And Slaters Go Plop » brain regeneration http://damian.peterson.net.nz The Bloggery of Damian Peterson Sun, 29 Aug 2010 19:01:01 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0.1 Thought Experiment #2 http://damian.peterson.net.nz/2008/07/31/thought-experiment-2/ http://damian.peterson.net.nz/2008/07/31/thought-experiment-2/#comments Thu, 31 Jul 2008 06:36:07 +0000 Damian http://damian.peterson.net.nz/?p=166 Imagine a super-duper clever machine that can work its way through your brain and, one cell at a time, remove a cell and create a new cell in its place that is physically identical in every way. I know that the brain has a lot of cells but let’s say one cell is replaced every hour and time isn’t an issue (this is, after all, a thought experiment).

When the machine was finished, what would you experience? That you are still there or that you have gradually died?

Or would there be a crucial part of the brain in which you cannot swap even a single cell without destroying what is “you”? If so, where might this be? And would this be remedied by replacing atom-by-atom?

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