The First Posthuman

Okay, real short. The first posthuman won't usher in an age of celebration. The first posthuman won't be recognizable as human. The first posthuman will be patterns of thoughts, memories, relationships but not what we would want to consider a complete human. Let me tell who the first posthuman is:

The first posthuman is the guy who has a couple of memory implants and maybe even a frontal lobe implant for reasoning. This guy has a diagnostics port which is intended for use by researchers to study the interactions of his implant with his biological brain. Something happens; he's going to die. The researchers have already been uploading his neural net patterns for study. They do one more upload before he dies. The pattern of the neural net and associated data remain in storage for a few years while scientist continue to study it. Scientists learn how to simulate the missing regions of a typical brain. Eventually they have a complete simulated brain and insert his neural net patterns to see how it responds compared with his actual. It works but not like they wanted. The problem is that brains need external inputs to thrive. So they decide to provide that sensory input and ways for it to interact with its environment. What they discover is that the posthuman has some memories of the life it once was a part of but that it doesn't have the personality or responses of the original person.

Discussions among scientists ensue. They determine that the infant person they created is significantly different from the origninal but also agree that it had incorporated the neural net information and that it would develop its own identity and personality some of which might even resemble the guy who died. This person continues to grow and thrive but would likely have some psychological and personality issues as it struggled with memories and thoughts from another life.

I imagine the situation like that of a new born baby that grows up accepting its environment and learning how to manipulate its world but also having a sense of a time and of a life before, a sort of reincarnation.