Alina Wang, 2/4/2016

PHI/PSY 209
Daniel Dennetts paper Where am I? proposes a thought experiment in which Dennetts
brain is removed from his body. It is a special removal, in that the brain is kept in a life support
system so that it is as fully functional as it originally was in the body, and radio wave
transmitters are used to allow the brain to remotely control the body. Following events are
presented both to challenge this situation of the separation between brain and body and to
illuminate the nature of their relationship. The one event that troubles me the most is when the
brain is replicated by an advanced computer, so that the brain and computer function identically
and process information in perfect sync. In this response, I will investigate whether this event is
possible, and if it is why it is so bothersome.
That a brain could indeed be removed from the body and have remote control wiring via
radio wave transmitters in such a way that the brain and body are fully functional is difficult to
accept. It is similarly difficult to imagine that a brain could be duplicated by a computer
program, no matter how intricate and immense it is. I am not very experienced in neuroscience,
but from my knowledge, hormones are deeply important to the brain function and are regulated
within the body. Also, the central nervous system is essential to mental experiences. Both
hormones and central nervous system would not be replicated in the brain-in-the-vat description
Dennett gives. But even supposing that it is possible to create an artificial system that regulates
the hormone flow in the brain-in-the-vat and mimics the function of the central nervous system, I
wonder whether a computer program could copy this fully intact mind, sitting in a vat. I also do
not know much about computer science, but I do know that it is based on hand-written codes,
and information is represented by binary numbers. I believe it is certain that no number of
humans, even over many generations, could record every code necessary to model the full

complexity of a mind. We can try to observe and estimate our consciousness, but consciousness
is influenced by unconscious processes, which we cannot access. Because it is impossible to
know all the details and reality of these unconscious processes, we cannot even attempt to
replicate them through computer programming, and therefore any mind we try to model will be
incomplete.
But even if we assume that it is possible to replicate a fully functional mind on a
computer program, and the mind and computer run in exact sync to each other, I dont think that
Dennett would experience a continuity of consciousness when he switches the input of the source
of consciousness from one to the other. Even with all the exact information and functions
residing inside the brain and the computer, they are still separate copies of each other. I can only
imagine that there exist two separate consciousnesses. Although these two consciousnesses will
behave identically, they are still different and discontinuous. To demonstrate this phenomenon in
an analogy, I propose that a kid in Pennsylvania, U.S could start watching a movie, and another
kid in Anhui, China could play this same movie on the same movie-watching system starting at
the exact same time, but the events of this movie being watched as still separate events. The kids
on either side of the earth are not experiencing the literally identical event, at the same point in
space and time, as how Dennett describes himself experiencing the identical brains as continuous
with one another. I suppose the breaking point for me is that the brain and the computer occupy
different points in space, even if they share identical content and time. I believe the mind is so
enmeshed in the body that this separation in space between the two minds is equivalent to their
separation in being.
If I believed mind were a separate substance than body, as Descartian dualism maintains,
then I probably wouldnt have this problem in conceiving the continuity of consciousness

between two physically separate minds. But I cant get over the incoherency of interactionism so
that I must maintain that there is only one substance. In my opinion, this substance is beyond
mind or matter, and it is but our limited perception that gives us the experiences of physicality
and mentality. Because there is only one substance, the mind and brain are inseparable, so having
one brain in a vat and another brain in a computer sitting somewhere outside the vat makes
continuity of consciousness between these brains impossible.