By Eva, Winter 2022.
From the principal investigator exploring the sprawling neural circuits that govern our everyday lives to the undergraduate students attending their first neurophysiology lecture, neuroscientists at every level of experience are met with the following half-joke: neuroscience is simply the brain seeking to understand itself.
Some may respond with laughter, while others may recoil with discomfort–after all, who likes being reminded that they are the sum of their internal organs’ parts?. An even smaller group will begin forming a “well, actually…,” but the thought ultimately withers at the tip of their tongue because, “well, actually,” it’s a pretty neat and tidy summary of the field.
Simple yet paradoxical, the very idea of the brain grappling with and striving to overcome the “great conquest” that is itself is already a fascinating intellectual exercise– albeit one that is also oozing with romantics, dramatics, and just the slightest sense of self-importance. However, the concept of a brain having an “inner conflict” is also limited by the very biology that controls it. On the biological level, how can the brain “seek,” “want,” or “desire” anything? In the rich paracosm of molecular orbitals and energetic favorability, how can researchers chemically explain identity or self, or even answer the simple Who are you?
In order to avoid answering a question with more questions, the natural and biological sciences admire these questions from afar, from the contained and controlled unpredictability and unknown of their test tubes and microscopes. Those researchers that actually descend from their beaker-cluttered towers and address– or more precisely, enthusiastically and boisterously debate– these questions from interdisciplinary angles are not just scientists, as their lab coats would imply.
They are neurophilosophists, seeking to understand the brain, seeking to understand itself.
Neurophilosophy stands as an interdisciplinary workhorse, guiding scientists towards the answers to questions that pertain not only to spaces of research and innovation, but also to the very context and parameters in which science is allowed to flourish alongside human development, thought, and critical analysis of the world at large. Within this discussion, one must ask certain questions prior to answering them, with specific consideration to the critical juncture the research community stands at today: why is neurophilosophy relevant today? What intellectual and moral spaces invite its concerns? And what can neurophilosophy tell us about ourselves and others?
Consider Avatar. If the uncanny valley CGI or BSoD-blue humanoids of the film didn’t strike you, perhaps the mind-uploading scene marking the end of the movie did– as it does for many who are interested in exploring whether or not, if one’s consciousness is uploaded to a computer, the computerized form of the individual is the “same” as the individual residing in the corporeal form. However, this initial question provides merely a surface-level consideration of the implications and consequences of the topic. Hypothetically speaking, divorcing the human consciousness from the human physicality eliminates a fundamental responsibility of consciousness itself: awareness of both danger and the need for self-preservation [1]. When intrinsically “human” conflicts surrounding pain, or even the fear of pain, are removed from one’s daily life, one may predict that the individual would assume more risk-taking, proceeding with an unprecedented amount of confidence in their surroundings.
How does behavior change when a human is confined to the rigid four walls of a computer screen? Who do you become after crossing over from the physical world, susceptible to harm imposed by other human beings and the world at large, to the computerized, mechanized world?
Speculatively, with the considerations above, we would witness the emergence of a crasser, louder-mouthed group of pseudo-Siris, with the elimination of threats to our physical selves making us more inclined to speak (or type) aloud– proudly, I might add– our cruelest initial judgements. While I believe in the intrinsic goodness of human beings, the norms that are governed by the risk of social retaliation are incredibly powerful. Sure, saying I’m polite to others because ‘it feels good to make others feel good’ is the same thing as rationalizing the same politeness with it “feeling bad” to make others “feel bad–” it’s simply a matter of if that badness manifests itself into hurt feelings or physical pain.
Another hypothetical is whether the “computer-brain” may fear being unplugged or disconnected as a sort of “bodily” harm, or even a form of death– but is it truly death if it can be undone, reversed with a single spare outlet and an extension cord?
All of this being said about death, it would be much more interesting to keep the subject of this imaginary philosophical interrogation alive– how may the computerized individual continue to progress, develop, and grow with respect to their intellect and personality following the switch? As human beings, we are dependent on our neighbors, the societies and contexts in which we live and learn about the greater world, and our own self-perception as we form new beliefs and discard those that no longer serve us. In an immobile computer body, would we simply turn to the Internet as a route to “self-discovery?” And, if we are cherry-picking knowledge, experiences, and tidbits from the far-reaching corners of the web to tell us who to be and become, can individuality truly be maintained when quotidian existence depends on wires, codes, and processing units?
We are tasked with a final underlying question, implied throughout the entirety of neurophilosophy as a field: why is it important that we care about issues and debate topics that appear, at first glance, to serve purely as intellectual exercises? And why should we approach big questions surrounding the future convergence of neuroscience and biotechnology from a philosophical perspective? Finally, why is it important that growth in STEM and the humanities runs parallel, rather than being separated into discrete spaces of discourse?
These intellectual exercises, imbued with the nuance and subjectivity that can only be afforded by the humanities, demand that we as scientists not only think of possible solutions to pressing questions, but the longitudinal, far-reaching impacts of those solutions coming to fruition.
[1] Sandberg, Anders and Bostrom, Nick. (2008). Whole Brain Emulation: A Roadmap. Technical Report #2008‐3, Future of Humanity Institute, Oxford University. http://www.fhi.ox.ac.uk/Reports/2008-3.pdf.