Tinkering with Consciousness

This talk by Dan Faggella - an IEET Advisory Board member - was given at a local TEDx event, produced independently of the TED Conferences. We live in a world where paralyzed people can answer emails with a chip in their brain, where people with severe depression can get electrodes implanted into their brain to increase their sense of well-being and joy, and where we're successfully experimenting with replacing portions of mammalian brains with digital devices. Humanity is on the verge of a leap into a future where consciousness is malleable, accessible, expandable. If nothing matters outside of conscious awareness, isn't tinkering with consciousness itself (the bedrock or moral relevance) worth an open-minded, well-intended, and interdisciplinary global conversation... as we take steps forward beyond what is now human? (IEET)