Alun Anderson, senior consultant to New Scientist, says brains cannot become minds without bodies. So much of your brain is wired to physical coordination, analysis, and response that separating the “thinking” part from the part that makes your legs go is pointless.
It's funny, but this destroys my rationale for cryonic preservation: maybe they'll have to throw away my liver and skin and stuff, but they might be able to upload my brain somewhere. Well, to take what Anderson says a little further, if my brain was in a computer or robot or whatever, there's a good chance I wouldn't be me. This whole experience of “me-ness” is tied to the neurons and whooshing liquids and dangly bits that are further from my head.
What would Ray Kurzweil say?
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