“Mind Uploading” & Personal Identity

The Thought Experiment

The year is 2221. Interstellar travel has been made possible via teletransportation — the ability to generate a copy of all your neurological connections and beam it across the galaxy at the speed of light.

You’ve decided you’ve had enough with your time on Earth and that you’d like to make the move to Planet Kepler 452 b in search of a new life. So you save up your pennies and set-up an appointment with the teletransport people.

The day of your appointment, you stride into their office tingling with excitement — your time has come! They walk you through their intensive imaging process which allows them to construct a perfect model of the states of all the cells in your brain.

They then sit you down in the chair and get to work. Once the imaging is complete, you open your eyes and realize you are still on Earth. Confused, you look towards the doctors and ask if it worked. They all nod and exclaim with pride that your new self is currently exiting their local office on Kepler ecstatic with the prospect of a new life. They then pull out a gun and inform you in order to complete the process, they must destroy your “Earth copy.”

But no! You cry out. That’s not me. I’m right here!

BOOM.

The lights go out.

The Question

One of the most radical, thought-provoking, questions in neurotechnology is whether or not we will ever be able to “upload our minds” to the digital universe. Imbued throughout science fiction, discussions of the singularity, and transhumanist discourse, whole brain emulation remains the paramount ambition of neuroscience. Over the last century, this dream has entranced humanity. As we become more accustomed to incorporating computers into our daily routine, it seems only natural to ask just how far such assimilation might go.

Essentially, the question is, will the trend continue until we eventually merge with machines? Will the separation between device and you diminish to nothing?

While we may be centuries away from having a robust enough grasp on brain physiology to perform such a procedure as teletransportation, it is still valuable to contemplate what such a technological feat might mean for humanity biologically and ethically. In particular, brain emulation and corresponding “mind uploading,” (MU) may have profound implications for how one conceives of the notion of identity and continuity of self.

The teletransportation thought experiment described above is reminiscent of Derek Parfit’s thought experiment from Reasons and Persons (1987)1. While teletransportation is a bit different from what is conventionally referred to as mind uploading, we employed it to introduce a few overlapping implications and relevant questions that arise when thinking of this kind of brain emulation.

For example, if a virtual copy of you exists, is that still you? What constitutes a continuation of one’s identity? Under what conditions does identity persist over time? Is identity substrate dependent — bound to biological material — or could it be stripped away to operate on alternate substances? Is identity more than just a map of synaptic connections?

To investigate these queries, we will first explore two potential methods to mind uploading: gradual implementation and scan-and-copy. Then we will consider these approaches in light of various philosophical theories of identity.

Gradual Implementation vs. Scan-and-Copy

MU involves transferring informational models of the brain and all its connections to a computer. There are two primary hypothetical approaches to MU: gradual implementation and scan-and-copy2

Gradual implementation entails the piece by piece addition of artificial functional neuron equivalents over time until the entire connectome is composed of digital units. This could take place over a lifetime, a few months, or even a few days. Importantly, there are breaks between the swap of each brain part. Gradual implementation intuitively appears to allow for the preservation of a single stream of consciousness, which many might argue is an essential constituent of identity.

On the other hand, the scan-and-copy approach is reminiscent of our teletransportation thought experiment detailed above involving the instant capture and transfer of the complete brain’s structural information to a computational substrate. This approach is often referred to as “destructive” in that many scholars hold that such a sudden discontinuity could be detrimental to the preservation of self. But while the idea of breaking continuity of consciousness naturally feels undesirable, one could argue analogize it to waking up after a dreamless sleep.

David Chalmers, a prominent philosopher in the field, harkens upon an important criticism of the scan-and-upload approach involving intermediate systems in his argument for a gradual approach.

