Brainscans as a Form of Identification

Brainprint scans are considered the definitive method for identifying egos. Contrary to popular misconceptions, the term “brainwave scan” is a misnomer, as this form of identifier is not based on simple electroencephalography (EEG: a reading of the electrical activity created by neurons firing within the brain). The actual process for recording brainprints for identification purposes goes much deeper than that. It is based on the electrophysiological responses (event-related potentials) to invoked sensory stimuli as well as deep background neural activity measured by magnetoencephalography (MEG) and correlated between different regions of the brain. Controversially, this deep scan of the mind’s default network activity is considered by some philosophers and psychosurgeons as the “true self,” the unique thing that defines us as individual persons.

The process of recording a brainprint takes roughly an hour to systematically map out the core underlying structure and results in an unique identifier for each biological brain. There is one challenge to brainprints, however: they change over time. Transhuman brains are high-plasticity organic devices that incorporate new memories, suffer trauma, build new synaptic structures, and otherwise undergo changes. Luckily, these alterations only impact the core underlying structures identified by the brainprint in slow, incremental measurements. This means brainprints must be updated for accuracy on a roughly yearly basis. In practice, brainprints are usually updated each time a person undergoes a regular backup or uploads for egocasting.

The problem is that they must be updated regularly because the brain is always changing.