もし気づいたら？ - Living, Loving, Thinking, Again

“Stephen Hawking: brain could exist outside body” http://www.theguardian.com/science/2013/sep/21/stephen-hawking-brain-outside-body

Stephen Hawking has said he believes brains could exist independently of the body, but that the idea of a conventional afterlife is a fairy tale.
Speaking at the premiere of a documentary film about his life, the theoretical physicist said: "I think the brain is like a program in the mind, which is like a computer, so it's theoretically possible to copy the brain on to a computer and so provide a form of life after death.
"However, this is way beyond our present capabilities. I think the conventional afterlife is a fairy tale for people afraid of the dark."

たしかに「理論的には可能」だろう。そして、こうした主張はそんなに目新しいものでもないとも言える。ただ「脳」は（最初から最後まで）特定の身体の一部として、或いは特定の身体を自らの環境として作動している（Cf. 下條信輔『「意識」とは何だろうか』）。そこで疑問なのだが、「外部」に「コピー」された「脳」に意識があれば自らの身体がないことに気づき吃驚することだろう。俺の目は、耳は、手は、足はetc.何処へ行っちゃったの？　果たして「脳」はこのショックに耐えられるのだろうか。

「意識」とは何だろうか―脳の来歴、知覚の錯誤 (講談社現代新書)

作者: 下條信輔
出版社/メーカー: 講談社
発売日: 1999/02/19
メディア: 新書
購入: 21人クリック: 90回
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The film goes back to his childhood and his student days and shows the scientist, who uses a wheelchair, at home with carers. It also explores his family life with first wife, Jane, and their three children, the breakdown of their marriage and his subsequent marriage to one of his carers.
Jane appears on camera to explain how the pressures of caring for the children and the increasingly disabled Hawking became even worse once full-time nurses were brought into the home, obliterating any privacy.
His second wife and former nurse, Elaine Mason, does not appear in the film, and Hawking portrays their 1995-2007 marriage with a few pictures and a brief description.

スティーヴン・ホーキングにはhttp://d.hatena.ne.jp/sumita-m/20120605/1338911826 http://d.hatena.ne.jp/sumita-m/20120709/1341811177で言及している。