Would you want computer chip replacements for age related cognitive deficits?

I have just finished Arthur C. Clarke’s "Rama Revealed" in which the heroine, Nicole, in her old age, rejects the aliens’ offer to update her brain function with advanced computer circuits. She does so because she worries about what will be left of her true self after a long series of such transplants. I imagine she was reflecting Clarke’s own opinion about the usefulness of such procedures as one grew into old age. He was a very imaginative and bold futurist, predicting satellites in geosynchronous orbits around the earth 18 years before it actually occurred (Clarke). So I take his views on the future quite seriously and initially Nicole’s decision seemed quite logical and emotionally valid to me also.

However, yesterday after a telephone conversation with a very old friend of mine in Toronto I have changed my mind. Jack is now 80 and his memory for proper names is becoming problematical. For example, during our conversation, he could not remember the name of the prime minister of the UK during WWII. But despite the memory deficit, and this is the most important fact here, there was absolutely no doubt in my mind that I was engaging in a conversation with Jack as I have come to know him over the years. He was the same sensitive but assertive person of strong opinions topped by an engaging and sophisticated sense of humour.

What I concluded from this enjoyable conversation with Jack was that, although some cognitive abilities decline with age, the basic personality endures. It is hard wired into the brain. Now, in my 74th year of life, as I anticipate the mental declines of old age, I would definitely be accepting of new computer devices to compensate for future cognitive deficits. I feel comfortable that my basic personality would remain unchanged; that my basic self which has been formed over earlier years would persist for good or bad. I would not be worried about losing my personal identity, who I really am. So now I am quite open to having a computer assisted brain. But it seems that such a possibility will not become a reality in my lifetime.