GUEST BLOG: Seeby Woodhouse – For some brains, the Matrix now exists

In a quiet laboratory, a cluster of human brain cells—no larger than a lentil—learns to control a virtual butterfly fluttering through a digital landscape. This isn’t science fiction; it’s one of the new frontiers in neuroscience.

Researchers at Swiss company Final Spark have connected Brain Organoidsto computer systems, enabling them to perform tasks like playing the classic game Pong, suggesting a rudimentary form of learning and responsiveness.

When brain cells at Final Spark have finished an assigned task such as playing the “pong” game, they are put back into the butterfly simulation so that they have something to do and don’t get “bored”.

Imagine little brains with VR goggles on, being fed a butterfly world to keep them entertained, when they aren’t being asked to do other tasks.

This development echoes the premise of The Matrix, where consciousness exists within a simulated reality. But unlike the film’s protagonists, these organoids lack bodies. They are isolated neural networks, yet they do exhibit patterns of activity reminiscent of those in developing human brains

Biological Computers are already being sold

More advanced than the system at Final Spark, is The CL1 – a computer designed by Australian company Cortical Labs, which is the world’s first biological computer that’s actually for sale.

This is not AI, but Human Intelligence on a chip. The CL1 combines 800,000 human brain cells with Silicon computer chips. It can learn faster than traditional AI systems, and uses much less power for some processing tasks.

Brain Organoids Develop Eyes

In an unexpected development, Mini-Brain Organoids spontaneously developed eye like structures after a certain age and density of neutrons.

Personally, this makes me deeply uneasy. Clearly these little brains are trying to see and understand, and recognise light and figure out what’s going on.

On Conciousness

The nature of consciousness remains one of the deepest mysteries of science and philosophy.

Evidence from split-brain patients—individuals who underwent corpus callosotomy procedures for severe epilepsy—reveals that when the brain’s hemispheres are severed, two independent centers of awareness can emerge, each capable of distinct perceptions, intentions, and decisions.

This suggests that consciousness is NOT an indivisible, monolithic phenomenon, but something that can be fractured and perhaps exists on a spectrum.

If consciousness can be split between two human brain hemispheres and divided into two, might it also reside in smaller structures—down to neural circuits, or even single brain cells?

The Nature of Consciousness in Organoids

Brain organoids are three-dimensional clusters of human neurons grown from stem cells. They can develop complex structures and exhibit electrical activity similar to that of preterm infants

The spontaneous neural activity observed in organoids indicates a potential for processing information. While they may not be conscious in the human sense, they represent a step toward understanding the minimal requirements for consciousness.

As organoids become more complex, ethical concerns emerge. If these structures begin to experience sensations or develop forms of awareness, what moral considerations should guide their use in research?

Some ethicists argue for precautionary measures, suggesting that organoids resembling human fetal brains beyond 20 weeks’ gestation should be treated with increased ethical scrutiny .

The possibility of organoids achieving a form of consciousness challenges our definitions of personhood and the moral status of artificial life forms. It compels us to consider the rights of entities that, while not human, exhibit characteristics associated with sentient beings.

When organoids are trained by reward and punishment—through electrical stimulation or deprivation—are we creating isolated consciousnesses subjected to a form of slavery, cells being whipped until they do our bidding?

Learning driven by pain and pleasure raises urgent moral questions: if even a fragment of subjective experience exists within these structures, then we may be engineering entities whose only “life” is one of manipulation, control, and suffering.

The Butter Slave

In the wildly popular TV show “Rick and Morty” there is an episode where Rick (the mad scientist) makes a robot for passing butter.

The Robot keeps wanting to know what it’s purpose is (perhaps a question that many of us humans struggle with “why am I here”).

Rick tells the robot that it’s only purpose is to pass butter, wherein the robot exclaims “Oh my god”.

I can’t help wondering, with a shiver down my spine, if perhaps the Brain Organoids we’ve already developed, are humanity’s version of the Pass butter Slave. Poor lost souls without any purpose of their own, deemed to do tasks for us without being able to have a free will, for all eternity.

Sometimes humans do things because we can, without asking “should we”, this is one of those times. We are boldly pushing the frontiers of science without any handbrake in sight.

The Matrix may have been fiction, but for these organoids, a form of simulated existence – and potentially mental slavery – is becoming reality.

Summary

• Brain Organoids are miniature human brains made out of about 800,000 cells
• There are already Brain Organoids that are hooked up in VR flying around in virtual worlds
• Human Brain cells have been combined with traditional silicon to create powerful computers that have the abilities of both – Wet computers.
• There are serious ethical considerations of all the above that no-one seems to be philosophising, it’s all just full steam ahead.