This is a repost from
reddit
So, let's say that the mind in its most basic form is independent of the brain. More or less, it means that the mind is an objective attribute or quality of the existing reality as such (like, for example, space) that can only be experienced subjectively. If this is the case, it obviously can't perceive, remember or think anything on its own as it lacks the requisite machinery – it remains frozen in its self-awareness. Put differently, the brain is the apparatus that allows the mind to experience the reality in a meaningful way, for some time.
With this in mind (pardon the pun), now we proceed to fuse two functioning brains into one, either physically or informationally, so that we have one instance of the mind. As it was just one mind to begin with which has only been split into two subjective experiences by the two individual brains, there's no difference in the subjective experience of the self – neither of the two instances of the mind cease to exist as the both selves are now one fused experience. Basically, the mind starts to perceive, remember and think through the two bodies as a whole.
Then we slowly start shutting down one brain by killing a neuron after neuron until there's nothing left of that brain. What we have done can be loosely construed and subjectively experienced as a mind transfer – the self of the deceased brain continues to "exist" in another body. Of course, there's was no real mind transfer because the mind is independent of the brain anyway and there's essentially just one non-spatial "mind" property which only gets instantiated and localized by the brain even though it is subjectively experienced as locked and isolated for this very reason.
But how is that different from just shutting down one brain without going through all the hassle in the first place?
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