What would happen if our brains could connect directly to the internet?

More than just a successful entrepreneur, Elon Musk has become one of the leading voices when it comes to artificial intelligence. While the owner of Tesla and SpaceX brings the topic to the table with a cautionary tone, he also benefits from the technology by implementing it in his self-driving cars, while his newest venture, Neuralink, seeks a way to keep humans relevant in the face of AI development by merging our biological bodies with implants that promote symbiosis between these two intelligences—artificial and human.

But how would this happen? While neuroscience and other disciplines still cannot define with absolute certainty what intelligence and consciousness are, more and more brain-machine interaction devices are being developed by pioneers (including in Brazil, with the work of Miguel Nicolelis), while futurists like Ray Kurzweil already envision a scenario, around the 2030s, in which we will be able to connect our brains to the internet with the help of nanobots that “will allow for fully immersive virtual reality from within the nervous system, direct brain-to-brain communication over the internet, and, on the other hand, also vastly expand human intelligence.”

Regardless of how advanced this evolutionary trajectory of technology becomes by 2030, the convergence of human and machine seems to be becoming an increasingly important and relevant topic, not only in business but also in the impacts it would have on our own perception as humans and as a species. After all, what could the ability to connect our brains to the internet mean for our internal processes, our consciousness, proprioception (our sense of self), or even the subjective experience we have of perceiving an "I" (self)?

In an article for SingularityHub, Raya Bidshahri addresses this question by first presenting a possible, more holistic definition of what consciousness is: “It encompasses many of our fundamental capabilities, such as wakefulness, self-awareness, meta-cognition, and a sense of agency. Furthermore, consciousness represents a spectrum of perception, as seen in various animal species. Even humans experience different levels of existential perception.”

This means that psychedelic substances and meditation, as well as various other tools already used to alter our states of consciousness (whether temporarily or permanently), can be a possibility for "enriching" our experience as humans or even for transcendence. “Relatively non-invasive, these tools show us that a supposedly small imbalance in neurochemistry and the internal effort of consciousness can do to the human subjective experience,” writes Bidshahri.

For the author, we are entering a period in which “consciousness hackers” are gaining momentum by using non-invasive neural stimulation techniques based on EEG (electroencephalographic) devices, nutrition, virtual reality, and ecstatic experiences that create the necessary conditions for a new level of consciousness and proprioception.

In his book Stealing Fire: How Silicon Valley, the Navy SEALs, and Maverick Scientists are Revolutionizing the Way We Live and Work, Steven Kotler discusses this economy revolving around altered states of consciousness , which currently reaches investments in the trillions of dollars. More than just the use of LSD in Silicon Valley as a way to enhance creativity and expand the mind to solve challenges and problems, the ability to reach other states of consciousness “exposes our potential and gives us a glimpse of a greater condition of existence.”

“Expanding consciousness through brain enhancements and implants may one day be accessible. Researchers are working on a range of neural technologies, from quite simple and non-invasive ones like electrode-based EEGs to invasive implants and techniques such as optogenetics, in which neurons are genetically reprogrammed to respond to pulses of light. We have already connected two brains over the internet, allowing the two to communicate, and forward-thinking startups are researching the possibilities as well. With an eye on more advanced brain-machine interfaces, Elon Musk unveiled Neuralink last year, a company whose ultimate goal is to merge the human mind with artificial intelligence using a "neural lace."

In this context, it is no longer nature that drives the evolution of species, but human choice—as argued by Juan Enriquez and Steve Gullans in the book Evolving Ourselves. “With advances in genetic engineering, we are truly seeing evolution become an increasingly conscious process at an accelerated pace. This may one day apply to the evolution of our consciousness as well; we would be using our consciousness to expand our consciousness,” writes Raya Bidshahri.

But, in practical terms, it is very difficult to imagine how this merger between man and machine would actually work. That is, as Bidshahri questions, it is not easy to visualize how our stream of consciousness would function if, one day, we could process our thoughts and feelings a thousand times faster, or how neural implants containing artificial intelligence might impact our capacity to love and hate. And, after all, what will the “illusion of the ‘Self’” look like when our consciousness is plugged directly into the internet?

The Japanese anime Serial Experiments Lain brought a reflection on the issues of consciousness expansion and brain-to-brain connection via the internet—there called the “Wired”—as early as 1998. As a theoretical reference, the fictional work drew on the studies of Timothy Leary and Robert Anton Wilson, who used meditation and psychedelic substances to map the effects of the altered mind and, in doing so, outline a system they coined the “8 circuits of consciousness.””

The anime also discusses questions of identity and the notion of the Self from the moment the separation between online and offline dissolves completely, as technologies like the internet and artificial intelligence lose their access platforms (screens) to become part of our own organism. You can also check out my thesison the anime, completed in 2009, to learn more about this work of science fiction.