Synthetic Bodies & Minds

I’ll warn you in advance that this blog post is mostly based upon notes from my notebook entry of 11th Feb. 2023, and is primarily about what I had going through my head after waking from a thought provoking dream. So apologies if it’s a bit rambling. I’ve illustrated the post with some of my artwork that loosely (admittedly, sometimes looser than an old pair of underpants where the elastic has perished) touches on the topics I discuss.

'Baby Kit', sculpture, 1998, by artist Wayne Chisnall

For the last three nights I’ve not slept as fully and deeply as I normally would. Usually I fall asleep within minutes of my head hitting the pillow. As well as being awake for large portions of the last three nights, I’ve also had periods of semi-wakefulness/semi-sleep in which I’ve been, only what I can call, ‘dream-thinking’ – that peculiar state of abstract thought that only makes sense in the borderlands between sleep and wakefulness (and upon fully waking, is nonsensical).

This morning I surfaced from a shallow dream, thinking about a possible future alongside synthetic humans (it’s only as I write this now that I remember, back in 2012, being asked by Purdue University in the US if they could use an image of my life-size model kit sculpture, ‘And When I’m a Man, I’ll Think As a Man’, for a poster advertising a lecture called ‘Synthetic Life: a New Industrial Revolution?’). This train of dream-thought was definitely triggered by my current reading material. At the moment I’m reading a few books written or partly set within the 19th Century – H. G. Wells’ ‘The Sleeper Awakes’, Alasdair Gray’s ‘Poor Things’, and Jeannette Winterson’s ‘Frankissstein’. The last two books take inspiration from Mary Shelley’s ‘Frankenstein’ (a book that has greatly influenced much of my artwork); more so with Winterson’s book, which actually incorporates Mary Shelley as a character, as well as drawing parallels between the creation of the Monster in Shelley’s book and the coming of the AI age.

Anyway – back to my dream thoughts. I must have been dreaming about medical advances where defective body parts could be replaced with synthetic/artificially created versions (although, I don’t now recall any such dream) because once I remerged into the conscious world I lay in bed thinking about it for some time. I contemplated a time, in a not too distant future, where these synthetic replacements for failing organs and limbs would be commonplace. I reasoned that this would initially happen for medical reasons but, knowing human nature, envisaged that people would soon opt for fully synthesised bodies just because they can, and because they’d no longer have to worry about trivialities such as illness, or mortality for that matter. In this possible future I’m imagining a synthetic body that is more akin to a natural biological one, complete with the sense of touch, and the ability to self-repair – much like our own current bodies, only more reliably so. I’m thinking along the lines of a more aesthetically pleasing (because, given the choice, who wouldn’t want a body that looked a bit better than the original) and more hardwearing upgrade, rather than an artificial-looking, robot body. Although, given the current popularity of cosmetic surgery and comedic facial modifications (‘trout pout’ lips and bizarre eye brow shaping etc.) I’m sure that there will be many eager to embrace the obviously counterfeit. 

As the brain is also part of the physical body I can easily imagine a time (possibly not so near future though) when that too can be successfully scanned and reproduced in artificial form. Hence, a person might become fully artificial. And at which point, if any, does a person cease to be themselves? If a person has their body parts replaced bit by bit, I imagine that until the brain is replaced, as long as the replacement body parts look, work and feel the same, they might still feel like the same person. However, if in the case of something like early stages dementia, where it became necessary to replace the brain with an exact copy (albeit an artificial one, but with all the previous memories and feelings of the original restored to good working order), would the ‘restored’ version of that person feel that they are still their authentic self? Even if they did, how could they be sure? And how could their friends and family be sure? 

By this point in the future maybe they would have dispensed with the brain swap operation altogether and simply go for fully synthesising a completely new body and brain (scanned to still perfectly match the original person’s memories, thoughts, feelings, preferences and emotions) from scratch, and simply putting the organic original to sleep, then ending its (I just noticed how easily I went from ‘their’ to ‘its’) life, and disposing of the body.

'Pharos Cyclops #1', sculpture, by artist Wayne Chisnall

Interestingly, if this full body and mind replacement became the norm, what would this replacement version do with their old body? Would they have a funeral for themselves? This could be interesting as they could attend it and get to hear what people said about them. Maybe an open casket would be a bit freaky, especially with the upgraded version walking about like a non-evil doppelganger. Although, after the initial novelty of the first of these, I imagine that these ‘selfie funerals’ would either become a social rites of passage, or the norm would be for the body to be discreetly incinerated as medical waste.

'Doll Arm', acrylic on plywood wall plaque, by artist Wayne Chisnall

I do wonder though, what psychological effects these rebirths would have upon the artificial reincarnations. To prevent emotional trauma would viewing the corpse of their earlier/natural selves be considered a no-no, and become a social taboo?

And how would ‘natural’ partners, friends and family take to the synthetic replacement? Or would the synthetic stage just become the norm – nothing more than a medical procedure, and one of the accepted stages of life?

Obviously, with few people dying, accelerated population growth would became an issue, especially if humans (both natural and synthetic) carried on reproducing.

'Torso and Arm', oil on MDF box structure, by artist Wayne Chisnall

Organic life is susceptible to things such as viruses, and so are human-created devices such as computers. With this in mind, if it became possible to create synthetic brains then would it also be possible to hack them? If so, then would hackers be able to influence what these new forms of humanity saw, felt and thought? Could the hackers change the new humans’ perceptions of reality; make some things, people or creatures invisible to the new humans, and their environments appear different to how they really are? And if so, has it already happened? Have we already gone through this stage and been modified to think that we’re back to being naturally organic again? I guess this line of enquiry stumbles into the whole ‘brains in jars’ and ‘simulated reality’ field of thought. I do enjoy these playful thought experiments but can see how easily they could lead down conspiracy theory rabbit holes.

'Scrotal Teapot', oil on book cover, 2020, by artist Wayne Chisnall

Some people fear that once AI finally becomes a reality, that it (will it be an ‘it’ or will it have separate identities and be a ‘they’?) will exterminate or subjugate the human race. But maybe we’ll unwittingly exterminate ourselves by creating artificial versions of ourselves that we believe to still be us, but which are merely masquerading as us until we’ve voluntarily removed our biological selves from existence. Whether or not the new synthetic version of humanity contains the authentic selves, I suppose it could be seen as an evolutionary step (from the fragile organic to the potentially immortal inorganic), or one of innumerable evolutionary steps; for once we are liberated from our fleshy containers there are few limitations to what forms we or our artificial descendants might take.