Brain Upgrades

[Duxwing]

Would replacing one part of the brain with an electronic prosthesis destroy the original consciousness, and could the question be determined empirically?

-Duxwing

 

[Cafih]

Don't think so.

I have hardly any serious understanding in the workings of the brain, but analogies of computer networks to neural ones [and it's well known that analogies are reliable sources, and meant to be taken at face value (is like->is equal to)] make me assume that no single brain cell takes the role center, but rather, your consciousness is the sum, or average, or any kind of function of all the cells.

Certain agglomerations may be weighted [just think about how much role the stomach-acid regulation center has in your consciousness] , but the removal of a single cell does'nt result in loss of consciousness. [as evidenced by their dying every single...just lets make up some kind of rate here]

I see no reason why the results of addition of a single artificial neuron [which is assumed to be functionally identical to your originals] would be different.

Now, given that, cell-by-cell replacement should'nt result in loss of consciousness. This reminds me of some ark replaced part-by-part, in the end having none of the original. I will go with 'it is still the same ship'.

Obviously, if we took the flag, and built a ship around it, we would'nt come to the same conclusions. Thusly, there must be some amount, that if replaced at once, is considered to be a different entity, and therefore a rate at which it's parts can be replaced.

If we copied it, we would'nt call it the same: so we can't be merely the layout, the hardware of our brain. Therefore, we must be the process. [how did it follow? by the scientific process of 'wild mass guessing'...sans mass]

Thus, we can't interrupt the process. Though, we may some invidual child processes, and with the passage of time, they will be reinitiated by the parent...which, per se, does'nt exist:it is the sum of all child processes, and the layout is not assumed to be hierarchical.

Then, we can go on to the next process. I see some parallels with reinstalling on a server, for which off time is too big a risk.



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I don't know what I am talking about

 

[John_Mann]

electronic prosthesis

This term is too cyber punk.

Some replacement will be with nanobots, maybe foglets.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R-2Xw-GNkUQ&list=PLF2B0DFC347272284

 

[Hawkeye]

You end up with a scenario similar to a person being teleported from A to B. Are they still the same person? Even if they acted exactly the same way as the original, there is no way of knowing whether the initial consciousness survived or not.

The Blue Brain Project is currently reverse engineering a brain to try and locate the you part of a brain.

From the way people survive serious brain trauma, I imagine it should be perfectly fine to switch certain parts of the brain with artificial parts. Some areas will undoubtedly cause a person to interact differently and therefore that person will no longer be what they were.

 

[Architect]

No. Look up the story of Phineas Gage

 

[Hadoblado]

Philosophy of mind is complex enough without the tech aspect.

IMO, the presumption of categories which is the foundation of our use of the word 'same'' in the OP is a heuristic, and not consistent with reality.

Two things are considered the one thing if they inhabit the same space at the same time, but this is difficult to apply to something that is a trait of existent material that is then altered. Consciousness is just such a trait, and thus what we can know about 'sameness' in terms of consciousness is limited (at least for now).

As for the OP question specifically, it's difficult to measure, as you are comparing two states of consciousness divided by time and to some degree matter/space. Empirically, this is going to have issues, as consciousness changes both as a result of time and artificial intervention.

IMO, the consciousness for all intents and purposes remains but is altered. Destruction of a transient state is inapplicable.

 

[Cognisant]

Destruction of a transient state is inapplicable.

Oooh that's a nice way to put it.

My personal understanding is that consciousness is no one thing, likewise we don't have one but several concepts of self so there is no "seat of consciousness", so the more you go into it the less our idea of what we are fits the reality of it, I mean if you want to be technical about it then every time you lose consciousness your consciousness as you experience it now has died and when you wake up it's reconstructed from stored data.

In the absence of souls it's not really anything worth worrying about, the person I was yesterday may not have woken up this morning but that's no reason for me not to go to sleep tonight, the consciousness I am now may be lost but fuck it I'm tired and as long as there is a stored me I can "die" peacefully knowing that my next self will carry on.

Heck moment by moment my present self ceases to exist and is replaced by a slightly different self, we don't worry about that so why should we worry about brain modification?

 

[BigApplePi]

Would replacing one part of the brain with an electronic prosthesis destroy the original consciousness, and could the question be determined empirically?

-Duxwing

Not sure I will have your hypothesis correctly, but IMO here is what would happen.

1. The part replaced would be lost, but if the rest of consciousness were sufficient, it would wonder what happened and treat the missing as lost or forgotten. If the rest of consciousness were inadequate to notice because notice-ing itself was lost one would go on deficient in the missing faculty not knowing what happened.

2. Depends on the nature of the prosthesis. The problem is in the connections to the surviving consciousness. With good connections, the surviving consciousness might say, "now I have a great memory" or "I can see 20/10" or "now I can tolerate pain." If the connections were poor, one could do whatever the prosthesis specialized in but the rest of consciousness would not be aware of it.