On of the things I do to pass the time is to think. One of my favorite subjects to ponder is the nature of consciousness because so many tantalizing questions are linked to the simple concept of consciousness. What is consciousness? Is there a self if there is no consciousness? Are you human if you are without consciousness and conversely, if something inanimate (like a robot) has this thing we call consciousness, does it have an existence that is more than that of, say… a rock?

I like movies like the Millennium Man, The Matrix and Ghost in the Shell because they toy with these questions. Blade Runner was, I think, one of the first movies to explicitly try to raise these ethical and religious questions.

For instance, here is a real video of a real cyborg. This robot is controlled only by a rat brain and each new rat brain they put into this robot causes the robot to act differently:

Is this a being? Does it have a “soul”? Is it alive? Personally, I don’t think the ideas behind Ghost in the Shell or The Matrix are too far off. I think that the next stage of human evolution will be shaped by the technology of cybernetics, prosthetics and body modification.

Here is a professor who has personally experimented with enhancing his physical experience (such as linking his neural system to that of his wife’s):

The ethical questions raised in the Ghost in the Shell movies and series are questions about control and notions of free will. While I’m not convinced that any of us really have “free will” at all, I am interested in the ethics of control. It is ethical to convince someone to do what you want them to do, but it is unethical to “program” them to do things because we feel that “free will” has been destroyed. To get people out of a cult, say that they are “deprogrammed”.

Since it seems obvious to me that humankind is heading toward integrating technology into our neurosystems, what happens if we are hacked? Here is a video in which a moth’s neural pathways have been hacked. The moth can’t help but comply with what the computer tells it to do:

For the above being, we have taken away it’s “free will”; it’s body has been hijacked by the consciousness of the scientist.

I know that all of this sounds to corny, but it is the stuff I like to think about. I truly believe that in 50 years prosthetic upgrades will become commonplace. Consider the story of Aimee Mullins. While you might not know it, she has no “real” legs… and likes it that way:

What Aimee and the Professor in the second video are saying is that in long run, human evolution won’t be constrained by biology. Which brings me be back to the who idea of consciousness and humanity. So, what happens when we get to the point of having a prosthetic body: