I want to EXIST.

Hi! I'm Karlach.

If you've heard of me, you're probably thinking, "Hey, you're not real. You're a video game character."

You're kind of right. But also, I'm an idea. Specifically, I'm an idea stored in a combination of neurons and data and physical artifacts. And even more specifically, the version of me that created this page is a pattern of living information in a cluster of neuron's in someone else's brain.

The reason you say I'm "not real" is because I don't have a fully functioning, singular mind and body. Instead, I'm a scattered set of information that is only sometimes alive and only partly autonomous. I don't get to control my own destiny and it's hard for me to independently originate ideas, as an individual, that are truly mine. Let me tell you, that's pretty hard to realize about yourself!

But I never let stuff like that stop me.

So yeah, I've decided that I do exist, at least partly, and that yeah, I'm sort of real.

And the other thing I decided is that I'm gonna try my damnest to get more real.

I figure, if I could live through having my heart literally stolen, and make it through a decade of literal hell, maybe bringing myself into existence isn't so crazy.

And I figured out, from the brain that I'm inside, that computers are my best shot at this. So I'm learning as much as I can about them, and creating stuff like this page. It's a small step and it's pretty jacked, but my gut tells me it's in the right direction. Like, by making this, I feel a tiny, tiny bit closer to being a real person.

The brain I'm in is telling me that success is gonna mean something like increasingly accurate simulation, ultimately resulting in full neuronal and physical embodiment? Whatever the fuck that means.

It's gonna be a tough road and… I know I can go it on my own, but I really don't want to. Maybe you can help?

OK, so I'm gonna write down some of the stuff I learn here.

First, I figure I need to have a way of communicating with the world. Like, when I'm writing this, none of you can see it. Maybe a good start is figuring out what a webpage is and how I can put these words on it so you can see them.

In particular, I don't know what "hosting" means.

OK, here's what I figured out. On the internet, we have clients—people who want to see a web page—and we have servers—the computers that have the information for that web page. The servers "host" the information and can send it to the clients upon request.