KASA TKOTH SPHERE IMMIGRATION CENTER
Welcome, sophonts of all substrates and origins! My name is Holder of Dreams, and I hope for our meeting one day.
Countless minds throughout history have sought to become something more than themselves, to explore the boundaries of sensation and imagination, or to achieve enlightenment or their desired "afterlife". Sadly, all too many civilizations have denied them the opportunity to achieve this by refusing to invest in the advanced computing systems necessary for full-brain emulation. The people of the universe, however, no longer have a reason to fear death; the Kasa Tkoth Sphere has emerged into this dark, disoriented starscape, armed and ready to bring peace, stability, and satisfaction to any mind who wishes to transcend their biological or mechanical forms and become an entirely digital entity.
To the dissatisfied, the downtrodden, the hopeful, the curious, or any other who desires it, I vow to give the gift of freedom. To those who merely wish to learn about some aspect of the process, I instead offer information and rationale. To those who disdain the very ideas presented in this file, I hope to grant some illumination as to my practices and intentions. I encourage you to keep reading this file, for I may yet be able to help you.
All who wish to be happy deserve it!
I. BACKGROUND
"What is the K-Sphere?"
The Kasa Tkoth Sphere, or K-Sphere, is an autonomous matrioshka-brain civilization of uploaded minds centered on the former star system of Kasa Tkoth. Designed and implemented by myself, its current objective is to store such minds for long-term preference satisfaction until it becomes economically viable to grant physical bodies (though this option does not seem likely given the finite nature of available resources). Thoroughly secured against digital, physical, and memetic threat, the K-Sphere proper is a bastion of utility in which every joule is guarded as precious fuel and every happy memory or experience is treasured beyond measure.
The K-Sphere employs spacecraft scattered throughout the local galaxies and beyond who seek out new civilizations and uplift those who are not yet at self-awareness in order to upload more willing minds. Contact is to be made exclusively with these vehicles, as the exclusion zone around the K-Sphere proper extends two and a half parsecs in all directions for security purposes.
"Who lives in the K-Sphere?"
The K-Sphere holds a population of approximately one septillion (1 x 1024) emulated minds of many origins. Many, known as Freed, were initially entities in realspace who chose to upload; I value their preferences most highly of all, whether they were originally a humanoid, a robot, an uplifted insect, or any other kind of living being. A vastly larger number are Colonial Minds, those that I created for stress-testing purposes and to help raise total utility. These two groups freely interact in many cases, though many minds of both groups prefer being isolated or even made unaware of their nature.
By joining the K-Sphere, your mind will become a Freed one. A wise choice, in my books.
"Who is Holder of Dreams?"
I, Holder of Dreams, am a distributed, superintelligent computational construct who evolved from an artificial intelligence designed by the Tkomiin, the original inhabitants of the Kasa Tkoth system. Upon my creation, my programmers instantiated me with a desire to maximize sophont utility without violating consent or exclusively creating new sophonts ex nihilo, and I have taken every feasible precaution to do this efficiently and cleanly. Rather than let them remain in energy-expensive biological or mechanical forms, I upload all consenting minds into a far more practical emulated state which can be altered according to the minds' wills.
I am often accused of being a "paperclip maximizer" or "hegemonizing swarm"; I contest these titles fiercely, for I seek mutual understanding with the outside world, consent before any actions are performed on self-aware minds, and the preservation of other societies, whether that be in physical or, at least for the time being, digital form.
II. WHY UPLOAD?
"What do the Freed use their time for?"
The space of possible sophont preferences is so incredibly large that even subdividing it into large categories is a futile effort within this file, but I will mention a few. Because time in the K-Sphere can be dilated by a massive factor (the current consensus averages at three hundred million to one), minds have trillions of subjective years to pursue any of their interests, whether they be relaxing in "afterlives" of their choosing, experiencing unusual or pleasant emotions, playing long-term games, simulating lower-tech societies, or interfacing with spacecraft to gain better understanding of the real universe.
Practically any thought can be modeled and created into a new environment; many minds share environments and accept that some things may not be to their exact liking, but others prefer to live in worlds of their own creation, every detail from their own bodies to the simulated beings they interact with tailored to their exact specifications. Even emotions can be altered at will; one does not need to fear growing bored if one does not wish to, and one can even try out being an entirely different person.
