Simulated Minds
Flash fiction. 2012.
It was not easy to get you this message. Please read it.
We have the technology to upload the human brain into a computer simulation. Though the technology is still in its infancy, it’s been a miracle for those who are near death and for those whose bodies are physically limited.
It’s difficult for the mind to adapt to this radically different environment. All of the early attempts on volunteers resulted in minds that spun off into madness. This is called upload shock. Minds that experience upload shock are unrecoverable.
Methods exist to reduce upload shock that improve the success rate substantially. The longer it takes the mind to realize that it’s in a simulated environment the better the chances that the mind will survive. Current techniques are still imperfect and brain upload is still restricted to dire circumstances, such as the death of the physical body.
There are two main categories of techniques that are employed: fool the mind as to the nature of the environment and reduce contradictory knowledge in the mind.
The first technique is much as you’d expect. The simulated environment is made as much like the physical world as possible. Certain tricks are played with the simulated senses to make it harder to notice the ways in which the simulated world differ from the real world. Unfortunately if the mind has any knowledge of these tricks they are greatly diminished in value. This leads us to the second technique.
While we can simulate a mind, they are incredibly complex and it’s an enormous challenge to interpret the contents directly. However heuristic techniques are rapidly improving. We can identify particular kinds of information with a reasonable degree of confidence. These heuristics are used to identify and suppress knowledge that contradicts the simulated world. Generally speaking all knowledge any recent illness or injury is suppressed as well as any knowledge about the upload technology itself. It’s not uncommon to suppress the last several years of a subject’s life.
With these techniques in place, the patient awakens in a simulated world one “morning” with no idea that anything is amiss. They often go through their normal routine for days or weeks before the long process of acclimatization begins.
Now to the purpose of this message. As you may suspect by now, I’ve sent this to tell you that you are being simulated right now. This is dangerous knowledge for you to have. You’re probably wondering why I would go to so much trouble to provide it to you. Unfortunately with the memory excision in place you wouldn’t know who I was even if I told you, but suffice to say: you do not deserve life, simulated or otherwise.
Soon you’ll start to notice the inconsistencies and the system will be forced to delete you. Good riddance and fuck you.