# A different kind of life insurance (sci-fi hypothetical) **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [July 18, 2014, 8:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-different-kind-of-life-insurance-sci-fi-hypothetical/693482 "2014-07-18T20:39:52Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2014, 9:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-different-kind-of-life-insurance-sci-fi-hypothetical/693482/61 "2014-07-22T21:30:46Z")
> [@Walton\_Firm](#): > > Yes, I can see the Hollywood movie already. “Living Will”, with Will Smith (or maybe Bruce Willis). With the clock ticking down, he has accepted his fate and is ready to go out with dignity. Legally he is already dead, but then a mysterious woman gives him a new reason to live – and not only his second chance at happiness, but the fate of the world hangs in the balance… “Who Censored Roger Rabbit?” ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2022, 4:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-different-kind-of-life-insurance-sci-fi-hypothetical/693482/62 "2022-06-30T04:12:22Z")
(Sorry for the bump, but I just had to add:) **Tenth Doctor:** “Even if I change, it feels like dying. Everything I am dies. Some new man goes sauntering away; and I’m dead”. ---
**Author:** ![Riemann](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/riemann/32/3133_2.png) [@Riemann](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Riemann)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2022, 4:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-different-kind-of-life-insurance-sci-fi-hypothetical/693482/63 "2022-06-30T04:32:14Z")
> [@Lumpy](#): > > Sorry for the bump, but I just had to add: Dammit, I thought the bump would be because Google are now offering the service described in _Altered Carbon_. ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Strangelove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr.strangelove/32/6613_2.png) [@Dr.Strangelove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Strangelove)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2022, 4:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-different-kind-of-life-insurance-sci-fi-hypothetical/693482/64 "2022-06-30T04:47:55Z")
Let’s think about this 4-dimensionally. I am a 4-dimensional flatworm about 1.7 meters tall by 90 light-years long (I hope). On one end my component parts come together and assemble themselves hierarchically; on the other end they separate in disordered fashion until they are indistinguishable from the environment. That is me, and the middle part especially is well-defined. Suppose that somewhere else there is another worm, perhaps one that is not as long because one end was duplicated from the first. Is that me? No. Maybe it could take over some of the same functions, but I am only the first worm. If you could guarantee continuity, so that the worm becomes progressively more cybernetic over its length, perhaps you could convince me. ---
**Author:** ![DPRK](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/4491bb/32.png) [@DPRK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DPRK)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2022, 11:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-different-kind-of-life-insurance-sci-fi-hypothetical/693482/65 "2022-06-30T11:49:33Z")
There was a role-playing game world where minds can be backed up, cloned, edited, merged, hacked, transmitted, inserted into various bodies, etc. No big deal, at least for the people who routinely undergo such operations. Maybe you are a mercenary: for a special mission you’ll want an appropriate combat body available. Spawn off a mind which, for security purposes, is not a perfect copy; an emergency transmitter in the head ensures some or all of the information will be still sent back in case you die, and if you do make it back you can be more carefully re-integrated. ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2022, 3:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-different-kind-of-life-insurance-sci-fi-hypothetical/693482/66 "2022-06-30T15:09:45Z")
That’s basically the premise of the Takeshi Kovacs books (_Altered Carbon_, etc…) Basically every person is implanted with something called a ‘cortical stack’ at birth, and it’s basically a sort of mental DVR-type device that records all your thoughts/memories/etc… so that if your body is killed, that stack can have its data downloaded and inserted into another body via its stack. So in that particular universe, bodies are called ‘sleeves’ for obvious reasons. Of course, there are vat-grown ones engineered for combat, cheap ones, and anything in between, etc… as well as the normal sort of naturally born ones. The first book in the series basically starts out with a person who has the sort of insurance policy that the OP proposes, trying to figure out what happened to make the policy kick in. In other words, he wakes up missing a month of his memories and hires the protagonist to figure it out. (trying not to spoil too much). There’s also the concept that punishment is exacted by keeping someone “on ice”, meaning unsleeved and unconscious for some period of time. Copying one’s self is a capital crime (i.e. they erase your stack and you are truly dead). And interestingly enough, they can transmit the contents of stacks between worlds- sort of a data-driven interstellar travel, and you get a new sleeve when you arrive. ---
**Author:** ![DPRK](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/4491bb/32.png) [@DPRK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DPRK)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2022, 2:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-different-kind-of-life-insurance-sci-fi-hypothetical/693482/67 "2022-07-01T02:21:05Z")
Sure. It was not explicitly an _Altered Carbon_ game, though. I do not remember exactly which game it was; it _may_ have been _Eclipse Phase_ in which case all that stuff was more or less directly lifted from _Altered Carbon_: > [@](#): > > DEFEATING DEATH > > In _Eclipse Phase,_ your mind can be digitally copied, stored, and altered like software. Almost everyone _uploads_ their mind to a secure storage service, as well as to a tiny device implanted at the base of the skull called a _cortical stack._ If you are killed, you can be restored from these backups. Only if all copies of yourself are destroyed will you be dead forever. > > Backing up brings its own set of challenges. When your mind is recovered, it includes your memories up to the last moment of backing up. If you died horribly, that final experience is recorded in your cortical stack. Characters surviving traumatic experiences may opt to destroy their most recent backup and instead restore an older copy, losing weeks or months of experiences and memories (called lack), rather than deal with the psychological harm they’d suffered. Copies can also be stolen. You may live your life not knowing a copy of yourself has been resleeved on the far side of the Solar System to be tortured for information or sold into slavery. Fork-nappers and “soul traders” are the lowest of the low, profiting off of transhuman suffering. > > RESLEEVING > > Digitized minds can also be downloaded. If your current body becomes damaged, obsolete, or inconvenient, you can sleeve into a new one. You can transfer consciousness with the right equipment and less than an hour’s time. Your new form could be an Olympic runner, a robotic shell, a digital presence, or even an orbiting shuttle. Members of high-risk professions, such as criminals or Firewall sentinels, can be killed multiple times on a mission only to be brought back and sent into the field again and again. Your body is called a sleeve or a morph, and the process of changing morphs is resleeving. Morphs can be biological with organic brains (biomorphs), biological with synthetic brains (pods), robotic (synthmorphs), or purely digital (infomorph). > > EGO MANIPULATION > > Morphs are temporary; your mind is what defines who you are. Your _ego_ is your skills, memories, and personality. > > Multiple copies of your ego (called _forks_) can operate simultaneously and independently, each fork effectively its own person. Forks can be electronically transferred across the Solar System at the speed of light; uploading at a facility on Mars to be resleeved on Ceres and back again by dinner. Forks can also be passively stored for later use, brought online only if certain criteria are met. > > You also have the opportunity to directly manipulate your ego. With _psychosurgery,_ you can alter your behavioral traits, remove memories to ease previous traumas, prune forks to fulfill specialized roles, and merge forks back into your primary persona. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-different-kind-of-life-insurance-sci-fi-hypothetical/693482.md?page=3)