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[Note that, if you are only interested in Advaita-related aspects, you can safely ignore this part and the next and wait for Part 8.]
Q: One can envisage that scientific advances will soon enable the possibility of keeping the severed head (or extracted brain) of a human alive and able to communicate (perhaps electronically to a computer rather than by speech). What have Western philosophers said about the status of such an entity in respect of consciousness?
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A: Great question — it sits at the intersection of metaphysics, personal identity, and applied ethics, and philosophers have discussed closely related thought-experiments for decades. Below I summarise the main Western philosophical positions that bear on the scenario you sketch (a severed head or extracted brain kept alive and able to communicate), give the ethical implications each view highlights, and point to accessible sources you can read next.
I’ll give a short roadmap first, then the positions, then the ethical consequences and a brief practical summary.
Roadmap — three dominant philosophical attitudes
- Biological / “animalist” view: personal identity is tied to the living human organism. If the organism is gone, the person is gone. A severed brain/head raises difficult “creation/destruction” problems. (White Rose Research Online)
- Psychological / continuity view (Parfit-style): what matters is psychological continuity (memories, personality, conscious states). If the brain/head preserves that continuity, the person continues. (Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
- Functionalist / “brain-in-a-vat” and emulation view: consciousness and personhood supervene on functional states; if the brain (or a faithful emulation) is functionally intact, the entity has conscious experience and claims to personhood—and epistemic skepticism (Putnam etc.) complicates how they can report it. (Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
Now the positions in more detail.
1 — Biological / Animalism
Core claim: you are essentially the human animal (the living organism). Personal identity over time is identity of the biological organism; psychological continuity is not the basic criterion.
Applied to a severed brain/head:
- Some animalists argue that the living organism is the whole human body. A severed head or isolated brain is not the same biological organism, so strictly speaking it is not the same person (it may be a new organism or a non-organism). This gives rise to odd consequences (creation/destruction problems): removing the brain could be a case of creating a new person (the brain-person) and destroying the organism-person. Critics see this as implausible but animalism remains a mainstream rival to psychological theories. (White Rose Research Online)
What it focuses on ethically:
- Preservation of the organism (body) and the integrity of biological life.
- Legal/personhood questions become awkward: would the brain/head have the same rights as the person that existed prior to separation?
Key reference: Eric Olson’s writings on animalism and its puzzles. (White Rose Research Online)
2 — Psychological continuity (Parfit and successors)
Core claim: survival (what matters) is psychological continuity and connectedness — memories, beliefs, personality — not strict bodily continuity. Parfit famously argues that identity can reduce to relations of psychological continuity.
Applied to a severed brain/head:
- If the brain/head, when maintained, continues to instantiate the person’s memories and personality (and can communicate), then the person survives in the brain/head on this account. Cases like brain transplants or whole-brain emulation are treated as possible continuers of the same person so long as psychological continuity is preserved. (Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
What it focuses on ethically:
- If psychological continuity is preserved, the brain/head deserves the same moral consideration and rights as the prior person. Medical decisions (consent, withdrawal of support) should respect the continuing mental life and its interests.
- Parfitian thinking also dissolves some puzzles: identity might be a matter of degree or relation rather than an all-or-nothing fact.
Key reference: Parfit, Reasons and Persons; summaries in standard personal-identity literature. (Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
3 — Functionalism, Brains-in-Vats, and Emulation
Core claim: mental states (including consciousness) supervene on functional organization. If the functional patterns that realize consciousness are preserved (whether in biological tissue or silicon), the system has the corresponding mental states.
Relevant philosophical issues:
- Brain-in-a-vat thought experiments (Harman/Putnam) raise skeptical and semantic complications about whether a disembodied brain could know or truthfully say what it is. Putnam’s semantic externalism famously complicates how the brain could correctly refer to “brains” and “vats” in its simulated world — but that debate concerns epistemic access, not the existence of consciousness per se. (Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
- Whole brain emulation / uploading: if one could emulate a brain’s functional dynamics precisely in a computer, functionalists tend to accept that consciousness (and the person) would continue in the emulation, subject to ethical and technical caveats. Recent philosophical and technical literature discusses the ethics of emulations and how vulnerable such entities might be. (ResearchGate)
What it focuses on ethically:
- If consciousness is present in the preserved brain/head (or its emulation), it has moral status and rights, including protection from suffering, autonomy, potential legal personhood, etc. Ethical literature on brain–computer interfaces (BCIs) and emulation stresses consent, welfare, vulnerability, and governance. (PMC)
4 — Additional philosophical nuances that matter here
- Epistemic problem: how do we know it’s conscious?
- Behavioural reports and communication are good evidence, but philosophers worry about deception, confabulation, or simulation. The brain/head case reduces some worries (if the biological substrate is preserved, the chance of genuine consciousness is higher), but the core epistemic challenge remains. (See brain-in-a-vat literature.) (Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
- Legal and practical status
- Current medical law relies on criteria like “brain death” (whole-brain or brainstem criteria). A living, communicating severed brain would unsettle these standards and force new legal categories about bodily integrity, personhood, and decision-making capacity. Medical-ethical literature on BCIs and emulations already urges preparedness for such boundary cases. (PMC)
- Moral risk and vulnerability
- Emulated or preserved brains might be extremely vulnerable (dependent on technicians, power, and networks). Philosophers and ethicists stress protections against abuse, exploitation, and needless suffering. (PMC)
- Identity puzzles remain
- Split-brain cases, brain transplants, fission/fusion thought experiments all show how hard it is to give a single intuitive account of identity. Different theories pull in different directions, and each has morally relevant consequences. (rintintin.colorado.edu)
5 — Practical ethical takeaways (what philosophers advise policymakers / clinicians)
- Err on the side of moral protection: if the preserved brain/head shows continuity of memory/personality and can communicate preferences, many ethicists argue we should treat it as having moral status and protect its interests. (This is the precautionary principle in ethics of emulations/BCIs.) (PMC)
- Create legal categories & consent mechanisms: existing law will likely be inadequate; advance directives and explicit consent frameworks should be anticipated. (PMC)
- Govern vulnerable systems: ensure oversight for research that could create subjectively rich but vulnerable entities (emulations, preserved brains). Ethical frameworks for humane treatment and minimising suffering are called for. (PMC)
6 — Short illustrative examples from the literature
- Putnam / Brain-in-a-vat: shows how radical sceptical scenarios complicate semantics and knowledge claims, but leaves open that a disembodied brain could have experiences if appropriately stimulated. (Philosophy Department)
- Olson’s Animalism: resists assigning personhood to detached parts, leading to counterintuitive “creation/destruction” problems for severed brains/heads. (White Rose Research Online)
- Parfit-style accounts: support the intuition that a preserved brain with psychological continuity is the same person in the morally important sense. (Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
- Ethics of emulation / BCI reviews: underscore that if machines or biological brains are producing conscious, communicative states we must attend to consent, welfare, and legal status. (PMC)
7 — Bottom line (concise)
- Philosophers disagree because they start from different theories of what persons are. If you favour biological organism identity, a severed brain/head may not be the same person; if you favour psychological continuity or functionalism, the preserved brain/head that continues a person’s memories and psychology plausibly is that person and should be treated accordingly. In any event, contemporary practical ethics urges treating a communicating preserved brain as if it has moral status until there is compelling reason to deny it (the precautionary approach). (White Rose Research Online)
*** End of part 6 ***