Musings on #gender and mind uploads, or purely digital persons, as one does.
Let's assume we get functioning "uploads". For all practical purposes, a "mind" (whatever that actually is) running on different hardware.
If they have something like VR for a self representation, would #trans folks feel more comfortable, or would cis folks feel less so, if their form were easily malleable?
Would that introduce a sense of dysphoria without a VR "body" at all?
Then what do constructs do with gender?
@pseudonym I think everyone would have fun with it.
Not just gender. Thought experiment (but it needs a CW to work - see next post)
@pseudonym
You already know the answers to these questions.
Do you have fairy wings - gossamer like an insect but shaped like a butterfly?
Dragonfly wings?
An insect's carapace to hide them in and protect them?
Feathered wings like a bird?
What color(s) are the feathers? Are they different underneath?
Skin wings like a bat or like a flying squirrel or like a dragon? What color(s)?
Do they replace your arms like a bird, or are they extra limbs controlled by new shoulder or back muscles, or are they flaps between your arms and legs like a wingsuit?
(Thinking about these kinds of internal defaults and discussing it with family helped me when my child was transitioning - my default wings were gossamer and it hadn't even occurred to me that feathered was an option - I would feel dysphoric with feathery wings; my sister was the opposite.)
@robotistry @pseudonym like a dragon-bat so I don't bump into shit (that much). Anything else gives me itchy brain.
It's a beautiful thought-experiment.
Interesting question.
The first anthro-animal TTRPG character I played was an avian spacer type. 6 limbed, feathers.
I had an artist at a con do a colored pencil sketch for me. Still one of my favorite (and first, I think) commissioned pieces from way back when.
I don't think I ever identified "as" a bird character, but it certainly "fit" in the way you describe.
Obviously, feathers, and extra limbs. I mean of course. :-)
Pseudo Nym
Robotistry
Awkward Turing