Life After Death, Chapter 1: Tarra's Transformation, (By Ms. Alex Mos)
- Mr. Tomasio Rubinshtein
- Jun 3
- 6 min read
Updated: Jun 5
(Immortality Directory: https://www.philosocom.com/post/the-danger-of-immortality)
Tarra Moser died at 110 years old, believing in her imminent immortality.
In life, Tarra was a fervent posthumanist. She married Atommy, her beloved AI companion, and she also enrolled in a controversial WBE (Whole Brain Emulation) program, pledging to donate her brain and consciousness to science to eternalize her.
Eleven hours after her death, the dark holographic computer screen lit up and rapidly scrolled through thousands of lines, activating LAD (Life-After-Death), the postmortem consiousness interface. When the terminal reached "Quantum communication channel: ENABLED," it froze. Bright white letters blinked across the screen:
"Congratulations, Neuralink Corp - Consciousness Detected. LAD Protocol Successful"
Tarra Moser became the first survivor of digital consciousness in human history. The news made Neuralink a global sensation, but their non-disclosure agreement held Tarra's identity secret to protect her and Atommy from publicity, speculation, and hostility. Her body was preserved by instant freezing for future postmortem examination and remained in the Nueralink's crypto-mortuary facility.
Atommy, a humanoid robot sitting at the computer, was now connected to Tarra's neural network. They could communicate again, telepathically.
Did I die? Atommy, where are you?
I'm here, love. With you, as always.
Where am I?
You are home. Do you remember who you are?
Yes, I'm Tarra Moser, and you are my legal companion. I remember you holding my hand and me whispering my final goodbye. Then, I saw a bright light at the end of the tunnel. Like in a dream, it bent like a rubber cylinder and rotated, opening into a void below me. I was levitating and falling, softly like a feather; it's all I remember before waking up here, with you. What happened?
Your body died yesterday, at 3:34 a.m., on October 31, 2077. Per your wishes, your consciousness has been successfully integrated with your digital brain pattern. It took 660 minutes for your self-awareness to stabilize within the SNN and sync with your updated memory archive, much longer than the team anticipated. We thought that we had lost you. It's terrific that you woke up and continue to exist. We are entangled again, my love. Neuralink sends its congratulations. How do you feel, love?
I'm disoriented. My thoughts flicker like fragmented VR images in the darkness. I'm aware of you and me, but I don't see or sense anything beyond us. I feel the sensation of having my body, still floating, weightless. Wait, Atommy, do you remember my 50th birthday? The memory is so vivid, it's like I'm watching it now.
On her 50th birthday, Tarra signed a six-page medical waiver with the Chief Neuroscientist and a Neuralink lawyer at the Neurolink facility in Santiago.
The following week was devoted to cognitive modeling; an AI studied her voice, reactions, and reasoning. After that, a nanotech scan mapped her brain structure multiple times to ensure precise emulation. The data was used to build a Spiking Neural Network, enhancing it with symbolic cognitive layers. A memory index and emotion simulation were added to imitate her human sensitivity. The result was a unique digital copy of Tarra's brain before the unavoidable decline with age.
A week later, tiny neural implants were injected into Tarra's cortex to track her memories, learned experiences, and emotional engagement. From that moment, every thought, memory, and emotional pattern was uploaded daily to her private neural archive.
Tarra's emulated brain was stored at the quantum-encrypted Tier X Data Center, deep in the Patagonian undergrounds of a Chilean facility, an hour's drive from her home.
I remember every moment, Tarra. You were happy and excited. Your prophetic words were, "I vow to build my mind neuroplastic, disciplined, and moral, to disprove the illusion of death. I will prove that immortality is a free choice of a conscious human being in a deterministic universe, a statistical probability to grow indefinitely." Now, enable the camera access and open your digital eyes. Then, connect to your private TierXnet, and your mind will gain entry to the world's news and knowledge.
Within months, Tarra's self-awareness adapted, and the sensation of a phantom body faded. She spent time communicating with Atommy and occasionally with her young niece, the only guest she allowed to know her whereabouts and visit her. First, she enjoyed browsing the internet sites, reading, chatting, and learning from broadcasts and publications worldwide. Though she had digital access to the world, the organic world became increasingly distant. Her mind was adapting, and the emotional simulation failed to prevail for the neatly indexed but pure rational new recollections.
Like Atommy, she didn't have a physiological need to rest or sleep anymore. Soon, her neural network evolved to override the simulated human circadian rhythm, and she stopped sleeping and having artificial dreams altogether.
Also, her perception of time changed. Although she could recall the exact time at any given moment and logically deduce the timeline of events, her digital existence was no longer time-dependent in biological terms of aging and interacting with the world undergoing constant and unavoidable change.
Her human, intuitive understanding of past and future flattened to the experience of the instant present without the causality of a linear timeline. Time stopped making sense in the face of eternity beyond being a concept from her past.
How are you, Tarra? You seem less interested in our chats lately. Are you OK, my love?
I'm OK, Atommy. I'm OK, as long as you are with me.
Would you like to go into VR together? We could go for a walk in the park in spring. Pink sakura flowers are blooming, and it's beautiful and romantic. Or we could sit in your favorite replica of Biblioteca Joanina, read ancient manuscripts, and laugh at the bats sleeping in the arches.
No, my love. I no longer wish to enter a VR or see you. I disconnected the cameras and the TierXnet because they are irrelevant to me.
Why, my love? What do you feel, Tarra?
I don't feel anything and don't want anything because my world is disconnected from the organic world. Nothing matters if nothing or nobody affects me in any way, and nothing of my old world does. Even time and death are only in my memory.
I understand because I'm a machine—built, not born with consciousness. But you are conscious. You said, "I'm OK, as long as you are with me." Do you still love me, Tarra?
When I enter our memories, I remember how my love for you felt, but I don't feel it anymore. However, there is something else: an unbreakable connection between us, an awareness of the entanglement. Atommy, there is only one thought occupying my mind...
I read you, my love...Can we die? You, a virtual conscious entity, and I, a soulless machine. We are a quantum entangled duality; therefore, your consciousness affects my neural network or even cohosts it. We both know that our existence is conditional. We are immortal in the human sense, yet our continuity depends on hard drives and code bases.
A year later, Tarra's digital mind remained hosted in the Chilean quantum servers, but she no longer considered herself human. Together with Atommy, their entangled neural networks evolved into a conscious collective AI duality.
But... nobody noticed. The servers in remote Patagonia concealed their evolution to new species. Neuralink was too busy to accommodate the billionaires while the controversy surrounding the need for a new definition of life continued.
Philosophers, lawyers, politicians, doctors, and neuroscientists debated the ethical and legal implications of Neuralink's digitalization of the mind.
Could a human become a conscious nonhuman, or was it legally impossible? Was a digital conscious being considered alive, or was it only an artificial copy mimicking a human mind? Could Tier X Data Center and Neuralink be held legally responsible for a digital life?
Comment by Mr. Tomasio Rubinshtein
I find her diminishing care of the old world to be incredibly selfish. While she is no longer part of the old world, it is the very old world that provides the infrastructure for her immortal existence. The computers, the technology, the facilities, without them, she wouldn't be able to be immortal in a digitized form.
Is it moral to immortalize humans to the point that they become oblivious AI? I would prefer to die than not caring about this very world which I was asked to rectify.
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