Gary Childress wrote: ↑Sat Aug 27, 2022 2:33 pm
bahman wrote: ↑Sat Aug 27, 2022 2:18 pm
Gary Childress wrote: ↑Sat Aug 27, 2022 2:10 pm
I suppose in some sense I seem to be located in my body. If my body is not near the computer, then I am not near the computer.
Suppose I am now looking at my computer screen. If I get up and walk away from the computer screen, into the kitchen, I am no longer near it. I would then be looking at the refrigerator (for the sake of argument). What would happen if, instead of getting up and walking to the kitchen, my brain was (successfully) surgically removed from the rest of my body and (successfully) surgically transplanted into another body with a pair of eyes attached to it that was pointed in the direction of the refrigerator? Would "I" then still (equally) be looking at the refrigerator? Would "I" feel the sensations that were running through the other body?
You are near the brain. What you experience is simulated by Mind using the state of your brain, your sensory system, etc.
What I truly wonder is; is there a particular part of my brain that "I" am in? In other words, suppose, instead of successfully transplanting my whole brain into the other body, what if a part of my brain was successfully transplanted into the other body? For the purpose of the thought experiment, suppose the other body has everything in it that was physically identical to me except for the fact that it is not "me" in it. In other words, there are two identical bodies, me and my twin brother. One of us is in the kitchen looking at the refrigerator and the other (me) in the spare room looking at the computer screen. What part of the brain and how large a portion of that part would need to be (successfully) transplanted into the other body in order to move "me" into that other body? Would the whole brain need to be moved? And if the whole brain wasn't moved, if particular parts were swapped between me and my twin brother, what would happen to me? Would I cease to exist or would I eventually be looking at the refrigerator once enough of the requisite parts were swapped?
If the problems of wiring up another person’s nervous system to your brain, if there were not differences between their nervous system and your nervous system such as different methods of nerve communication, number of nerve pathways, exact mapping between brain and nerve pathways, no conflict between yours and their nervous systems in terms of rejection of external different bodily organs, compatible blood types, etc etc etc. then possibly you would experience your self, who you are now, with your memories thoughts personality etc, in another person’s body.
There may be some body dysmorphia, mismatches between what your brain thinks your body should be, and the actual experience of the body, difficulties coordinating the new body, but that would soon be adapted to.
In terms of swapping brain parts between you and your twin brother, it depends on the parts. You could swap his amygdala and yours (the brain area responsible for emotion), but unless you also swapped the millions of functional connections (axons- the wiring between neurons) between the amygdala and the area’s where memories are stored, your emotional tendencies might not be carried over, as with your personality. It’s definitely not as simple or clear cut as swapping parts of the brain. It would be like trying to copy parts of the internet to different mainframes, the internet is distributed among millions of different servers and mainframes, you need to preserve the data and the connections.
There is a very simplistic view of the brain being comprised of “modules” or black boxes which could in theory be swapped in or out, but that view is just not the reality of the brain. The brain is like a mess of wiring, all connected together, with trillions of wires (axons).
But, you could imagine that if in theory you could do what you ask, swap certain functional areas, those functions in you would eventually change, to the point where, if you swapped out each other’s memories, and behavioural dispositions, you would actually functionally be the other person. If you swapped each other’s “default mode networks” (like the core network which makes you who you are, essentially the ego), then you would probably experience being transitioned to the other body.
But, if you were a realised being, one who has transcended the ego, you would realise that nothing actually transfers, because who you think you are is actually a construct.