"Is the article accurate? If so, does the ability to restart the mind from an inert brain tell us something important about how thought and consciousness works?"
The evidence points towards consciousness and thought being purely physical things inside of the brain. As long as the brain isn't damaged while off (which is difficult and what this research is trying to achieve) then there's not much reason why someone can't be "restarted", whether it's 10 minutes later or 1 year later.
"Every day at work I declare people dead. They have no signs of life, no heartbeat, no brain activity. I sign a piece of paper knowing in my heart that they are not actually dead. I could, right then and there, suspend them. But I have to put them in a body bag. It's frustrating to know there's a solution."
The above sentence basically sums it up. Our advanced medicine is constantly improving, but the current state of medicine is primitive on the scale of things that humans are capable of eventually fixing.
Can we eventually fix the spinal cord? Yes.
Connect to a brain via a BCI? Yes.
Restart the brain? Yes, as long as it's not destroyed first.
Also there is no reason that the brain can't be transferred. That's where the real discussions on consciousness begins. How slow does the transfer have to be so that we're really still ourselves?
The evidence points towards consciousness and thought being purely physical things inside of the brain. As long as the brain isn't damaged while off (which is difficult and what this research is trying to achieve) then there's not much reason why someone can't be "restarted", whether it's 10 minutes later or 1 year later.
"Every day at work I declare people dead. They have no signs of life, no heartbeat, no brain activity. I sign a piece of paper knowing in my heart that they are not actually dead. I could, right then and there, suspend them. But I have to put them in a body bag. It's frustrating to know there's a solution."
The above sentence basically sums it up. Our advanced medicine is constantly improving, but the current state of medicine is primitive on the scale of things that humans are capable of eventually fixing.
Can we eventually fix the spinal cord? Yes.
Connect to a brain via a BCI? Yes.
Restart the brain? Yes, as long as it's not destroyed first.
Also there is no reason that the brain can't be transferred. That's where the real discussions on consciousness begins. How slow does the transfer have to be so that we're really still ourselves?