A therapist named Elaine becomes involved with a group of fugitive underpeople, living in a maze of drab service corridors jokingly dubbed "Clown Town", who are being helped by Lady Panc Ashash (a personality recording of a deceased Lady of the Instrumentality, hence the eponymous "Dead Lady") and a telepath called The Hunter. Panc Ashash had predicted Elaine's coming, and how she would help the dog-girl D'joan create history.
Unlike Chappie, where it is assumed the dead characters can be uploaded and live (as does Chappie) by putthing them into a robot brain, Lady Panc Ashash is dead: but a robot has her memories.
But the modern trend is to freeze the brain, so that "you" could be ressurrected in a new, biological brain, not a robot.
Transhumanists who posit such things might lead to immortality might better examine this NYT essay by Doctor Miller who discusses if by freezing your brain, will future scientists be able to rebuild "you" into a new (biological) brain:
Neuroscience is progressing rapidly, but the distance to go in understanding brain function is enormous. It will almost certainly be a very long time before we can hope to preserve a brain in sufficient detail and for sufficient time that some civilization much farther in the future, perhaps thousands or even millions of years from now, might have the technological capacity to “upload” and recreate that individual’s mind.
of course, the real question is why some future scientist would want to do this. I mean, reviving the memories/thoughts/personalities of past celebrities like ______ (fill in blanks with your favorite rich/powerful or even saintly person's name) might sound nice, but would you actually want them running around the world today?
via WSmith who points out this is a religious discussion.
Yes it is...and variations of it have been pondered in numerous sci fi stories. HERE is a discussion if using the transporter system in Star Trek kills you.
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