Is it theoretically possible to transplant a brain hemisphere?

But you are both the carrier and source...

so any psychonaut should handle it well

[citation needed]

mental illness

if you use the same argument again i'd say, what does it matter then? your source is useless, you're as you as your 'carrier' allows you to be

How would you know if it was still me and that I didn't die? Have you solved the problem of consciousness?

What is the source?

semantically speaking you as you would be dead, what are you arguing exactly?

i finally decided to read up on the exact definiton of the hard problem of consciousness to try to give you an opinion, so here goes:
it's a retarded postulation filled with vague terms by a brainlet philosopher. if the guy thinks we're anywhere near close to fully mapping out how the human brain works, enough to say 'no, nothing could ever explain being self-aware and having experiences' he's dead wrong, which i believe will be proven with the advancement of AI

i'm not being a reductionist, you're being cheeky

Then you don't really get it. Can you explain how you would encode the color blue? Not wavelength's or any of that but the actual color? It's impossible. No computer could ever be conscious, biological or otherwise. Computers merely encode symbols, they can't possibly be conscious of what those symbols represent. At what point does a signal from a neuron triggering a neurotransmitter magically turn into a feeling? All those things are are symbols, there can't be any feelings or experiences formed from that.

>Can you explain how you would encode the color blue? Not wavelength's or any of that but the actual color?
it's like that 'tell me what 2+2 equals but don't give me four, give me a real answer' macro, the specific wavelength causes a specific conformational change in the protein that your cells synthesize and most probably we ourselves have assigned a specific value to it, this is how we evolved to perceive electromagnetic waves, consider the fact that some species can see other parts of the spectrum. what does that mean for them? the wavelength IS the color interpreted through our own brains, you're bringing in distinctions in a place where you don't need them

>Computers merely encode symbols, they can't possibly be conscious of what those symbols represent.
but they don't represent anything until we assign a meaning to them. computers are like this because we have programmed them to be like this, why are you so sure that in the future neural networks won't be advanced enough to understand the meaning we put behind abstract concepts for example?

>All those things are are symbols, there can't be any feelings or experiences formed from that.
i hope you're not implying different neurotransmitters going to different parts of the brain combined with the personal experience of a person don't modulate feelings because this is absolutely wrong and any psychiatric disorder can attest to that

>the wavelength IS the color interpreted through our own brains
No it isn't. There is no reason to believe 450nm has to look like we perceive blue to look. There is clearly a separation between picking up the wavelength and the actual color blue. Also your rods and cones don't send the exact wavelength to your brain, they send a signal the brain can understand and associate with blue. This is how any and all computers work not just ones we designed.

>why are you so sure that in the future neural networks won't be advanced enough to understand the meaning we put behind abstract concepts for example
Because it is literally impossible. Computers are nothing more than symbols on tape there is no such thing as a computer that "understands" anything. Now I can tell you that we will definitely have computers that are capable of behaving just like people in fact maybe even being better than us at things but not a single one will ever at any point be conscious (unless consciousness is some kind of magical force that pops up out of nowhere).

>i hope you're not implying different neurotransmitters going to different parts of the brain combined with the personal experience of a person don't modulate feelings because this is absolutely wrong and any psychiatric disorder can attest to that
They relate to them but the signals themselves aren't the feelings. What I am suggesting is that either matter itself is intrinsically "conscious" or electromagnetism or something else is. The point is that our brains might be part computer, but they are more than that. They also can't merely be a mechanical thing, consciousness is fundamental.

>first point
i'm not saying there's a specific reason, there is nothing that demands that there be a reason for 450nm to be blue, it just is because that's how we evolved to perceive it relative to other wavelengths. you literally explain it yourself in your next sentence, the photoreceptors send the signal that your brain associates with blue.

>second point
i've seen this argued before, how will you determine that the neural network isn't conscious? in living things, where do you draw the line of consciousness? everything with a nervous system? humans, animals?

>third point
so how can we use electrodes to stimulate particular parts of the brain to elicit emotions? are they fake or is consciousness just susceptible to shocks?

i just have a problem with conceptualizing what 'something more' might mean

>it just is because that's how we evolved to perceive it relative to other wavelengths
But you can only store a symbol that represents blue not the actual color. If you can't numerically describe something without losing any details about that thing then it is something that is unquantifiable and impossible to be computed.

>how will you determine that the neural network isn't conscious?
If we are assuming an ordinary physicalist interpretation then I would argue it very clearly can't ever be conscious. Maybe if you are a panpsychist you would say it is conscious I don't know. The point is consciousness can't be created from computation.

>are they fake or is consciousness just susceptible to shocks?
Well maybe the electromagnetic force is conscious in some way? I'm not saying it is for sure but the point is reality has a mental basis. Whether that means everything is an illusion or everything is conscious I don't know but there is no way you can account for consciousness with a purely physical world.