Chalmers notes,

“A pessimist about instant uploading, like a pessimist about teletransportation, might hold that intermediate systems play a vital role in the transmission of identity from one system to another. This is a common view of the ship of Theseus, in which all the planks of a ship are gradually replaced over years. It is natural to hold that the result is the same ship with new planks. It is plausible that the same holds even if the gradual replacement is done within days or minutes. By contrast, building a duplicate from scratch without any intermediate cases arguably results in a new ship. Still, it is natural to hold that the question about the ship is in some sense a verbal question or a matter for stipulation, while the question about personal survival runs deeper than that. So it is not clear how well one can generalize from the ship case to the shape of persons.2”

This common critique against scan-and-copy as a viable method for safe MU is grounded in the premise that both temporal and spatial continuity play essential roles to preservation of self. Instinctively, it makes sense we’d consider a ship, or a person, changing over time as the same. However, a few philosophers have posited this instinctual presupposition of temporality and spatiality in identity could be flawed and requires much further substantiation to be as evidence against the possibility of scan-and-copy4.

Theories of Identity

The problem of personal identity is indubitably intertwined with the philosophical question of persistence. That is, what is necessary and sufficient for a past or future being to be someone existing now?

There are three primary theories of identity we will discuss in thinking about how we might answer this question: biological, psychological and closest continuer3.

The biological perspective maintains one’s physical brain is both necessary and sufficient in achieving continuous perception of self. Contrarily, psychological theorists deem only the information carried within a brain as a requisite for continuity. As long as memory and connectomic structure are replicated, psychological theorists postulate unified identity should persist. This outlook is akin to the functionalist theory of consciousness popularized by Daniel Dennett7, which essentially asserts that information, and not physical substrate, is responsible for construction of conscious experience. The closest continuers, arguably the most radical of the three theorist cohorts, conversely hold the belief that consciousness will continue in whatever identity is most similar to the original.

Looking at MU through the lens of these three various belief factions, it is reasonable to assume biological identity theorists will ethically condemn MU as murder, while psychological and closest continuer theorists support a substrate independent nature of identity and therefore might be more open to the transferal of neurological to the computational as an avenue to lengthening lifespan.

But while it might be tempting to dismiss biological notions of identity, it is important to recognize the value they hold in allowing us to critically analyze misconceptions we might have about some of the more nuanced implications of MU.

For example, the theory of embodied cognition upholds bodies as instrumental to the proper construction of an internal model of the world. Bodies exist as an interface between the material and the mental. Your brain has evolved to see the world through your eyes, to touch the world using your hands, to smell the world through your nose. Much of what you learn about the world is through the context of your body and thus a large portion of cortical computation is dedicated to analysis and computation of sensory and motor information. Furthermore, much of this processing is specialized to your specific sensorimotor system.

This leaves open the question: how might the cortical connections specialized to your unique sensorimotor system be translated to a virtual format? Would such the advent of a virtual brain require the subsequent acquisition of a virtual body analogous to your own?

Presently, there are no satisfying answers to the above posed questions, but they are nonetheless compelling in the way they encourage us to speculate about our neurological paradigm and our technological future

So where are we at now?

We are perhaps hundreds of years away from a future in which whole brain emulation or mind uploading will be possible, yet recent scientific advancements are optimistic that it isn’t impossible. Nevertheless, the road to mind uploading will likely be a long, winding pathway as we gain our footing on understanding the complexities of the mind.

In order to render whole brain emulation feasible, we will map the entire human connectome with the perfect amount of precision. To capture the intricate structure of the nervous system, we will need to be able to collect data with high enough resolution to record the entirety of neural and synaptic dynamics..

The up and coming field of connectomics is reminiscent of the beginnings of such a movement. Connectomics is the study of all functional connections between cells with the overarching goal of creating a connectome, a comprehensive map of all these neural connections. Due to technological advances, the resolution with which we can see and capture structural information about the brain is increasing at a rapid rate. Currently, the prevailing imaging method in the field employs an electron microscope to scan thin slices of the brain at a nanometer resolution5. Additionally, current brain preservation techniques allow for preservation at the molecular level6.

Excitingly, institutions such as CarbonCopies are advocating and supporting the research and development of new technologies in the sphere of brain emulation. Through the combined efforts of scientists, philosophers, and engineers, there is a possibility the thought experiment we described at the start of this article could become a reality.

“(Sister) Ships of Theseus”

What’s important to remember when considering the overarching nature of identity is that we are our experiences, and by virtue of having different experiences, we become different people. The truth is that the self is not one line, but one of many possible lines. The brain is extremely plastic and synaptic connections are highly malleable. Identity, too, is in constant flux, bending to the shape of external forces. Not durable, but dynamic.

