Author notes

069 - Cock Blocked

El Cid

on May 3, 2016

Sort of a weird sequence there at the top of the page; Jetta's throwing the blade from right to left, and then on the next panel, it's flying from left to right. It's not an error necessarily; it's just two very different camera angles. I think in moviemaking they actually have a term for that. Like, they say you should never cut from one shot to another shot that's at more than a 180 degree angle because it's disorienting to the audience. Something like that. Or maybe I made that all up. I might've made it up.

But here's something I *definitely didn't make up…



The general idea behind how the Neptunians in this comic live indeterminately long lives is pretty simple: If medical technology is such that you can replace any part of your body, or even move your brain from a damaged, aged, disease-ridden body to a healthy new one, then you've more or less beaten the aging process… except there's one thing you can't replace: Your brain.

Or can you?

During the 2016 American presidential debates, candidate Ben Carson made a quip about his days as a neurosurgeon, when he once had to remove an entire half of a patient's brain. It's probably a shock to most people that a person actually can survive such an operation, and go on leading a normal life with only half a brain rattling around inside their skull.



But this leaves us with a disturbing quandry. We believe, no, we *know* that our brain is where our consciousness – our soul – resides. Our brain is what makes us “us.” But… you could live just fine without the right half of your brain. So that's not where your soul lives. Or, you could just as easily live without the left half of your brain. So that's not the essential part either. What the hell?!!

So, let's say you're a 120 year old aristocrat living in an orbital colony over Triton. You're on your second body now, but your brain isn't as sharp as it used to be. So, could you maybe have your noggin rewired, replace those frayed slow-firing neurons with brand new synthetic ones? Sure, why not! (in fact, you probably would have done this already a long time ago) And maybe you could replace some other things, like the parts that regulate balance and involuntary functions? Why the hell not! But would you still be you? Of course you would. We already do stuff like this to treat seizures and paralysis, and none of the recipients have noticed any “service interruptions,” so to speak. Their brains keep functioning like always, only better.



So how much of your brain could you replace, going about it this way? My guess is, all of it. You just wouldn't want to do it all at once. I think of it sort of like a flame being passed from one pile of kindling to another. You don't want to extinguish the whole fire and then start a new one there. Even if they could make that work, you end up in that whole Star Trek transporter beam paradox: Is the new you still the old you, or did they destroy the old you and make a new one?

Consciousness could be an illusory thing; nothing more than a self referential infinite feedback loop: We exist because we perceive ourselves existing therefore we exist because we perceive ourselves existing therefore we exist. We're mirages that can see ourselves. Consciousness may not be the manifestation of any physical structure in the brain, but rather it's a product of the abstraction process through which we process information and stimuli. It's a vexing thought, and a humbling one, but maybe replicating this mysterious thing we call consciousness in a synthetic construct… isn't nearly as tricky as we think it is.