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Part of
Discourses on the Edges of Life
Edited by Vicent Salvador †, Adéla Kotátková and Ignasi Clemente
[IVITRA Research in Linguistics and Literature 26] 2020
► pp. 179–194

Beyond the limits of death

Consciousness without bodies and simulacra of human beings in Science Fiction

| Universidad de Valladolid

In this paper I will discuss two ways of extending the human life-span that have been used in Science Fiction. The first involves uploading the human mind onto a computer after physical death. The second involves a sinister scenario in which clones, doubles or virtual simulacra or simulations are created to emulate living or dead human beings. My aim is to explore these two options and examine their epistemological and ontological implications: being human without a body; the nature of an uploaded mind beyond the body’s physical death; and the role of experience, memory and emotion in the construction of human identity.

Keywords: constructivism, posthumanism, myth, thematology, comparative literature, Science Fiction, androids, simulacra, mind uploading and death
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Theoretical background: Posthumanism, constructivist rhetoric and comparative literature
  • 3.Some “beyond death” scenarios in Science Fiction
    • 3.1Technology and mind uploading: The mind without the body
      • 3.1.1Charles Stross’ novel Accelerando
      • 3.1.2The case of Transcendence and Lucy
      • 3.1.3Asimov’s Bicentennial Man
    • 3.2Simulacra and simulations of human beings: Memory and experience
      • 3.2.1Charlie Brooker Blach Mirror (Be Right Back episode)
      • 3.2.2 Solaris, by Stanislaw Lem
      • 3.2.3Philip K. Dick’s Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? and its film adaptations
  • 4.Conclusion
  • References
Published online: 9 April 2020
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/ivitra.26.12mol
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