Brain-brain integration in 2035: metaphysical and ethical implications

DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1108/JICES-10-2014-0042
Published date10 August 2015
Pages205-217
Date10 August 2015
AuthorSoraj Hongladarom
Subject MatterInformation & knowledge management,Information management & governance
Brain-brain integration in 2035:
metaphysical and ethical
implications
Soraj Hongladarom
Department of Philosophy, Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok, Thailand
Abstract
Purpose – The purpose of this study is to think ahead into the year 2035 and reect on the ethical
implications of brain-to-brain linking.
Design/methodology/approach – Philosophical argument.
Findings – It is quite likely that the direction of technological research today is heading toward a
closer integration of mind and machine in 2035. What is interesting is that the integration also makes
mind-mind or brain-brain integration possible too. There is nothing in principle that would prevent
hooking up more than one brain to a machine, or connecting two or more brains together to harness their
processing power to tackle a very complicated task. If that happens, the whole notion of what it is to be
an individual and a self will have to be rethought. I have offered a way in which that can be done: Instead
of viewing the self as being contained in a closed space traditionally dened by the skin, the self can
expand outside of the skin and merge temporarily with other selves too. This also has profound
implications on the notion of privacy, especially on how it is conceptualized and justied.
Research limitations/implications – This research is limited to theoretical argumentation only. It
relies on the current empirical and scientic investigations that are going on at the moment and provide
ethical reections on them.
Practical implications – We need to anticipate technological innovations to be more proactive in
deliberating and formulating policy and ethical guidelines; otherwise, ethicists will just muse after the
fact, implying that there is nothing further to be done.
Social implications – Brain-to-brain linking has tremendous social implications, so is the ethical
reection on the issue.
Originality/value Argument purporting to show the specic content in ethical guidelines on
brain-to-brain interlinking based on the metaphysics of the self that is directly implicated by the
technology has not been done before, according to the author’s best knowledge.
Keywords Privacy, Computer ethics, Robotics, Bioethics, Human values
Paper type Research paper
Introduction
Talking about the future can be useful in letting us have an idea of what the world will
look like and prepare for it. What I would like to do in this paper is to venture a
Research for this paper has been supported partially by a grant from the World Class University
Project, Chulalongkorn University, grant no. WCU-H3-064-57. The rst draft of the paper was
presented at the ETHICOMP conference in Paris, in June 2014. Author would like to thank Charles
Ess and Bernd Carsten Stahl for their comments and support. Special gratitude is also extended to
the anonymous reviewers of this paper and to Profs Rao and Stocco for granting their permission
to use the diagram of their research.
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:
www.emeraldinsight.com/1477-996X.htm
Brain-brain
integration in
2035
205
Received 7 October 2014
Revised 14 January 2015
Accepted 3 March 2015
Journalof Information,
Communicationand Ethics in
Society
Vol.13 No. 3/4, 2015
pp.205-217
©Emerald Group Publishing Limited
1477-996X
DOI 10.1108/JICES-10-2014-0042

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