It is in the format of a chat log. A man's consciousness was uploaded to a computer to save him. Now in the future, they downloaded his mind into a body, but the man gave permission for scientists to copy his consciousness and talk to it through a computer. The scientist on the computer is excited because he finally found a version of the consciousness that is stable and lasts more than a few seconds before going crazy. Does this short story sound familiar to anyone?
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Sounds a bit like "The Tear Problem," first published on EscapePod.org. But it is also ringing vague bells that I read or listened to this story also and was reminded of Roger Zelazny's "Go Starless in the Night".– LexibleCommented Aug 13, 2015 at 20:25
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1Does it have to be a short story? This sounds a great deal like the opening chapter of the novel "Permutation City." A man uploads his mind in another attempt to get a stable version that does not commit suicide.– VicpylonCommented Aug 14, 2015 at 0:46
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It looks like someone else found your post and used it to ask after it on Reddit: reddit.com/r/tipofmytongue/comments/3tholr/… That said, none of the provided answers look like matches to me.– FuzzyBootsCommented Nov 20, 2015 at 19:31
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Are we looking for the same story? scifi.stackexchange.com/questions/253554/…– alextesCommented Sep 9, 2021 at 9:40
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3 Answers
It does sound familiar. I found a similar story during my search. "Lena" by qntm and Sam Hughes, is about a neurology graduate Miguel Álvarez Acevedo whose consciousness and experiments thereof comprise the bulk of the story. The story reads like a summary report on the topic in the style of a Wikipedia entry.
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1Who is the author of this short story? I couldn't see it written clearly on the linked page.– Rand al'Thor ♦Commented Aug 8, 2021 at 19:09
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The work is recorded on Goodreads and cites two authors: qntm, Sam Hughes goodreads.com/book/show/57932409-lena Commented Aug 8, 2021 at 20:06
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@KelseySorrels Pretty sure Sam Hughes and qntm are the same person– StefCommented Nov 16, 2023 at 13:01
It sounds very similar to "We Are Legion (We Are Bob)", which is a story about a guy who gets cryogenically frozen after death. A few hundred years in the future, he's revived (his consciousness is transferred to computers/machines). The doctors there tell him that this process (putting his consciousness into a machine) is dangerous and that some of the people who this happens to go mad/can't handle it. I believe that one of his 'forms' is blown up and the scientist/doctor uses a back-up and puts that into new machines.
Where it strays from your description is that eventually the protagonist is sent out into the solar system on a quest for worlds that can sustain life.
answered Apr 17, 2017 at 18:33
This might be it. It was for me anyway and this question was one of the only things I could find that came even close.
https://interstice.com/~simon/AfterLife/index.html
- not quite a chat log, but is written as a personal log!
- a consciousness is uploaded, though not to save the man, it is simple impatience and desire to push the human boundary I feel.
- somewhere in the future the mind upload becomes embodied again.
- at first the other people on the team talk to the mind upload through text / audio on computers.
- at the start it is mentioned that the host usually dies when trying to map the mind but their company is the first to have done it.
Happy reading!
