[extropy-chat] Tommy (Was: Consciousness is a process in multi-dimensional time!)

[Adrian Tymes]

--- ben <benboc at lineone.net> wrote:
> An interesting (gruesome, but interesting) question is: what would
> happen if someone had all their sensory inputs severed (say because
> of
> some freak injury - yeah, i know, that would be all but impossible),
> but
> they were kept on life support for a number of years, then a future
> neural interface technology was used to reconnect them to the world?
> What would happen? Would they awake from their coma, more-or less the
> same person as before, or would they be a gibbering idiot? Or perhaps
> they would simply remain in the coma, having lost the capacity to
> process any inputs?

It seems like this is the kind of thing that actually could be
done in experiment - on a mouse, at least.  Train a mouse on a
maze, enough that the mouse will remember the maze long-term
(that is, so ordinary forgetfulness over the course of the
experiment can not explain the results).  Disconnect then
reconnect the mouse's senses, and see what effect that has on the
mouse's memory of the maze.  (If the mouse remembers the maze,
that's not total proof that the mouse isn't otherwise "gibbering
idiot" level.  But if the mouse doesn't remember - or if the
mouse remains in a coma after being reconnected - there's proof
of the hypothesis: even a lesser intelligence can't survive that
experience.)

...which leads me to wonder if, perhaps, someone has actually
done that experiment.