Talk:Mind uploading in fiction

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This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 25 January 2021 and 16 May 2021. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Nhugnu.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 04:13, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

Claim your authorship!
I added Cowboy Bebop, Rifts, HU and Mechaniods :) Tyciol 08:19, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

Does The Lawnmower Man (1992 film) count as mind transfer in fiction? --68.0.120.35 00:21, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

Should add Paul Chadwick's Concrete comic book series, probably... --68.158.72.143 00:43, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

What about Jor-El in Man of Steel ? Sk00289 (talk) 14:32, 25 October 2014 (UTC)


 * Does there have to be machines or electronics to transfer a mind from one body to another?  How about J. T. McIntosh's Transmigration (1970), where some people are simply born with the rare faculty of mind to mind transference?   Dexter Nextnumber (talk) 10:44, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

Removed TRANSAPIENT by Andy Brown. Only 5 reviews on goodreads. Minor project that doesn't meet notability standards. UploadPanda (talk) 18:49, 25 August 2020 (UTC)

Sorting out the examples by Years
This whole article needs to have its examples reorganized by era so we can go straight to the literature (or films) of a specific decade. Somebody needs to go through the whole blasted article and organize it better so we know who came up with which ideas first, and which ones are just novel takes on an idea that was dealt with similarly years earlier.

I am trying to identify a novel written in the 1960s where people climb into a machine, and it shuffles their minds together, producing a being with a "merged" mind having a combination of the memories (both good and bad, memories you would be proud to have, as well as those you would be embarrassed or ashamed to have) that came before. Some might argue this kind of a theme is distantly related to "mind transfer" but an argument could be raised it is actually something else. I don't know. All I know, is that I have been looking for this book for years, and haven't been able to find it. The main article as written doesn't help. Dexter Nextnumber (talk) 22:34, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

Change title to "Mind uploading in fiction"?
The article's current title seems to be a leftover from when the mind uploading article was titled "mind transfer" (see the discussion of the reasons for the change at Talk:Mind_uploading). Mind uploading is a more specific term than mind transfer as it refers specifically to transferring the information in a human mind into some artificial medium like a computer memory, and it seems that nearly all the examples given deal with this concept, with a few exceptions like the entry about Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles episodes where characters switched bodies. If we really wanted to include this sort of body-switching in the concept of "mind transfer" that would mean there'd be no reason to have this article be separate from the Body swap appearances in media article, I think it would be better to define the focus of this article more narrowly as dealing with the "mind uploading" concept, which would be more clear if we changed the title. Any arguments against this? Hypnosifl (talk) 01:54, 8 November 2010 (UTC)
 * None. I agree.-Zyrath (talk) 03:40, 19 November 2010 (UTC)
 * OK, I'm going to go ahead with the change. Hypnosifl (talk) 01:46, 20 November 2010 (UTC)

——
 * “Mind-uploading in fiction” — gimme, gimme some!
 * “Mind uploading in fiction?” - No way: I’ve got ‘’furniture’’ to load up into ‘’my’’ truck!
 * —-173.162.211.85 (talk) 06:20, 16 March 2022 (UTC)

Additional sources really needed?
Why the Refimprove template from 2010? Each reviewed SciFi book and movie is a source in itself. There is no analysis in this article - only a large number of plot summaries. Mange01 (talk) 22:10, 12 July 2011 (UTC)


 * Also fictional content can be sourced. In the lead of the article, there even already are analytical remarks. --Hans Dunkelberg (talk) 11:01, 13 July 2011 (UTC)


 * What analytical remarks are suspected original research, and should be sourced? Please add source needed where appropriate instead of the Refimprove template. Mange01 (talk) 13:48, 13 July 2011 (UTC)


 * Well — I have not added the "Refimprove" template. I usually only challenge information that I doubt, and in this article, I have not yet stumbled on such. --Hans Dunkelberg (talk) 14:26, 13 July 2011 (UTC)

Possible expansion
The lead is very long and the only section of the article that contains general statements on the catchword.

A section that generally summarizes the treatment of mind uploading in fiction should be added.

I am therefore going to insert the Cleanup-weighted template. --Hans Dunkelberg (talk) 11:01, 13 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Why not add that section yourself? :) I don't get in what sense the article is "weighted too heavily toward only one aspect of its subject". Please specify what aspects you are missing. Mange01 (talk) 13:46, 13 July 2011 (UTC)


 * I do, unfortunately, not survey the matter well enough to be able to add such a section. Indeed, I could look up the matter in some book. The only problem with this is that I don`t find myself in an English-speaking country, at the moment, but in Austria; and that in most libraries, here, there can hardly be found any literature on science fiction.


