Keith Wiley has experience in several domains of computer science, including artificial life, evolutionary algorithms, image-processing, optimized search, topology, distributed processing, and machine learning.  His undergraduate degree in psychology, which focused on neurological and physiological psychology, coupled with his experience in neural networks and other aspects of artificial intelligence, underly his interest in mind-uploading, both from the practical standpoint of when and how such technologies might eventually mature, and also from the philosophical standpoint of how to best interpret mind-uploading thought experiments and hypothetical scenarios with respect to personhood and the nature of identity.

His central argument on the topic of mind-uploading is that minds can conceptually split forward in time into multiple equal mental descendants, and furthermore that all minds resulting from an uploading procedure should receive “equal primacy in their claim to the original identity”.  Defending this claim is the focus of his book.