Resleeving has freed the mind from death. A person's identity, emotions and memories are safely sucked away from the dying body (and we are told this bit is called the Ego, which I will capitalize when referring to the EP concept). I am wondering what precisely is the 'Ego' in this context, how does the Ego work, and what is left behind? We clearly take the superego as well, as the newly resleeved don't start walking around without pants or drinking out of the toilet (not unless they did before they were resleeved, anyway). They take all of their muscle memory and their technical knowledge. But they leave behind the Id, right? The base drives and bodysense are tied to the morph, not to the Ego. I was reading "The Singularity is Near" by Ray Kurzweil. It includes the following passage (p.191): "We are able to predict or anticipate our own decisions. Work by physiology professor Benjamin Libet at the University of California at Davis shows that neural activity to initiate an action actually occurs about a third of a second before the brain has made the decision to take the action. The implication, according to Libet, is that the decision is really an illusion, that "consciousness is out of the looop." The cognitive scientist and philosopher Daniel Dennet describes the phenomenon as follows: "The action is originally precipitated in some part of the brain, and off fly the signals to muscles, pasing en route to tell you, the conscious agent, what is going on (but like all good officials letting you, the bumbling president, maintain the illusion that you started it all)." "A related experiment was conducted recently in which neurophysiologists electronically stimulated points in the brain to induce particular emotional feelings. The subjects immediately came up witha rationale for experiencing those emotions. It has been known for many years that in patients whose left and right brains are no longer connected, one side of the brain will create explanations for the actions initated by the other side, as if the left side were the public-relations agent for the right side." The ego (lower case) doesn't sound like it is driving the body, or even giving it broad direction, but is following along behind explaining to itself how it is still in control. While we identify with only the ego, the true 'us', including our decision-making, memories, skills and behaviors, expand well beyond that into the deep, dark unconscious. To a degree we might say 'so what? When you egocast, you're bringing the conscious and the unconscious mind both', but the answer is deeper than that. Neural processes jump across the entire brain as they work. If you alter one tiny piece, what impacts will that have on the rest? If you fold up the brain matter differently, if the brain is too small or too large, if the brain stem is configured oddly, it alters our physiology, and twists existing connections. What might be the results? Skills, memories, emotions appear or disappear as a result of brain lesions, shearing, or reduced or strengthened connections. And remember this isn't a case of the ego being in charge and altering its decisions to adapt, but a case of the unconscious being in charge and the ego justifies it after the fact. The ego explains to itself, "I am happy because I like this activity" or "I am jumping because I really like jumping", when in fact, you are jumping and happy because of a tremendous brain malfunction. Egocast into an improperly formed body and not only might you suffer tremendous mental, physical and personality damage, but you might like it! You might not be willing to fix it back. Consider fully the number of people designing morph brains (or farcasters, or egocasting software). How many of them are corporations eager to drive up sales? Private, fly-by-night companies? Individuals still learning the trade? TITAN-infected individuals, or Jovian saboteurs? Consider too the range of alterations available. Shifts in structure and size are one thing. But how would adding a hind brain alter your functions (and mess with your ego's self-justication, as it senses the ghost lag)? What about brains which have hardwired information, such as knowledge or memories, which can't be written over when you egocast in? What are the practical losses from data loss when transferring from an analog system (biological brain) to a digital one (cyberbrain), and do we notice them (can a cyberbrain remember... to love?) The rulebook handwaves this away with a few lines. But a little investigation suggests that this can be explored more fully - and the results can shake the world. I can barely imagine all of the evil GM things I could do by manipulating and breaking the brains of the morphs my PCs are jumping into - or the awesome neural hacking the PCs themselves will be able to pull off.