Seite - 152 - in Cyborg Mind - What Brain–Computer and Mind–Cyberspace Interfaces Mean for Cyberneuroethics

152 • Cyborg Mind some individuals to reflect what they felt were their ‘true’ identities as never before.222 For certain persons with various forms of disability,223 such as autism and muscular dystrophy, being online or having an avatar was the first time, they believed they could be seen by others as ‘normal’ human beings. Similarly, some people who may feel shy, lonely or less attractive may dis- cover that they can socialise more successfully and express themselves more freely online.224 The 2009 American science-fiction film Avatar, directed by the Canadian James Cameron, set in the mid twenty-second century on a distant moon, recounts the story of a disabled man who can remotely control, through his mind, the synthetic body of a native avatar, which he uses to interact with the real natives. Slowly, however, this man begins to prefer living through his avatar, which seems a lot more interesting and attractive to him than his ‘real’ world. Creating new identities online therefore allows people to find out how they might act/react in different situations and settings, or they may want to escape and discover new prospects if they are trapped in a real harsh reality. However, they may then find that they prefer their new virtual lives. Dominance of Certain Online Identities In the 1969 book To Live Again written by the American author Robert Silverberg, an entire worldwide economy is developed around the buying and selling of ‘souls’ (personal lives that have been tape-recorded at six-month intervals). This allows rich consumers to bid against each other for the oppor- tunity to upload into their minds the most recent recordings of archived personalities. But federal law prevents people from buying a ‘personality recording’ unless the owner has died; similarly, two or more buyers are not allowed to own a ‘share’ of the same persona. Such stories are mirrored, in part, in the real experiences of persons suffering from psychosis, where one identity seems to dominate another. Individuals hear voices that are often deprecating and have a negative impact on their health and wellbeing. Similarly, if a number of identities were pres- ent together in virtual reality, it might be possible for a dominant identity to take precedence, which could have a very negative impact on the other identities. But again, this will be examined more in depth in the context of network consciousness or hive minds in a later section. Blurring of Online and Offline Identities Another ethical problem that could arise is that the distinction between online and offline identities could become blurred. This was considered in This open access edition has been made available under a CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 license thanks to the support of Knowledge Unlatched. Not for resale.