What if the brain is more adaptable than we imagine?

We know intelligence and consciousness are 'embodied' -- the center of our being, while contained in the brain inside the cranium, doesn't exclusively reside there. There have been individuals who have survived accidents that destroyed most of their grey mass who managed to live on for many years -- albeit with some complications. Experts who have trained for years and decades in their field take actions measurably faster than their brain's ability to respond to the incoming stimuli -- sometimes before the signals could reach the expected regions -- suggesting that while the brain may be our 'cpu' we have other 'processing units' spread throughout our nervous center.

How can we use that information creatively?

Lets take the 'distributed intelligence' to its extreme. Octopi are really smart creatures, their limbic dexterity cannot be explained by the synaptic connections in its central 'brain'. What happens with them (and generally other cephalopods) is that each limb is 'intelligent' on its own and the brain acts just as a central coordinator, a manager of sorts as different teams come up with their data, calculations, and action proposal. Depending on the quorum the entirety of the being decides the action.

Now consider this for humans. What if we could train ourselves to do significant portion of our tasks without reaching the brain? We could try to use the plasticity of the brain to our advantage and encourage it to grow greater nerve mass in places outside the 'brain region'. Could there be a point where we wouldn't need the 'brain in the cranium' at all, that we could use training and therapy (aided by external stimulation and medication) to get the brain stuff happening elsewhere. We could discourage grey matter growth in the cranium and and encourage it elsewhere.

The implication could be: brain tumors/haemorrages wouldn't be as deadly, since the 'brain' could migrate elsewhere. The loss of a 'head' or significant portion of brain could still allow a prepared individual to live a long and happy life.

Taking this ridiculous sci-fi idea even further: we know 'consciousness updates' are bs because human intelligence/consciousness is embodied within our physical form. But what if, just like encouraging nerve growth outside the head, we could encourage our 'brain matter' growth outside strictly human body using various implants.  Imagine basically changing the location of your nervous system to be outside the physical body, one cell at a time, one new memory physical task action sensation at a time. By the end of it, you'd have created a low-res and low-fidelity version of yourself that wouldn't be you exactly and dear god we hope it doesn't have your consciousness without connection to you, but the implications could be interesting.

This was also an outcome of an early-morning dream I had recently.