At the site where identity splinters, where we make one choice over another, the self is solidified. The same might be the case for the branch where digital you and biological you split. Only time will tell.

There’s a poem I love called The Blue House by Tomas Tranströmer in which the author takes a nostalgic look at his life from a great altitude using an extended metaphor of a house. The poem grapples with this fragmented nature of the reality we choose versus the realities we could’ve chosen.

In it Tranströmer writes,

“It is always so early in here, it is before the crossroads, before the irrevocable choices. I am grateful for this life! And yet I miss the alternatives. All sketches wish to be real.

A motor far out on the water extends the horizon of the summer night. Both joy and sorrow swell in the magnifying glass of the dew. We do not actually know it, but we sense it: our life has a sister vessel which plies an entirely different route.”

This notion of “sister vessels” might exist as a framework to think about the multiple selves digital copying could offer. Divergent in light of the path they choose. In this right, digital copies of ourselves may exist as embodiments of these sister selves, setting sail from the same place, but encountering disparate seas to eventually rest at distant docks.

Whether or not you think this is science fiction or science future is besides the point. What’s more interesting than any definitive answers are the questions which arise and the manner in which such conversations force us to think critically about how we conceptualize the self, who we are and who we might become. Ultimately, it’s an exploitation of the synergy between the philosophical and the technical — a dance between the specialization of the sciences and the abstract nature of philosophical inquiry. A space where poetry blends with reality, where the possible meets the potential to create something sublime.

The Blue House

It is night with glaring sunshine. I stand in the woods and look towards my house with its misty blue walls. As though I were recently dead and saw the house from a new angle.

It has stood for more than eighty summers. Its timber has been impregnated, four times with joy and three times with sorrow. When someone who has lived in the house dies it is repainted. The dead person paints it himself, without a brush, from the inside.

On the other side is open terrain. Formerly a garden, now wilderness. A still surf of weed, pagodas of weed, an unfurling body of text, Upanishades of weed, a Viking fleet of weed, dragon heads, lances, an empire of weed.

Above the overgrown garden flutters the shadow of a boomerang, thrown again and again. It is related to someone who lived in the house long before my time. Almost a child. An impulse issues from him, a thought, a thought of will: “create. . .draw. ..” In order to escape his destiny in time.

The house resembles a child’s drawing. A deputizing childishness which grew forth because someone prematurely renounced the charge of being a child. Open the doors, enter! Inside unrest dwells in the ceiling and peace in the walls. Above the bed there hangs an amateur painting representing a ship with seventeen sails, rough sea and a wind which the gilded frame cannot subdue.

It is always so early in here, it is before the crossroads, before the irrevocable choices. I am grateful for this life! And yet I miss the alternatives. All sketches wish to be real.

A motor far out on the water extends the horizon of the summer night. Both joy and sorrow swell in the magnifying glass of the dew. We do not actually know it, but we sense it: our life has a sister vessel which plies an entirely different route. While the sun burns behind the islands.

Tomas Tranströmer

References:

1. Parfit, Derek. Reasons and Persons. Oxford [Oxfordshire: Clarendon Press, 1987.

2. Chalmers, David J. (2010). The singularity: A philosophical analysis. Journal of Consciousness Studies 17 (9–10):9–10.

3. Cerullo, Michael A. (2015). Uploading and Branching Identity. Minds and Machines 25 (1):17–36.

4. Wiley, Keith & Koene, Randal. (2016). The Fallacy of Favouring Gradual Replacement Mind Uploading Over Scan-and-Copy. Journal of Consciousness Studies. 23. 212–235.

5. J.hayworth, Kenneth. (2012). Electron imaging technology for whole brain neural circuit mapping. International Journal of Machine Consciousness. 04. 10.1142/S1793843012400057

6. Sandberg, A. and Bostrom, N. (2008) Whole Brain Emulation: A Roadmap. Future of Humanity Institute, Oxford University, Technical

7. Dennett, D., 1978a. “Intentional Systems”, in Dennett 1978c, 3–22. — –, 1978b. “Towards a Cognitive Theory of Consciousness”, in Dennett 1978c, 149–173.