Seite - 178 - in Cyborg Mind - What Brain–Computer and Mind–Cyberspace Interfaces Mean for Cyberneuroethics

178 • Cyborg Mind personal identity and consciousness. He describes a teletransporter machine that breaks up an individual into atoms, copies the information and then sends it to Mars at the speed of light, where another machine re-creates the same individual from local atoms, each one being in exactly the same rela- tive position as the original. Parfit then asks whether the teletransporter is a method of travel for the original individual and whether the person on Mars is the same person as the individual who entered the teletransporter on Earth. Of course, the individual on Mars would have the same memories and mind as the original person back on Earth. However, the thought experiment continues with an upgrading of the teletransporter on Earth so that the original individual is not broken down into atoms, but is simply scanned and a copy made in Mars. This would enable the original person on Earth to continue to exist and eventually see a copy of himself or herself coming out of the machine on Mars. Because of this, it is then possible to question who would be the original person. Moreover, if the original person on Earth subsequently died, should the replica on Mars care at all? In a way, this kind of paradox is not new and was raised as far back as 1775 by the religiously trained Scottish philosopher Thomas Reid (1710–96), who indicated in a letter: I would be glad to know your Lordship’s opinion whether when my brain has lost its original structure, and when some hundred years after the same materi- als are fabricated so curiously as to become an intelligent being, whether, I say that being will be me; or, if, two or three such beings should be formed out of my brain; whether they will all be me, and consequently one and the same intelligent being.362 But of course, such questions only become relevant for those with dualist perspectives of the person and who do not believe that the body and the mind are one single whole. As such, they fail to recognise that it is impossible to retain personal identity when the body and the mind are separated.363 This means that if a biological mind is uploaded on to a computer, this could be seen as a form of ‘mind-cloning’, especially if the original biological mind remains in existence. Given this perspective, it is interesting to note that Sandberg prefers to use the term ‘whole brain emulation’ rather than ‘uploading’. There is a shift of direction away from translating a person into a new realm, to moving towards an attempt to build something that emulates or imitates a brain. The goal is no longer to enable an existing person to live forever in digital form, but to create a new being based on a more generalised human template  – something that is neither human nor transhuman, but certainly highly capable and intelligent. 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.