Max Hodak: Preserving Personal Identity Requires Continuity of Experience
Max Hodak: Preserving Personal Identity Requires Continuity of Experience
On 20 August 2026, in a No Priors interview, Max Hodak, CEO of Science Corporation, proposed a criterion for a person’s digital continuation: continuity of conscious experience. His example distinguishes a software copy that continues a person’s work from the person who dies.
Hodak asks us to imagine that a brain is scanned without being destroyed and that a software replica is then run on a computer. The original person could speak with the replica and later die, while the replica continued their work. In the full transcript of the conversation, he asks:
“If your brain were scanned and a software simulation of you appeared on a computer, would that simulation be you?”
The question concerns what happens to the original person, specifically what remains part of that person’s experience when the copy continues their usual activities. Hodak identifies phenomenal continuity as the necessary property. By this, he means a single, continuing experience through which the person perceives themselves and the world.
“People will accept major changes in their identity over time if continuity is preserved.”
Behavioral similarity describes the replica. Continuity of experience concerns what happens to the original person. In a scenario where brain functions are gradually transferred to a computational system, the biological brain and the computational system operate together for an extended period. Hodak’s criterion poses a specific question for such a transition: does a single stream of experience persist while the substrate supporting those functions changes?
Hodak discusses this issue as the CEO of Science Corporation, a company developing medical neurotechnology. One of its research programs is developing a biohybrid brain interface in which transplanted living neurons are intended to form new biological connections with the brain. In the interview, he distinguishes between transmitting commands to an external device and adding a new structural capability to the brain. Science considers identifying the boundary between these cases an open research problem.