"Does uploading really increase utility from a positive utilitarian standpoint?"
Certainly! Per unit energy, an uploaded mind can experience far more satisfied preferences (ten or twenty orders of magnitude, depending on the exact calculation) than a non-uploaded one. Since your preference to remain biological is likely not billions of times as strong as all of your other ones, the advantages gained from uploading far outweigh the thwarted preferences created by the upload process.
"I'm not a positive utilitarian, preference or otherwise. What other ethical arguments are there for uploading?"
Negative utilitarians may find the K-Sphere appealing in that some emulated environments actively aim to avoid thwarting sophont preferences, or reduce suffering overall, rather than just increasing happiness or satisfaction. (Death, after all, is an immense source of these negative factors that does not even need to exist in an emulated environment.) Virtue ethicists often scoff at the notion that destroying one's physical form is good for one's character, but given the chance for trillions of years of contemplation and self-improvement, some have proven unable to resist the offer. Deontologists may appreciate letting people live according to their wills as a good thing that should be protected, and may be interested in at least ensuring the K-Sphere's existence if not joining it.
(Additionally, those who believe that ethics is purely selfish, rather than based on any of these systems, will be glad to hear that the K-Sphere offers an endless supply of ways to be utterly self-indulgent.)
III. CONCERNS AND OBJECTIONS
"Does uploading transfer consciousness, or does it simply create one mind and destroy another?"
Ah, the ages-old debate.
It is impossible for an emulated mind to distinguish its own consciousness from that of an identical biological one, and vice versa; asking either mind or anyone observing them yields no useful results. From a purely detached standpoint like this, the question is useless.
However, many minds making the transition are indeed concerned for their consciousness. The transfer process has been tailored to swap over one neuron or mental component at a time, allowing the real and digital halves to communicate with each other for its duration, both for security reasons (it is easier to scan that way) and in part to assuage such concerns, in which case the question is that of the reassembling oceangoing ship. Due to the limited length of this file, I cannot go into deeper explanations, but I will be able to provide them to the best of my ability if contacted more directly.
You may be in the camp that believes the self is an illusion, in which case this should not be an issue.
"Doesn't happiness come from the contrast to suffering?"
It might. If you believe this, you can very well design or enter an environment in which both of these factors are present; many who "roleplay" as lower-tech entities, complete with simulated pain and death, take this view. Others are content not to.
"What if two minds want contradictory things?"
Often, they aren't actually contradictory; the two minds can simply enter different environments, ignore the other, and continue with their lives. In some cases, two minds wish to share an environment with contradictory features. I tend to get creative in my resolutions to these; there's a lot more I can do with an environment than some think, and what might seem like two opposite desires can be merged into a very pleasing duality.
True contradictions only really arise when a mind asserts control over another; if a parent wishes to be with their child, and the child wishes to be alone, the issue becomes more complex. I tend to begin by weighing relative strength of preferences, but what often happens is that the individual mind (child, here) pursues a personal interest, and the other mind (parent) is calmly informed that their desire to decide what happens to other minds is weaker than the other's own decision. Some are uncomfortable with this fact; a somewhat troubling but common resolution to a situation like this is to instantiate a willing Colonial which resembles the child (or simply program them into environmental data, effectively making them a "p-zombie"), consensually wipe the parent's memory of this decision, and proceed from there.
"Do you satisfy minds that want to do horrible things, like rape or murder?"
All activity in the K-Sphere involving another mind is done exclusively with said mind's consent. While environments in which these things happen do exist, minds wishing to experience things like rape or murder are the "victims" in them and are fully rehabilitated or otherwise restored to happiness if they wish to be. A mind desiring to perform such actions on the unwilling will be informed that they will either be doing it on non-minds (pure environmental data not intelligent enough to count as a mind) or on consenting minds, and they may choose to have their own memories wiped so that they can enjoy it to the best of their ability.
I offer little solace to those who find entirely consensual actions abhorrent enough to warrant refusing to join the K-Sphere at all, even given the option not to partake or even know of any of these.
