Learning to Be Me by Greg Egan

 


Greg Egan's highly philosophical short-story explores a provocative thought-experiment: what if a device could be placed inside the human brain to exactly replicate all activities of the brain, thereby rendering the brain itself superfluous. The person could, some years thereafter, have their biological brain removed and function perfectly well with the replica (herein called the Ndoli Device or, more commonly, the jewel). One big advantage when a person undergoes this procedure: the jewel will continue to perform optimally forever, thus bestowing immortality. As for those other, less sophisticated body parts, when they begin to wear out, they can easily be replaced (recognize this is futuristic SF).

So, would you submit to the procedure? This is precisely the question pondered by the tale's unnamed narrator.

It all started when the narrator, a gent I'll call Cole, was six years old and, as Cole relates: "My parents told me that there was a small, dark jewel inside my skull, learning to be me." Cole thought: "if hearing this makes me feel strange and giddy, how must it make the jewel feel? Exactly the same, I reasoned; it doesn't know it's the jewel, and it too wonders how the jewel must feel, it too reasons: "Exactly the same; it doesn't know it's the jewel, and it too wonders how the jewel must feel..."

Even at the tender age of six, Cole senses the dilemma of who is thinking they are him, his real brain or the jewel. And not only that, whichever one is doing the thinking thinks they are his "real" self and the other is the artificial jewel. And if one is mirroring the other, does this mirroring continue in an infinite regress? Ahh! Too much for a six year old to ponder.

Then, at age fourteen, Cole's parents inform him they have undergone the switch - an operation where their biological brain is removed and the now completely empowered jewel can take over. And, miracle of miracles, after the operation the person continues to be exactly the same person they've always been, both for themselves and for others.

Does this sound eerie? Cole thinks all this business with the jewel and switching is eerie in the extreme, thus Cole refers to his parents as "jewel-heads."

When Cole hits age sixteen he falls in love. At this point he can't begin to accept his rich, highly emotional, joyful inner life can be duplicated by some computerized jewel. When his girlfriend asks if he'll agree to submit to the switch he tells her: "Maybe. Better to die at ninety or a hundred than kill myself at thirty (the usual time of life when women and men undergo the switch), and have some machine marching around, taking my place, pretending to be me."

But then Cole's girlfriend tosses him a zinger: "How do you know I haven't switched? How do you know that I'm not just 'pretending to be me'?"

All Cole can do is fall back on a misty mystical intuition. He tells her, "Telepathy. Magic. The communion of souls."

At age nineteen, Cole enters college and takes his first philosophy course. He ponders how his society would like to place a jewel in his skull learning to fake his behavior, his thinking, his identity - and Cole doesn't like it. But it gets him pondering: "Who was "I", anyway? What did it mean that "I" was "still alive", when my personality was utterly different from that of two decades before? My earlier selves were as good as dead...maybe the destruction of my organic brain would be the merest hiccup, compared to all the changes that I'd been through in my life so far."

We follow Cole as he moves through other phases of his life, forever considering if he should undergo the operation to remove his organic brain and let the jewel take over.

Again, the question is: Would you undergo such a procedure? What would be lost if a computerized jewel could replicate each and every phase of your experience, including your whole sense of self-identity? And you would receive the additional benefit of living forever if you so desired.

By the way: certain religious groups in the tale categorically object to the procedure. Is their view worthy of consideration? Independent of religion, is the procedure entirely ethical? How would you feel if you didn't know if you were speaking with a person with a real brain or a jewel-head? Would it really make any difference?

For me, my prime question would be: could the jewel be programed to give a person a choice: to remove 'undesirable past experiences', to modify moods (things like eliminating high anxiety or depression), to enhance certain sensual experiences (for example: heightened pleasure when listening to classical music, eating nutritious foods, reading literature). Bestowing immortality is one thing (quantity of life) but I'd be more interested in enhancing the quality of life. Any reflections?


Australian author Greg Egan, born 1961 - Greg takes pride in not having any photos of himself available on the web. The above photo is the way I picture the outstanding SF novelist writing at his computer.