Here's an article on transferring consciousness. Masataka Watanabe, a Scientist from the University of Tokyo, is working on a theory for how to do this, and it and it's interesting:
Rethinking our consciousness: An approach to a scientifically feasible seamless mind-uploading (researchfeatures.com)
Cutting-and-pasting because I'm
not going to butcher what they're saying by putting it into my own words:
Seamless uploading of human consciousness
Previous ideas on mind uploading rely on scanning postmortem brains for a digital reconstruction of the brain’s circuitry. However, Watanabe argues that in these cases, ‘you’ are unfortunately not the one that lives on. In contrast, he presents a process where our own consciousness seamlessly continues in a digital arena. This process mimics that of a patient undergoing corpus callosotomy, where the neural fibres connecting the two cortical hemispheres are severed, resulting in the generation of two independent streams of consciousness. The point is, both streams of consciousness stem seamlessly from the original, and there is no point of death upon severance.
To recreate this procedure for seamless mind uploading, Watanabe suggests that a transition state must be provided where the left biological hemisphere is connected and consciously integrated to a device that plays the role of the right hemisphere, and vice versa. He puts forward a three-step procedure to realise this transition state. Firstly, a device with neutral consciousness is prepared, then this is connected to our own brain while we are alive, and gradually our memory is transferred over.
In the first step, a neutrally conscious device is constructed. Watanabe explains, ‘The idea is to prepare a spiking neural network (SNN) that replicates the full connectivity of the human brain.’ To do this, he suggests that we look to scanning electron microscopy – producing detailed images of thin brain slices with a focused beam of electrons. The obtained image slices are stacked together and used to reconstruct the 3D neuronal connectivity within the brain. In this way, the neuronal brain fibres (called axons and dendrites) are reconstructed to yield full neural connectivity. Watanabe continues, ‘From there, to determine the fine quantitative values of neuronal connectivity and develop the device into a visual system for instance, we can show it a life’s worth of video material. If we find that the network needs a body that interacts with its environment, we can supply it with a virtual body.’ This procedure of ‘training’ the device would be very much like training a modern deep learning neural network. By using advanced methods for training SNNs, the final result should mimic a human brain. Once this is achieved, neutral consciousness, or a ‘one-size-fits-all’ type of consciousness, would likely kick in.
Second, this neutrally conscious device must be linked with our brain hemisphere to allow the integration of consciousness. For this, Watanabe proposes a radical new type of brain–machine interface, explained in more detail below. In the final stage, memory is transferred to the device. This step includes natural and forced (microstimulation) memory retrieval in the biological hemisphere, leading to synchronised retrieval in the artificial hemisphere due to integrated consciousness between the two. Finally, memory consolidation is achieved in the device side with brain-like mechanisms.
Once the consciousness is fully integrated and a sufficient number of memories have been transferred, we would be ready to face the inevitable closure of the two biological hemispheres. This closure would be similar to the surgical procedure of corpus callosotomy, but in this case, the consciousness will seamlessly continue in the two mechanical hemispheres, to be integrated later.
The article continues but that's the gist of it. It ends with saying all of this is still theoretical.
