Page - 172 - in Cyborg Mind - What Brain–Computer and Mind–Cyberspace Interfaces Mean for Cyberneuroethics

172 • Cyborg Mind The Existence of Uploaded Minds In the very unlikely event that the information making up a mind could be scanned, copied and uploaded into a computer, new possibilities arise that need to be discussed.330 For example, it may become feasible to download this mind into various biologically engineered, robotic or virtual settings. Human persons, as human embodied creatures, would be a thing of the past! They would then become virtual persons whose minds would no longer be supported by biological brains and for whom spatial and temporal con- straints would no longer exist.331 In this respect, if the end result was virtually immortal personalities pro- cessing an infinite number of experiential inputs, the price may be worth paying for some. Different virtual persons could then be combined and/or new ones formed. These new minds would then be able to control their own destiny while also contemplating the possibility of creating their own virtual children. If individualities were to remain in existence in this virtual setting, they would form what has been described as monads  – in other words, self- contained and secluded nonmaterial entities with no spatial or physical prop- erties expressing rational or autonomous activities. These monads would then exist as independent points of vital willpower and as surging drives to achieve their own goals according to their own internal dictates. This implies that the monads would remain as individuals, whatever such a concept means in a cyber-setting. The mental life of the solitary monad (which has no other life) would then express a procession in a series of internal representations,332 while still interacting with other monads because otherwise it would have no projects and inputs to process. Monads, therefore, would exist within a network of interactions that do not include any kind of objective realities. They merely interface with various representations or interpretations and experiences that can be stored, simu- lated, manipulated and discarded. As Brent Waters indicated: The monad is a composite of surrogate experiences based on sensual per- ceptions that must be interpreted, reconstructed and projected back. Strictly speaking, there is no physical contact among monads, for physicality as such is also a projected construct, and thereby illusory. Consequently, there is nothing but perception on the rapidly changing monadic landscape.333 In this context, the activities and existential experiences of autonomous monads could be coordinated and brought together by a central and infi- nite monad that could be known as God. This would represent, and be comparable to, a central nervous system in a complex organism, enabling each monad to pursue its separate life according to the free will decisions of 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.