I read about scientists who brought a pig’s brain back to life
for 36 hours. What is it like to be a pig
without a body? If that question is answerable, it can be
answered only in the language of the mind, which is
produced by that pig’s brain. It would be difficult
to ask the question but we could connect electrodes
to the brain and try to encode “what is it like in there?”
in certain signals. We could assume that the quality of being a pig
would be the brain’s prime concern, and we could further assume
that the brain wishes to communicate that quality to us, for
it has nothing better to do.
So, the oinks that come back, how do we translate them
into something we can understand?
And suppose something did come back, something like
“it is a loathsome kerfuffle in here”
how can we be sure a loathsome kerfuffle is what it is
like to be a pig?
One thought on “What is it like to be a pig’s brain”
Comments are closed.