Leave your body and hold your hand alone, acquire a new one limb or living in a robotic body: these are science fiction scenarios, present on a theoretical level only in the speculations of Transhumanist friends, but today comes a new, important confirmation that in a (distant?) future they could be reality.
Swedish neuroscientist Henrik Ehrsson demonstrated that the image that our the brain's body can be 'negotiated'. Ask a child if his hand is part of the body and he will answer "of course!". What are the mechanisms by which the brain identifies and considers the body in which it finds itself as "its"? We can understand and replicate the mental mechanisms that make the physical body a center of our awareness?
In a series of recently published essays, the scholar of the Karolinksa Institutet, a university medical center in Sweden, showed how the brain's perception of the body it is in can change considerably. Through a coordinated manipulation of the senses, the subjects involved in Ehrsson's study can feel even artificial objects as parts of the body, or feel a body completely different from their own as their own.
“By clarifying how the brain produces a sense of belonging to a body, we can learn to 'redesign' this awareness by focusing it on artificial and even simulated bodies, and allow a future in which it will be possible to exchange awareness between two bodies,” declares the researcher.
The studies answer crucial questions on the relationship between the mind and the body of an individual: very delicate topics on a theological, philosophical and psychological level which they can find a decisive development only with the complete identification of the multisensory mechanisms through which the central nervous system distinguishes between the signals that come from a body and those that come from the surrounding environment.
Possible developments – Such research could bring very important consequences in vast fields of science and society: it would be possible to develop prostheses of limbs perceived as parts of the body 'original', and virtual reality applications that would allow us to transfer our consciousness into 'virtual bodies' generated by the computer. A bit like in James Cameron's film 'Avatar', in short.
The state of the research – Ehrsson's team is currently focusing its studies on the type of bodies that the brain can perceive as its own: it is possible, for example, to 'feel' bodies of other sexes, age and size, but not in inanimate objects such as chairs or tables. Part of the team is studying the possibility of 'perceiving' ourselves in tiny bodies, or with multiple limbs.
It's a really interesting binary, which could demonstrate the possibility that our consciousness can live (and survive) even within virtual 'bodies'. It could demonstrate, in other words, the possibility that Mind Uploading could be a reality.
