Add to all that the original point being made here - that human beings could be converted from an organic Homo sapiens to an inorganic life form to be propelled into space. For that to be remotely bearable for the person experiencing it, there would need to be continuity in their existence from one state to the other, which means simulating most of what it means to be a human being. That's all doable of course - once you've got an artificial brain you can just simulate sensory input to trick the brain into thinking it's inside a body which can sense the outside world. Or just put it inside a bigger simulation which has no bearing on the "real" world at all. But AI created from scratch without an uploaded human is different. It has no prior experience so has no requirement to conform to an organic experience of life.
Well the brain is who and what drives the body, so technically it is the essence of what a human being is. Not the same as downloading ones consciousness into a machine. The brain itself is not altered, except for how it moves the machine it is placed into. Ergo it would still have the biological brain of a human, in and controlling the hardware. That is what I was trying to say, that placing the organ in a robotic body would still be considered 'human' as far as intellect and consciousness are concerned. Also noted that it would take a highly advanced point in humanity to even attempt to do such a feat. And last time I checked the human brain is organic material, that is not manufactured outside of the body (generally speaking) when it comes to basic human development.
You can't separate the brain from the body. The brain is the body. We're discussing the brain as if it can be disembodied somehow. What we call human consciousness is just a trick our brain plays on us. We are in fact conscious of very little around us. Compare our sense of smell to that of a hound dog. A dog's life is practically built around its nose. Compare our eyesight to that of a horned owl that can spot a field mouse in the moonlight at 300 paces. I'm just saying that we're not as great as we tend to think we are. Yesterday I locked my keys in my car. And not for the first time did I call for a locksmith and was reminded of the fragile nature of human consciousness.
The brain is part of the body. But it's not the body. If you're speaking philosophically, in that the brain is what perceives the body thus is to all intents and purposes the body itself, then I still don't agree. There's nothing stopping a brain from being physically detached from a body as long as blood supply is maintained. The brain would continue to live in this state for as long as an oxygen and nutrient rich blood supply was maintained. A brain is just an arrangement of cells, like any other organ in the body. I don't know what would make you think otherwise. I'm not sure what relevance that has. A dog's nose is more sensitive than a human's because it has considerably more olfactory receptors in its nose, and a larger part of its brain is devoted to analysing olfactory information. But what that has to do with human consciousness or the possibility of separating a brain from its host body I don't know.
