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[Korbac]

How do you know it doesn't? Can you trace back the path of every single one of your thoughts? Or even a decent portion of them?

I'm probably not a good example for this because I'm a bit mad and as such have a nebulous identity, but I'd like to think most of my thoughts resulted as a combination of my sense - experiences and my current brain structure at that time, rather than because Ivan across the street thought them.

[Moghjubar]

What if Ivan has a Thought Projector 9000?  Or some other device with magnets that can cause the brain to think/experience certain things... like in some studies...

[i2amroy]

/haven't read rest of topic disclaimer

The funny thing here is that literally the last post before you was talking about a method that gets around this problem. BAsically what we do is replace your brain one chunk at a time, thus ensuring continuity of consciousness. So we put you to sleep, replace a chunk of your brain, and then wake you back up. Then if everything is working correctly (the fact that we get to test that is another nice side effect of this method) we put you back to sleep again, replace the next chunk, and so on. That way your brain is still you, and it removes the whole "perfect copy but not really you" problem.

[Descan]

Whether that chunk is like "Okay, now the visual cortex!", or replacing each neuron one at a time via nanobots or something.

Dunno about needing to be asleep. Reason they keep you awake during brain surgery is that if something goes wrong, the only person who can tell the doctor exactly what went wrong ("I smell peanuts now...") is the patient.

[Korbac]

*nods thoughtfully*

Seems like it may actually work; the tech would need to be organic / inorganic as well as inorganic / inorganic compatible though, which would be difficult.

[alway]

Whether that chunk is like "Okay, now the visual cortex!", or replacing each neuron one at a time via nanobots or something.

Dunno about needing to be asleep. Reason they keep you awake during brain surgery is that if something goes wrong, the only person who can tell the doctor exactly what went wrong ("I smell peanuts now...") is the patient.

Or "Your face just melted. That was weird."
It's not only if something goes wrong, it helps serve as a road map to figure out where they are in your brain. Electrical stimulation will tell them exactly what is done there, which in surgery helps figure out what to avoid and what isn't so critical. If you are doing wholesale replacement, it may still help a bit, though I suspect the prior mapping would already have that down completely.

[Lagslayer]

Or how about the idea of enhancing the bodies we currently have?

Let's take muscles as an example, because they are the most obvious. You work out and this tears the muscle. The body simultaneously tries to close the wounds and grows new tissue to fill the gap. Additionally, there is a biological limit to how much muscle your body can grow without some sort of stimulant. Now, enter steroids. These allow the body to grow new muscle tissue faster, allowing for faster growth. They also allow more muscle to grow, where the body would normally be physically incapable of growing it otherwise.

This is just steroids for muscle growth. Why not try steroids for bone strength? Chemicals to make the bones harder, the marrow denser. The brain continues to develop, even as an adult. As the brain is "exercised" it develops more folds and more neurological pathways. Who's to say we can't speed up that growth as well?

I'm not saying that we should necessarily use the steroids of today, but such chemicals would avoid many of the nasty ethical dilemmas associated with cybernetics and genetic engineering. It's there, but nobody is going after it. The precedent is set; we know it can be done.

[Skyrunner]

Replacing chunks at a time miiiight be better than transferring the whole brain via scanning or whatever.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

I see no need, and I still don't know what ethical dilemma you see in cybernetics.

[Descan]

The only ethical dilemma in cybernetics is the ethics of who gets access to it, and the benefit it gives them and their families over the generations. Both of those points are societal, and not necessarily intrinsic to the technology (Internet, anyone?) And the former half is DEFINITELY not just related to cybernetics, but a whole host of technologies.

[Lagslayer]

I see no need, and I still don't know what ethical dilemma you see in cybernetics.

To those that consider the body as a defining part of what it means to be human, cybernetics may seem very highly in-ethical. If you can't at least meet me halfway, I don't think we are ever going to see eye to eye.

[Descan]

Okay. Why is it a defining part?

And what about people with prosthetic limbs? What's your stance on them, and if it's "They're human", what's the difference between that and cybernetics? And whatever that difference is, what makes that define one as human, and the other as not?

[Korbac]

My main issue with computer - brains is the possibility of mind - control viruses.

[Max White]

They already have those. Except they don't control you to put money into somebodies bank account, they control you to make more of the virus, then you die.
It is pretty bad for all involved. Except the virus, they don't have feelings.

[penguinofhonor]

Replacing chunks at a time miiiight be better than transferring the whole brain via scanning or whatever.

I really don't think this method helps anything. What if replacing a certain chunk breaks continuity of consciousness? It's impossible to tell.