X-Message-Number: 13791
From: 
Date: Fri, 26 May 2000 12:32:08 EDT
Subject: brain fusion, identity chips

Ivan Snyder (#13784) writes about brain fusion and "identity chips."

No, he isn't the first to consider such ideas, although I had not heard of 
the actual Siamese Twin phenomenon he mentioned, siblings with brains fused 
together and (apparently) able to communicate internally.

This relates to a whole host of thought experiments and 
biological/philosophical conundrums that remain unresolved. I (and many 
others) have discussed some of these at length. As I said, both the biology 
and the philosophy remain obscure.

Certainly it should become possible, through future technology, to allow 
mediated but seemingly direct communication from one person to another, a 
kind of telepathy. This will dramatize and intensify the questions--whether 
"identity" is shared and so on. There are no current answers--only opinions, 
often held with irrational certitude.

Personally, I am very uncomfortable with live (conscious) animal 
experimentation (which we do not do at CI), and would rather wait for 
computer simulations where feasible, along with the use of dead animals.

Robert Ettinger
Cryonics Institute
Immortalist Society
http://www.cryonics.org

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