Using Human Brains to Host Other People

[Mister E]

For a hard-cyperpunk setting, do you think the standard human brain actually has the computing power to house the full consciousness of other people's thoughts running around in the background... possibly in some form of abstracted dream-like sense with all the trimmings of total simulated reality... like as in for temporary storage and future extraction?

 

If so, do you think this would make the host dumber or smarter?

[Comic]

Re: Using Human Brains to Host Other People

 

Technically, human language requires two vectors of context and one of utterance to map the meaning of expressions.

 

Each of these vectors is countably infinite, or co-equal with Aleph-null.

 

Three vectors would therefore be co-finite with Aleph-sub-two.

 

Provided that the human mind is identified with the human brain, that thought in the human brain is the engine of human language, and that human language is accepted to be no more infinite than human thought, the presumed cardinality of the human brain is also Aleph-2.

 

Aleph-2 is the cardinality of the real universe of physical description (i.e. three dimensional space), coincidentally. Any CPU has a cardinality equal to the cardinality of its processing threads, usually Aleph-null, or two orders of infinity below human thought.

 

Therefore, with current computer technology, it would take infinite CPU's to fully model one human mind, or one multifunctional quantum computer, or one brown-box computer.

 

So, a human brain could contain a whole computer or computer network worth of processes, but at present not the other way around.. arguably.

 

So long as only a finite number of human minds were considered, there is no mathematical constrain on one human mind containing the whole of another human mind, barring infinite regress (through recursion.)

 

Of course, that's just me being funny. For a serious answer, you may need to consult a psychologist or witch doctor.

[Mister E]

Re: Using Human Brains to Host Other People

 

I see. So do you think, if say, two minds were present in one brain, that they would interact with each other... or do you imagine they would be insensible to each other?

 

... and repped for such a fine answer, btw.

[Comic]

Re: Using Human Brains to Host Other People

 

Oh, my answer isn't completely original, but the source has since repudiated it, and I've forgotten who it was.

 

Multiple Personality Disorder (for example) seems to model personalities with different degrees of separation, which I'd have to leave to you how much you rely on descriptions of this controversial condition.

 

People have been known through disease or injury to have had their brains physically separated left-to-right, and both sides apparently are able to function more or less independently with, again, varying degrees of ability, disability and separation, and also with some controversy about this phenomenon.

 

So, my answer is 'could be or maybe not'.

[Outsider]

Re: Using Human Brains to Host Other People

 

The human brain evolved to run/store a single human mind. To run/store two human minds would (presumably) require more brain. If the human brain does have the capability of running/storing two human minds, what does it do with all that excess capacity when it only has one mind in residence? Certainly it does -something- with the capacity, or else it wouldnt have evolved it.

 

Personally, I don't think a brain could run two distinct minds simultaneously, but would be willing to suspend my disbelief for the sake of a good game.

[Nyrath]

Re: Using Human Brains to Host Other People

 

For an interesting adaptation of this, read Piers Anthony's CLUSTER series

http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pe.cgi?2878

 

In the novels, it is possible to travel FTL between stars with teleportation. Unfortunately the energy cost is outrageous.

 

But the cost can be brought down if instead of teleporting your entire body, one just sends your Kirlian Aura (i.e., your soul) to take temporary residence in a host body at the destination. If the host body is an alien, you have access to the host's knowledge. This includes the local language, customs, etc.

 

Each day the aura is in a host body, its strength decreases. When it reaches zero the aura dies. So one has to teleport back to your original body before that happens. Interstellar agents are recruited from people who have higher than average aura strength.

 

In the novels, aliens teleporting their auras to Earth would regularly cause the host to wind up in insane asylums, babbling about the weird voices in their heads. One fine day some scientist discovered the truth, and Earth entered into the interstellar community.