55. Brain-to-Brain Interfaces (with Dr. Luke Roelofs)

This is an episode from UMass Boston’s ‘Ethics in Action’ Podcast mini-series on brain-computer interfaces that I currently co-host with sociologist and bioethicist James Hughes. In this episode, we are joined by Luke Roelofs. Dr. Roelofs is an assistant professor of philosophy at the University of Texas at Arlington. He is the author of numerous articles as well as the 2019 book Combining Minds: How to Think about Compositive Subjectivity, published by Oxford University Press. Dr. Roelofs’ research explores the metaphysics, epistemology, and ethics of consciousness, including human consciousness, animal consciousness, and the possibility of artificial consciousness. In this episode, we discuss various aspects of Dr. Roelofs wide-ranging work, primarily as it relates to brain-computer interfaces. Some topics we focus on include brain-to-brain interfaces, the possibility of technological telepathy, the moral significance of shared mental states, split-brain and conjoined brain cases, the concept of neural mind melding, the unity of consciousness, insect colonies as possible real-life examples of hive minds, panpsychism, the problem of other minds, biopsychism and the possibility of AI consciousness, and integrated information theory.