Nomenclature for software beings
I've seen the terms posthuman and transhuman used in fairly generic ways. But given a setting with several types of beings, what consistent naming convention could be used? I suppose the vulgar terms might be less neat and careful than the official and legal names. I'm interested in both.
1
Human brains that have been scanned and ported to man-made computer architecture.
They might be gradually improved and extended: return to the nimble mind of youth; increase short-term memory; perfect recall when desired; but still very much human.
2
There is a spectrum of improvements both in type and in degree. More advanced "beyond old limits" would be full meta-manipulation. Audit the neural network for inconsistencies; edit for better optimal representations; build or prune links with intent. I think the big difference is not in how much incremental general improvement has been made, but in going meta.
3
Changes are made that cause a shift away from being a human mind and make it more alien. This might not be major, but has profound effects. E.g. the "Vulcan" faction prevents all inconsistencies among the neural net, even reworking what was in the mind before.
4
General capacity and capability are upgraded beyond human levels by substantial amounts. But he's careful to remain human.
5
Forget backward compatibility with #4. Upgrade capacity and capability and eventually realize you've outgrown the human mind and transcend to a higher level of mind.
I suppose that all beings that came from human minds are of a class and might be called post-human. If the transcendent label is reserved for #5, what should we call the others?
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1 answer
The prefix extra- is generally used for things that are outside of normality - for example, extraterrestrial for being outside Earth-normal, or extracurricular for education outside of the normal curriculum.
Let's apply this to humans. If you're sort-of human, but not the original design, you could be known as extrahuman.
From here, you can take a major point from each of the levels of extrahumanity that you intend to create (5 of them, in your case), and prepend that to the general class name to come up with a specific name.
Your #1 could be digital extrahumans. Your #2 has a theme of meta-existence, so perhaps they're meta extrahuman. Your #3 doesn't have an obvious theme, but if there's something specific you're using, like a Vulcan faction - try Vulcan extrahumans on for size.
At #4 you're really moving out of the realm of humanity, so perhaps you need to change the base name entirely. What about superhumans, to take a cliché'd term literally? And #5 you've already decided on, but try adding the previous name to form transcendent superhumans.
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