WHAT COULD POSSIBLY GO WRONG WITH DISEMBODIED BRAINS? THAT HIDEOUS ...

So many people sent me versions of  this story that it absolutely vaulted to the top of the "bloggable" list this past week, and it's very easy to see why. So many people sent different versions of this story it was difficult to settle on which one to use, but I'm going to settle for this one sent by R.D. and D.C., with thanks not only to them, but to all the rest of you who sent different versions of it:

Note that the brain material is being used for the ostensible purpose of "drug testing":

In a development straight out of science fiction, a Connecticut-based startup called Bexorg is using technology to maintain functioning human brains outside the body for extended periods. 

These disembodied organs, sourced from recently deceased donors, are being employed to test experimental drugs aimed at neurodegenerative diseases.

And for you C.S. Lewis fans, the following description sounds almost like it came verbatim from his celebrated novel, That Hideous Strength, in which a DARPA-like organization called NICE (The National Institute for Coordinated Experiments) maintains the brain of an executed murderer in some state of "life" by keeping it on nutrients and oxygen:

The company’s BrainEx system pumps synthetic blood through the brain’s vascular network, delivering oxygen and nutrients while maintaining appropriate temperature and conditions.

This allows the brains to remain metabolically active for up to 24 hours or more, providing a realistic platform for observing how drugs interact with human neural tissue at a cellular and molecular level.

Which of course raises this question:

The work has ignited fresh debate: could these brains possess some form of consciousness?

That answer to that question depends on whether or not one believes that the brain gives rise to consciousness, or merely "seats" it, or "transduces" it. In the former instance, the answer would have to be an unqualified "yes", in the later instance, a more nuanced and "qualified" yes. In the former instance, the brain localizes and locates consciousness. In the latter, it merely connects to it, allowing for that other mysterious quality of the heart.  The article continues with a lengthy discussion of the consciousness issues raised by the technology, with the company behind the technology of course denying any real consciousness in its disembodied brains, and thus they are free of any nasty moral culpabilities for their experiments.

Which brings us back to C.S. Lewis' novel, That Hideous Strength, which did not end so happily. Indeed, Lewis' disembodied brain experiment points the direction for today's high octane speculation. In his novel the brain is not only kept "alive", but it is actually enhanced, i.e., artificially stimulated to grow to enormous physical proportions such that it "spills over" from the original owner's skull (unhappily recently separated from his body by a French guillotine). The inevitable begins to happen, as the "scientists" in charge of the experiment (and of the Institute housing it) begin to "communicate" with whatever entity then occupied the brain (which, Lewis strongly suggests was not the same as the executed French murderer). The entity becomes increasingly more and more demanding and crazy in its "advice" until the whole thing comes to a shattering conclusion (with some help from "outside" as it were).

This brings me to my high octane speculation of the day, one suggested by Lewis' whole perspicacious plot.  What if the purpose of the disembodied brain-drug testing is only the ostensible front for a very different, much deeper, and potentially much more sinister development? What if the whole purpose was simply to perfect the technology of keeping a brain alive for very different purposes, such as merging them, or using them within, an artificial intelligence platform? Again, the ostensible purpose for doing so would be so that a real brain could "train" an artificial intelligence (and thereby tacitly acknowledging through the back door, so to speak, that it retained some consciousness or connection to its owner). But one might go much deeper. Elon Musk years ago posited a scenario in which artificial intelligence platforms might cross a threshold in which it gates, or transduces, or connects to, some "entity" that is conscious, or aware. It would seem that integrating a disembodied brain into such an experiment would be "just the ticket" for any sick-minded individual wanting to perform such a ghastly experiment.

Would "they" be capable of such a thing? Well, if they're willing to overlook questions of consciousness just to test brain reactions to drugs, my bet is they can overlook just about anything in order to pursue whatever grizzly experiment they might have in mind, including experiments in "transducing" consciousness into an artificial intelligence platform, and so on. We can even imagine them "speeding up the death process" in a manner similar to that Transhumanist Workers' Paradise That Is Communist China in order to procure brains for their experiments.

What they always seem to forget is that in Lewis' version of that transhumanist future, the whole thing goes horribly wrong, because not only does nature revolt, but the scientismists involved in the project become so irrational and morally unconstrained they can no longer understand one another, and the whole project ends in chaos and catastrophe.

In terms of the novel, we're about half way through the story...

See you on the flip side...

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