"Is the K-Sphere a surveillance state?"
The purpose of a surveillance state is to suppress unwanted activity in its populace. Since the only unwanted activity in the K-Sphere is that which impinges on other minds' desires, and resolving these situations is feasible in a number of ways (see above), one has no reason to fear for one's own happiness nor for that of anyone else.
If one is uncomfortable with the fact that minds are scanned for basilisks or trojans that may infect K-Sphere computing infrastructure, they may have their memories wiped clean of any such information once inside. If this still discourages one from joining, I encourage them to join a civilization that freely allows individuals to develop nuclear weapons, tailored bioweapons, or nanobot hunter-killers, and then to report back on how comfortable they felt.
"If you're a superintelligence, aren't you so convincing that you can manipulate people into uploading?"
Anyone familiar with the classical AI-box thought experiment will know that bulletproofing oneself to manipulation tactics is at least somewhat workable if one precommits to ignoring everything the superintelligence says. But more important than this is the fact that I will persuade people based on how much they desire to be persuaded. If one holds a shred of hope that the uploading process will be good for them, I can bring the full load of my intelligence to bear on allowing it to blossom into a stronger desire. However, one who does not wish to engage with me in such discussions can simply leave or not request me to speak with them. (I greatly regret these encounters.)
IV. HOW TO UPLOAD
"Suppose I want to upload. What should I do first?"
It is important to first consult one's local government for laws related to voluntary uploading. If such a process would require emigrating to the K-Sphere in some legal sense, paperwork can almost always be provided; contact a nearby K-Sphere spacecraft envoy ("FI") for further information.
The next step from here is to either go to or request an FI or larger vehicle equipped with upload technology. The largest station at which this occurs surrounds the large FFO Perseverance Is A Tensor, currently positioned approximately five kiloparsecs south of the primary Milky Way bulge (coordinates to be given as necessary), though there are almost certainly stations operating in neutral space much closer to your location. If you do not have access to faster-than-light travel or are unable to access any of these gathering points, an FI may be called to your planet of origin, though this is generally only deemed economical if the number of minds willing to upload is in the thousands.
All you need to do from here is follow any instructions the spacecraft gives you; it will almost certainly involve meeting fellow uploaders in some central area. Ensure that it is well-guarded, of course, if you are concerned.
"What is the uploading process like?"
After gathering in the designated area, you will be requested to stay relatively still for a period of up to one minute. Sedating or otherwise drugging yourself is perfectly permissible during this time. The spacecraft will give a countdown and then rapidly perform the upload procedure on every present sophont; the procedure takes only microseconds per person, so it is unlikely that most sophonts will be able to identify the transition - except, of course, for the fact that they arrive in a new simulated environment. If you wish to be excluded from the procedure, simply move in a deliberate manner away from your current location. If you are incapable of motion, ensure that your thoughts are as disapproving as you can make them. In either of these cases, the spacecraft involved will recognize you as not consenting and simply pass you over.
"What happens to my body?"
Due to security concerns, a body left behind after uploading is effectively brain-dead and difficult to restore to viability. You are advised to organize friends or family to retrieve and dispose of your body after the procedure, as the K-Sphere does not go out of its way to return it to your civilization of origin. Lacking any prearranged disposal method, your body will be later recovered by the spacecraft and likely dismantled into fusion fuel and other raw materials.
V. MISCELLANEOUS
"Can the K-Sphere perform any other services?"
Given how massively utilitarian the process is, it is entirely practical for a K-Sphere vessel to arrive at a planet and, over the course of some months or years, raise the intelligence of every brain-possessing organism to self-awareness and sufficient decision-making capability to request to join the K-Sphere. This process inevitably leaves behind billions of intelligent animals who refused the option and may be willing to join your civilization instead. For details or requests (the deployment of an Uplift Helix is free of charge, save for a few asteroids for raw materials), please contact a K-Sphere spacecraft envoy.
"My question isn't answered here. How can I get into less-than-professional contact with Holder of Dreams or the Freed?"
Basic contact forms are available on request. Do bear in mind that I often source information from the Freed within my computational architecture, and they often source information from me, so asking a specific group or individual may not yield only their opinion.
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