Neuroscientist Discusses the Idea of Consciousness Transfer From the New Movie Self/less

A new thriller starring Ben Kingsley and Ryan Reynolds explores the idea of transferring consciousness from one body to another. Unlike Freaky Friday, or the myriad of other family movies and comedies that have explored the idea, this one actually explores the science of the process. In the movie Self/less, a rich business man (Kingsley) is dying of cancer. However, he is able to prolong his "self" by transferring his consciousness from one body to another using a medical procedure called "shedding." You may be wondering how such a far-out concept can actually have any science to it. I wondered the same thing, so I asked a neuroscientist what he thought. I spoke with Dr. Charles Higgins, one of the movie's scientific consultants, and an associate professor of neuroscience and electrical engineering at the University of Arizona. He has a particularly interesting perspective on this topic, because he has been interfacing insect brains with robots. I started the interview by asking him more about this work. Ryan Reynolds (in foreground) stars as Young Damian and Ben Kingsley (in background) stars as Damian Hale in Gramercy Pictures' provocative psychological thriller Self/less, directed by Tarsem Singh and written by Alex Pastor & David Pastor. Credit: Alan Markfield / Gramercy Pictures Alejandro Rojas: In what ways do you integrate insect brains with robots? Dr. Charles Higgins: To put it in a nutshell, since about 1987, I have been interested in trying to understand ho...
Source: Science - The Huffington Post - Category: Science Source Type: news