 * After all, it makes a bad impression if an article consists only of one resp. more than one lists. I also think the template does not really express what I long for, and have just logged in to look if I could create a further one, saying "This article contains a list of examples, but lacks a general overview on its topic. You can help by adding an appropriate introductory section." Let me look for that, maybe we are going to have such a template, soon. --Hans Dunkelberg (talk) 14:24, 13 July 2011 (UTC)


 * Please be more specific. What questions should the intro section answer? Mange01 (talk) 13:55, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

Quantum mind uploading should be fundamentally different
It's indicative that "Quantum Thief" series by Hannu Rajaniemi has not been mentioned. There is no quantum aspects of mind uploading touched on even in main Mind Uploading wiki issue but the last theoretical and experimental findings made by Penrose, Hameroff and Bandyopadhyay show that quantum basis of consciousness could not be ignored anymore.

And one should remember that there is no strict "hard"/"soft" separation in quantum case. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.120.76.21 (talk) 16:57, 19 March 2014 (UTC)

Elysium
Someone should add Elysium (film) and Johnny Mnemonic to Films. pear 14:15, 4 May 2014 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Pear285 (talk

Black Mirror
Black Mirror (TV series) season 3 episode 0 White Christmas (Black Mirror) should be also added, strong ethical aspect Tylkofarci (talk) 11:36, 12 January 2015 (UTC)

Accelerando
There's no meantion of Accelerando in the article?! Please add it. --Fixuture (talk) 13:42, 20 July 2015 (UTC)

Replicas
Someone should add Replicas (film) to Films.-- self-ref (nagasiva yronwode) (talk) 06:05, 31 October 2019 (UTC)

Sorting by time
I would propose to sort the info by decade, and then (optionally) by the genre. It will better illustrate how the fiction has evolved with the growing scientific understanding of the human mind / brain. The sorting of fiction by decade is also seems to be a common approach on Wikipedia. For example: Mars in fiction --Thereisnous (talk) 14:01, 30 May 2021 (UTC)

Further-er examples
I think https://qntm.org/mmacevedo deserves to be added to the list. Inahc (talk) 03:23, 2 December 2022 (UTC)

Add The Wandering Earth 2
The concept "mind uploading" and "digital life" are present in the 2023 film The Wandering Earth 2. Bczhc (talk) 15:12, 27 January 2023 (UTC)

Lord of Light
In Zelazny's Lord of Light, souls are moved – not copied – to another vessel of the same kind. Unlike most of the listed examples, there is no hint of any possibility of copying or inactive storage. Much as I love it, I reckon it does not belong here. —Tamfang (talk) 00:41, 31 March 2023 (UTC)

The Stone Canal
In The Stone Canal, part of Ken MacLeod's "Fall Revolution" saga, the protagonist JW was scanned at some time in the past, lived as a robot for an indefinite time, and is told at some point that his mind has changed too much to be put back into a standard human brain; so instead he programs a clone with his original scan. (Later, he obtains technology from super-minds that lets him put his current mind into human flesh.)

Enough years have passed since reading it that I am not confident about putting it into the list myself. —Tamfang (talk) 01:07, 31 March 2023 (UTC)

Total Recall (1990 film)
Stars Arnold Schwarzenegger. Should add to film list.

ED 2607:FEA8:483:8E00:4975:9B7F:B9A:82B (talk) 00:33, 29 April 2023 (UTC)


 * Is any personality transferred into a machine in that story? —Tamfang (talk) 23:45, 19 May 2023 (UTC)

identity transfer
Notable, indeed. Body swap may be a relevant (identical) concept, however? @TompaDompa Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus&#124; reply here 04:32, 30 March 2024 (UTC)
 * The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction distinguishes between identity transfer (one-way) and identity exchange (two-way). I think that's the right way to do it. TompaDompa (talk) 12:25, 30 March 2024 (UTC)

Re-adding examples after AfD
So, there was an AfD for this article, and the result was "Keep but WP:TNT", because it was largely unreferenced. However, there was quite a few salvagable referenced passages. Obviously the article needs *some* examples, but I would argue there was too many before. Should we be rewriting from scratch or could we reinstate some referenced passages? MarkiPoli (talk) 05:52, 8 June 2024 (UTC)
 * The problem was not one of quantity but one of quality. What's needed is for sources on the overarching topic—mind uploading in fiction—to be summarized. Examples should be taken from those sources and presented in WP:PROPORTION to their treatment in the overall literature on the topic. TompaDompa (talk) 14:37, 8 June 2024 (UTC)