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Philosopher Dvija Mehta thinks mind-machine integration dissolves self-boundaries.
In March, Noland Arbaugh showed he could play chess mentally. After eight years of paralysis, a brain implant from Elon Musk’s Neuralink firm allowed him to accomplish previously impossible activities.
“It just became intuitive for me to imagine the cursor moving,” livestreamed Arbaugh. “I just stare somewhere on the screen, and it would move where I wanted it to.”
Arbaugh implied he moved the chess piece. He or the implant did the work?
This subject intrigues me as a philosophy of mind and AI ethicist. Brain-computer interface (BCI) technologies like Neuralink represent a new age in brain-machine interaction, challenging our beliefs about identity, self, and responsibility. Arbaugh and others will gain from the technology in the short term, but its uses may expand. The company’s long-term goal is to provide such implants to the public to boost their talents. Should a machine that can execute brain functions be considered an extension of the human mind or something else?
The expanded mind
Philosophers have discussed personality boundaries for decades: where does our thinking finish and the outside world begin? You may think our thoughts are in our brains and bodies. Some philosophers believe it’s more complex.
In 1998, philosophers David Chalmers and Andy Clarke proposed the “extended mind” concept, claiming technology may become part of us. The couple advocated an active externalism, a philosophical stance in which people might delegate parts of their mental processes to external artifacts and integrate them into their minds. This before the smartphone, but it foreshadowed how we today transfer cognitive work to technology, from navigating to remembering.
Arbaugh’s implant may not be in his mind, raising doubts about his responsibility.
Chalmers and Clarke envisaged a situation “in the cyberpunk future” where a brain implanted person controlled screen things like Arbaugh.
Arbaugh imagines moving pawns and bishops to play chess. In this scenario, Neuralink’s N1 implant detects neural patterns indicating his intent before decoding, processing, and acting.
How do we interpret this philosophically now that it’s happened? Is Arbaugh’s implant part of his thoughts and intentions? If not, it raises difficult concerns regarding his responsibility.
Consider occurrences vs. doings to see why. Happenings include our ideas, beliefs, wants, fantasies, contemplations, and ambitions. Doings are actions, like scrolling down this page with your fingers.
No gap usually exists between events and doings. Let’s imagine Nora, a non-BCI-integrated lady, playing chess. She may regulate her actions to advance the pawn to d3 by moving her hand. Nora’s purpose and action are intertwined; she moved the pawn herself.
Arbaugh must envision his goal, and the implant acts externally. Happenings and doings differ here.
Why technology and humans developed together
A brain implant user’s ability to achieve executive control over BCI-integrated activities is a major problem. Would implant-controlled activities feel strange? Human brains and bodies already cause sneezes, clumsiness, and pupil dilation. Does the implant feel like a parasite eating away at a person’s will?
I call this the pondering conundrum. Arbaugh ignores critical causal chain steps like his hand movement that instantiates his chess move. What if Arbaugh first considers moving his piece to d3 but then decides to move it to d4 in a split second? What if he imagines possibilities and the implant misinterprets one as an intention?
Chess is low-stakes, but if these implants become prevalent, personal responsibility becomes more complicated. What if an implant-controlled activity caused physical harm?
These technologies bring further ethical issues. Perfunctory commercialization without overcoming the pondering problem and other difficulties might lead to a science-fiction dystopia. Implants may cause identity loss, manipulation, and mental privacy, like in William Gibson’s Neuromancer.
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When does “happening of imagination” become “intentional imagination to act” in the contemplation conundrum? Thinking about what words to use in this statement is purposeful. Intentional imagining leads to typing words.
It’s practically hard to distinguish imagination from purpose in neurobiology. One group of neuroscientists found no neuronal “intentions to act” in 2012. Without the capacity to recognize brain signals that identify this change in someone like Arbaugh, it may be unclear which imagined scenario causes bodily effects. This places some responsibility and ownership of action on the implant, raising the issue of whether his acts are actually his and part of his identity.
Now that Chalmers and Clarke’s extended mind thought experiment has been realized, I suggest reviewing their core concepts to bridge the gap between brain implant patients’ occurring and doings. The expanded mind idea would let Arbaugh take responsibility for his actions instead of the implant. To perceive something as one’s own, one must think about it as one’s own, says this cognitive approach. Thus, people must consider the implant part of their self-identity and inner existence. This may lead to agency, ownership, and responsibility.
Arbaugh’s brain implant has surely sparked philosophical arguments regarding mind-machine boundaries. Action and agency debates have focused on the skin-skull identity border. Brain implants make this border flexible, allowing the ego to expand deeper into technology than ever before. According to Chalmers and Clarke, “Once the hegemony of skin and skull is usurped, we may be able to see ourselves more truly as creatures of the world.”