>first point
describe to me the difference between the symbol that represents blue and the actual color blue, there isn't a symbol because it's the literal interpretation of what's in your mind. what kind of concept of the color blue do you have beside that it looks blue? also, you are numerically describing it by virtue of the frequency of action potentials your neurons fire that correspond to the precoded interpretation of the color blue

>second point
i don't know what a physicalist interpretation means. consciousness can't be created from computation, okay so i ask you again, what do you think counts as conscious? you have to be a bit more specific than everything.

>third point
this is a bit /x/-tier for me but i'm sure it might have some merit to it, i don't know how to respond though. we should probably wait for more neurophysiology advancements before we take a definitive stance

also
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bereitschaftspotential
consciousness tricks you into believing it's more than it really is

Assuming that the person could survive after such process and function properly, I guess that neuroplasticity would make the repeated hemisphere become the opposite.

>also, you are numerically describing it by virtue of the frequency of action potentials your neurons fire that correspond to the precoded interpretation of the color blue
You aren't understanding the point. I can describe blue as 0 0 255 but that does not convey the actual appearance of the color blue. In brain speak you might describe it as "frequency of action potentials" but again that does not translate in any capacity to what it is like to see blue.

> what do you think counts as conscious
The ability to experience things at least. Being able to actually feel and not just having a machine that can react to stimulus.

>we should probably wait for more neurophysiology advancements before we take a definitive stance
That's fine I'm not saying I know the truth but it is obvious, at least to me, that the current view of the brain as merely a computer is false. I'm not saying it isn't part computer but consciousness can't come out of computation or mechanical processes alone.

>consciousness tricks you into believing it's more than it really is
Consciousness is the only thing that is for sure not a trick.

>
and you aren't understanding mine, that's why i asked you to explain it to me. what is it like to see blue? i'm starting to feel genuinely curious. is this board two shades of blue?

>
sure. so do you not think you aren't computed then? you realize you react to stimuli before they reach your conscious awareness?

>
it is much more complex than a computer but that doesn't mean it can't be reverse-engineered.

>
your consciousness itself isn't a trick, it is however tricking itself so you feel in charge, if i'm allowed to quote bane

aeon.co/essays/the-hard-problem-of-consciousness-is-a-distraction-from-the-real-one
just read this, pretty much sums up any further points i could make

>what is it like to see blue
I'm sorry you aren't able to see blue. It really is indescribable but it is very beautiful.

>you realize you react to stimuli before they reach your conscious awareness
That helps my point, it shows consciousness is something more than just mechanical reactions.

That essay is silly. How on earth do you think there can be a subjective experience if everything is just mechanical? How could a machine become conscious? Don't you see how silly it is to say it can just form out of completely mechanical interactions? The only explanation for that is if consciousness is already a part of building blocks for those interactions.

I am a neuroscientist.

In terms of transplanting a hemisphere in adults this would be very challenging as the normal inner connections between the hemispheres would be severed.

Nonetheless it would be very feasible to transplant a hemisphere in an embryo before these connections were made.

I think an interesting experiment would be to transplant a hemisphere from one type of animal into another. Consider an animal with half of the brain being from a cat and the other from a dog. Or even the wilder experiment of replacing one hemisphere of a human brain with that of a dog. Presuming that I interconnections between the hemispheres would allow direct communication, we could finally answer the question, "what do dogs think?"

Has no one really mentioned the fact that you'd need to mirror reflect the hemisphere somehow to get it to even fit in the head? Like you can't just replace a left foot with a right foot, it needs to be another left foot. You could have another person's right hemisphere instead of your own maybe, but obviously not two lefts or two rights

Just put it upside down.

Neuroscience is one of the very few things that kills my hopes of being wrong about the non-existence of a soul or a afterlife. You should be removed from society.

you're just repeating talking points that are meant to sound profound but don't mean anything again, are you a philosophy major actually?

of course there can be subjective experience purely based on the amount of possibility of scenarios a person can find themselves into, your brain integrates all of it and creates a story for itself

>I'm sorry you aren't able to see blue.
you didn't answer my question. please describe the actual difference between the color blue and the symbol for the color blue

>shows consciousness is something more than just mechanical reactions
no it doesn't mean that, because for example you think you wanted to move your hand but your brain had already decided that for 'you', your 'consciousness' simply receives input and integrates it in a consistent way. what part of this is impossible to be explained mechanically?

I'm not that user, but
>you didn't answer my question. please describe the actual difference between the color blue and the symbol for the color blue
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knowledge_argument
plato.stanford.edu/entries/qualia-knowledge/
>no it doesn't mean that, because for example you think you wanted to move your hand but your brain had already decided that for 'you', your 'consciousness' simply receives input and integrates it in a consistent way. what part of this is impossible to be explained mechanically?
That's the easy problem. The real problem is why there's this consciousness at all.