What is 'thought'? (verse, body, Universe, origin)

[FredNotBob]

((This was inspired by an earlier thread on the origin of the universe. I was going to post it into that thread, but it became what you see here -- hopelessly off-topic, and potentially thread-derailing.

Enjoy!))

What makes a 'thought'? Sure, our brain containsourthoughts, but what generates the thoughts to begin with?

Chemical energy does. Every thought we have is the result of nerochemical interaction within our brain tissue -- in the end, 'conciousness' is really just another form of energy.

I postulate that conciousness, being a form of energy, is ultimately capable of being manipulated or altered at the bioelectric level. Assuming that this is true, we could possibly find a way to transfer our conciousness on the medical equivallent of a 'hard disk'. If you're a doctor, and your patient is brain-dead -- not a problem, just take a minute to go get the backup and he's up and running in no time!

This also raises some interesting points; namely, about the nature of the mind -- what makes 'me'? Why 'I'? If you can download your conciousness to a disk, what does that say about individuality?

Those of us that play computer games know about the 'Flavor of the Month' character design strategy -- would we end up downloading the 'Conciousness of the Month', according to the whims of popularity?

What about fair use? Would the ideas that the 'conciousness' we download contains be protected under existing intellectual property law? What of the conciousness itself? Should we brand our conciousness with 'copyright' notices, just to be on the safe side? Would we have the right to profit from another conciousness' discoveries? After all, we downloaded it, and it was (presumably) offered to us.

Moreover, what of criminal acts? Would thoughts become subject to 'privacy' arguments? Are passwords and proprietary information in a conciousness protected as 'proprietary information', once we can copy it to a disk and store it?

Moral implications aside, it's clear that we're not yet at a stage where such 'downloads' are possible. Should they become possible, however, it will polarize the human race in an almost-unheard-of way.

Me, I'm going to keep my conciousness in my brain for now.

It's much safer there.

[Tricky D]

Your identity is not defined by the (hard) data that is available about you (your date of birth, your name your gender etc) but by the choices that you constantly make.
People will only recognise me by the hard data (the way my body looks), but that is not truly me.
I mean I may look 'mature' but still act as a young teenager.
So I am not my brain, even when it is the brain that makes it possible for me to think. I am not my body, but I am the decision (the action) that I make.
But it sure is true that the body and the mind are influenced by each other.