I originally asked this on Quora... you can well imagine that the results were not academically useful. Below are the additional details included in that post:

n short, what I ask is whether or not an AI could use a recently deceased body, to piece by piece copy it, rather than trying to bioprint body parts from scratch. If nothing else, for the sake of learning how parts and whole are made. On the topic of coping a brain, there is significant possibility already: RNA Barcoding (1) can permit in-depth mapping of neural connections, meaning that if the brain was dissected, after being barcoded, then it could be reconstructed in perfect detail; yet, only in a digital format.

What I ask then, is whether an AI could learn to copy the structure it sees into a physical medium, recreating neural connections not by directly printing them, due to the scale and complexity, but by instead using the “Replicator” (2) which employs light to create full models in a single step. If the brain cells were engineered to be photosensitive, then in reconstruction, the Replicator’s stimulation could change what is essentially a blank lump into the same detailed patterns which held a lifetime’s memories.

The purpose of all this, from a transhumanist perspective, is consciousness transfer, but only if the process does not end here. Another step is needed, for even if brain and body are copied perfectly, there is still the problem of continuity: the self is lost no matter how perfectly its neural cage is reconstructed, if that lustrous, flitting thing is itself, left behind.

But what this does accomplish, is a vast stride in the right direction. For, if done as well as I believe possible, then there is a perfect avatar, a copy of your present body wrought of younger cells. Doing this does however require the total destruction of your current body, but that does not of itself mean your death is inexorable.

What is needed now, is a place for your consciousness to be held in stasis while its home is rebuilt: something that need be no more than an additional lobe, rather than a full brain. The Law of Specific Energies of Nerves (3) tells us that regardless of stimulation type, certain nerves produce certain sensations, and only these. Thus it is, that if a smaller brain region was printed, it could be incorporated into the body’s network without necessarily binding it directly to the original brain, something that may help with popularity and comfort, since few among us relish the idea of having our skull cracked open.

All this region need be capable of doing, is sending thought, and receiving it. Integrated with existing nerves, it may intercept signalling, may prevent the use of a body part, but it is not meant to last. Instead, all this is meant to do is provide the consciousness with somewhere to stay while the body is being rebuilt.

Consciousness is the amalgam of connectome and pattern, and is preserved only through direct continuity. I offer the following proof:

• If a patient suffers severe brain damage, continuity is not lost; even an entire lobe’s darkness, while catastrophic for function and quality of life, does not make of the individual a fundamentally different person
• Circuitry was lost, but not continuity
• So long as part of the brain exists, so to does consciousness; so long as continuity is unbroken.
• This means, that if another, smaller brain was integrated into the network, it would provide a sanctuary if the original was destroyed, as it would be in order for copying to take place.
• Continuity is preserved, but not circuitry.
• Once the brain is reconstructed, once its first cells are made, and no later, the artificial region is to it connected.
• Continuity is preserved, and circuitry is reestablished.
• Once this is done, the smaller brain can be disconnected; integrated or not, the memories it stores are only those directly before Transference, and losing these is not catastrophic by any reckoning.

Thus it is that in my opinion, a new body can be made, and the consciousness poured into it, so long as continuity is established, maintained, and never, for any moment ruptured. So long as the new brain is integrated, so long as the original’s last flickers are linked with its own, unfading light, then in reunion, the consciousness and self will have been preserved.