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Cyberneuroethics • 177
But this again leads to questions about how personal identity should be
defined. Even if a computer is programmed to indicate that it is self-aware,
how would it be possible to know whether it is a fake, an imposter or another
representation that bears only a passing resemblance to an original individual?
Experts such as Sandberg dismiss this question, arguing that personal
identities are complex. They cannot be clearly and precisely defined and are
subject to many changes as a person develops over time. In what appears
to be a giant leap of philosophical thought, Sandberg comments that ‘if
we can handle growing older we can probably handle being translated to a
computer’.354
A more detailed exploration of the idea, and one in which individual iden-
tity is preserved, was described by the British science-fiction writer Arthur C.
Clarke (1917–2008) in his 1956 novel The City and the Stars.355 The story is
set in a city one billion years in the future, where the minds of inhabitants are
stored as patterns of information in the city’s Central Computer. These can
then be infused into cloned bodies to be relived in cycles of about a thousand
years. A number of commentators identify this story as one of the first (if
not the first) to deal with the concepts of mind uploading, human-machine
synthesis and computerised immortality.356
Interestingly, in addition to being downloaded into a body, an uploaded
mind would also be able to copy itself into many (even a multitude of) of
minds (its clones) as backups or create many new minds (its descendants in
time) that are different from itself. But it would be impossible for a mind to
be present simultaneously in multiple locations. Each mind location would be
a different individual even if such an individual only existed for a few seconds.
In examining the paradox of multiple exact replicas expressing the same
identity, the Scottish neuroscientist Donald MacKay (1922–87) indicated
that it would seem ‘absurd to suggest that what identifies you is imply the
information-flow pattern in your nervous system’.357 This is because a ‘con-
scious experience is embodied in our being activity: neither on the one hand
identical with it, nor on the other hand quasi-physically interactive with
it’.358 This means that, for MacKay, copying a human mind into a computer
would be tantamount to creating a correlation, not a translation.359
Indeed, because the body of the virtual person would be different from
that of the human person, it would actually be a different individual. In other
words, seeking to upload a human mind into a computer would result in the
creation of a new body-mind person who would be a completely different
individual from the original human person.360 It would be like creating a
virtual clone with a new body-mind.361
A similar argument is given by the British philosopher Derek Parfit (1942–
2017) in his 1984 book Reasons and Persons, in which he discusses the tele-
transportation paradox. This is a thought experiment on the philosophy of
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Buch Cyborg Mind - What Brain–Computer and Mind–Cyberspace Interfaces Mean for Cyberneuroethics"
Cyborg Mind
What Brain–Computer and Mind–Cyberspace Interfaces Mean for Cyberneuroethics
- Titel
- Cyborg Mind
- Untertitel
- What Brain–Computer and Mind–Cyberspace Interfaces Mean for Cyberneuroethics
- Autor
- Calum MacKellar
- Verlag
- Berghahn Books
- Datum
- 2019
- Sprache
- englisch
- Lizenz
- CC BY-NC-ND 4.0
- ISBN
- 978-1-78920-015-7
- Abmessungen
- 15.2 x 22.9 cm
- Seiten
- 264
- Schlagwörter
- Singularity, Transhumanism, Body modification, Bioethics
- Kategorie
- Technik
Inhaltsverzeichnis
- Chapter 1. Why Use the Term ‘Cyberneuroethics’? 9
- Chapter 2. Popular Understanding of Neuronal Interfaces 25
- Chapter 3. Presentation of the Brain–Mind Interface 31
- Chapter 4. Neuronal Interface Systems 43
- Developments in Information Technology 44
- Developments in Understanding the Brain 45
- Developments in Neuronal Interfaces 46
- Procedures Involved in Neuronal Interfaces 47
- Output Neuronal Interface Systems: Reading the Brain and Mind 49
- Input Neuronal Interface Systems: Changing the Brain and Mind 57
- Feedback Systems of the Brain and Mind 67
- Ethical Issues Relating to the Technology of Neuronal Interfaces 84
- Chapter 5. Cyberneuroethics 99
- Chapter 6. Neuronal Interfaces and Policy 217
- New Cybercrimes 218
- Policy Concerns 223
- Conclusion 229
- Human Autonomy 232
- Resistance to Such a Development 234
- Risks of Neuronal Interfaces 234
- Appendix. Scottish Council on Human Bioethics Recommendations on
- Cyberneuroethics 239
- Glossary 244
- Index 251