The Transfer of Consciousness
From one Medium to Another

Natural Change

In five years, every cell in your body will have been replaced with a different one. Are you, therefore, the same person? If so, how? How is it that you can change a persons brain cells completely and claim that they are the same person?

Subjectively a person can say that he is not the same person, can we say that that person is wrong? The answer is not known - the persons complete brain contents has been replaced gradually yet the essence of what it contains and the content of its matter records the same information and the same memories simply transferred onto new materials, molecules and cells. This person is still a conscious alive entity after transferring all the material that contains his essence and soul into a new medium that serves him in the same way as the old one.

In five years time it will be accepted that you are the same person as you are now. The actual molecules and matter of which you are built is not important as long as your thought-patterns, functions and memories are preserved.

Transfer

How would I react if I had a different nervous system? A person can lose organs, physical organs, without losing any sense of self. How much of my body do I really need? There are layers of skin that are dead, hair is already dead and most of a persons fluids are free-flowing and uncontrollable but for other chemicals. Our muscles can be replaced with anything from a keyboard interface to a new mechanical body part and we can learn to use it just like learning to ride a new bike. A persons leg, or arm, or legs, or arms, can be lost in war and these people suffer mental pain, but do not have their conscious self diminished. I can replace most of my chemical systems with mechanical ones that replicate the function of my body. What do I need to preserve of my body and soul (conscious perception) to remain me?

Our brain systems, our thought patterns, are not dependant on any molecules or parts of the brain in particular but merely in the preservation of patterns. The preservation of the patterns can be transferred from one set of molecules to another, as happens in nature, without debasing the being's mind. The nature of the body and the exact cells do not matter as long as the patterns are preserved. Instead of allowing the natural cell-replacement cycle to commence why can we not step in and direct it ourselves? Or duplicate it?

The important concept which must not be overlooked is the word "preserved" which implies that the material that holds the thought-patterns does just that and that it does not inhibit or change the patterns as they existed in the original material.

I am controlled by the chemical reactions in my brain, I am aware of my decisions not because I make them but because I have made them already. I am aware of my thoughts not before they are thought but as they chemicals in my brain conspire to make them. It makes no difference to me, as a conscious entity, how these chemical reactions occur but only that they have certain affects. Likewise, any system that produces the same results using any system can call itself sentient without needing to compare the specifics of the physics involved.

To what extent then, can we determine where life can occur? If we constructed a brain, exactly the same as a working human brain, and slowly allowed over (say) five years a person to unknowingly "move in" or copy his thought patterns to this new medium it is conceivable that the original thought patterns would not be corrupted. Such a gradual transfer of brain power to a new medium over five years could go consciously unnoticed.

• Human Masters: A brilliant fantastic story by Vexen of the gradual growth of cyborg and human technology until we can no longer tell the difference between Human and artificial