There is an interesting story about a group scientists who used a supercomputer to create a digital rat-brain according to the story :

The thought was if they could successfully replicate a rat’s brain, they would then leverage their knowledge to do the same with a human one.

When they began their experiment, the digital rat brain only fired neurons when prodded by a simulated electrical current. Recently, however, the neurons have begun spontaneously organizing themselves into a more complex pattern.

According to the scientists, this is the beginning of the self-organizing neurological patterns that eventually, in more complex mammal brains, become personality.

Henry Markram thinks that in 10 years, they’ll either have an artificial human brain that has consciousness or they’ll know that consciousness is more than just a neurological pattern.

For what its worth, Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj has very interesting ideas about consciouness and personality. He said on the subject:

You are not the body. You are the immensity and infinity of consciousness. (264)

Somebody, anybody, will tell you that you are pure consciousness, not a body-mind. Accept it as a possibility and investigate earnestly. You may discover that it is not so, that you are not a person bound in space and time. Think of the difference it would make! (441-2)

The personality (vyakti) is but a product of imagination. The self (vyakta) is the victim of this imagination. It is the taking yourself to be what you are not that binds you. The person cannot be said to exist on its own rights; it is the self that believes there is a person and is conscious of being it. (143) Read More→