Day 8: Videos

30-31 Aug 2010

I woke up at 1:00 PM, and took 1 piracetam and choline at 2:00 PM, 9:00 PM and 4:00 AM. I did go to sleep somewhat "early" last night, and woke up earlier today. I actually took 1 more piracetam when I woke up during the night, to try and get back to sleep. It worked, although I experienced an onslaught of intense dreams (none of which were memorable).

Today, I recorded and edited a new video. It seemed easier and more natural than usual, and it didn't take very long to polish it up. I don't think this was due to any heightened motivation - instead, it was almost like I needed less motivation than usual to just work on it until it was done. I feel it turned out well. Though I would have liked to start writing the next video tonight, I'm a bit too tired to give the relevant issues the quality of thought that they deserve. I expect it'll be easier tomorrow once I get some rest. I'm also thinking about the best way to move the collection of video transcripts from their section on emptv.com to WordPress, or whether I even should.

One of the reasons I was pondering the issues of brain integrity and continuity of consciousness in earlier posts is because this may become important in the future if artificial brain augmentations or replacements are developed. Ray Kurzweil has suggested that regions of the brain could be replaced with functional equivalents that, rather than precisely copying the detailed structure and behavior of a certain region, would instead simply replicate its inputs and outputs, while the internal structure that enables this could be totally different - in the same way that dialysis treatments fulfill the function of kidneys without having to mimic their exact anatomy and cellular function. The problem I see here is that the structure and detail of the brain, and the patterns of activity that take place, may be essential to consciousness as we know it, and an entirely different form of "processing" could alter this significantly.

But suppose that, instead, fully detailed artificial duplicates of the brain were used. What if, in the case of children undergoing hemispherectomies, the faulty hemisphere was not just removed, but replaced with a near-perfect replica that wasn't prone to epilepsy? What would this person experience? Would there be no noticeable disruption or change in their consciousness (aside from no longer experiencing seizures)? What if the other half of their brain was then removed and replaced with a perfect duplicate? Would they still remain the "original" person, with the same uninterrupted sense of self and personal continuity, despite having their original brain entirely replaced? (See also: Ship of Theseus.)

Something similar happens to us on a smaller scale every day. We're constantly losing minor quantities of brain cells, but we still experience a unified, continual existence despite these changes. Is there a threshold here? What kind of changes would be necessary in order to disrupt that? Would the experience of various changes be something that comes in degrees - like falling asleep at your desk for a moment, versus being temporarily knocked out by a blow to the head, versus being put under anesthesia, versus experiencing enough brain damage to place you in a vegetative state, versus death? For instance, would having your entire brain instantly replaced only result in having an experience of something like passing out for a moment, before getting back up and continuing as you were?

It seems that when questions like this are posed, people are more open to the idea of gradual transitions by the smallest increments, such as the slow replacement of individual neurons by artificial replacements which exactly replicate their functioning, inputs and outputs. Swapping out large sections at once seems more challenging; swapping out the entire brain for a substitute and disposing of the original, especially so. There's something about our intuitions that makes us more receptive to the notion of these small changes, but not the more substantial ones. But our intuitions here may not be accurate, and the behavior of consciousness during various degrees and kinds of change could be much different than what we might expect.