which book???
I missed that entirely!
So still, the continuation of consciousness in another medium is out of the question for the cyberpunk 2020 universe and what I was referring to earlier (ambiance thing).
@ Designer, we don't even know what consciousness is, so you can't say with certainty that some sort of continuation of the self can not be induced. Not knowing things is what science is for, not invoking absolute truths/lies based off religious or spiritual ideas. So what I'm saying is (like you also said yourself), you might be right, but you might be wrong. I just see it a little differently.
@ Designer, we don't even know what consciousness is, so you can't say with certainty that some sort of continuation of the self can not be induced. Not knowing things is what science is for, not invoking absolute truths/lies based off religious or spiritual ideas. So what I'm saying is (like you also said yourself), you might be right, but you might be wrong. I just see it a little differently.
Cybergen is an alternate reality, it is not 2020 canon. (Basically the same for V.3, it is no longer deemed canon as Mike said himself that it isn't.)
Oh! Well, no doubt that'll make Wis EXTREMELY happy.
And we can't have that, now can we? A happy Nomad? The idea is preposterous.
Sard, go sort that out; you're good at that kind of thing.