You know this begs for the punch line. Guy's checking in for his operation, pretty nurse says "what can we do for you?" Patient "can I get a little head?"

It seems like transplanting a head would involve splicing two nervous systems together. And if we can do that, even in monkeys, shouldn't we be able to cure paralysis? Wouldn't that at least be a good first step, whatever your dreams of transplating monkey heads my be?

You're right, Ryjkyj. The result would be a paraplegic patient.

If you reconnect the two ends of a severed nerve there is good chance of regeneration, although it can take months for recovery. That works when you know what nerve it is. Obviously, with a spinal cord, you have no idea what goes where. With intelligent design, they would all be color coded for easy reconnection.

^yeah, let's work on that, shall we?

So Doctor Cat does not approve?

Heaven forbid, can't let ethics get in the way of scientific progress.

Upvote because I never knew anyone had actually done a head transplant before... and while the poor monkeys involved couldn't do anything with their bodies, the heads were indeed alive.

Freaky

Freaky

My approval means nothing, but no, I don't. Of course it can be done. You could probably keep a head alive with a machine. It was done with dogs in the Soviet union by a doctor named Demikhov, who grafted the head of a small dog onto the shoulders of a big dog. There's video of this poor animal{s} walking around.

But like Snoozedoctor says, they're not color coded. It'd be like cutting through a T1 internet line x 10²⁰ and trying to reconnect it with bulldozer. Or something.

Is the brain what makes "you"? Some people might argue that the whole body is you. If you could make a perfect copy of your mind and body, which would be "you"? The original or the new one or both?

^That is an interesting question. The mind-body connection is still a subject of interest and debate to this day. (Even the Wikipedia entry is hotly debated.) Unfortunately I don't have a sufficient background to give an informed opinion on this subject, but I will venture this uninformed opinion:

There might be something to it.

I hope that didn't go over anyone's head.

Beyond absurd metaphysical arguments I don't see why this should not be a last ditch option for people with terminal conditions that don't effect the head. I'll take a working head over a dead head. Sure Being Quad sucks relative to being not, but compared to being dead?

If we had a few hundred people who were head transplants they would probably be making a major stink about the limits on stem cell research...maybe that's the slippery slope we are trying to avoid.

The brain is the single part of a person's body that can't be disabled or replaced without changing a person's consciousness. Organ transplant patients aren't less than human, even if the organs they receive are artifical or from animals.

The critic in this video, Steven Rose, has been around a long time and he's consistently been on the wrong side of history. His efforts to shut down genetics and evolutionary psychology since the 80s have failed, and both the fields increasingly make valuable contributions to our world.

Dawkins and Edward O. Wilson (see the Ant Whisperer video) promoted an unsentimental view of biology and humankind and became some of the leading scientific figures of their generation, but Rose did he what could to stop that from happening. Science advances funeral by funeral.

When people will realize that we are just organic machines? Nothing special here please move on.

>> ^nickreal03:
When people will realize that we are just organic machines? Nothing special here please move on.


"thats like, your opinion.. man"

If this is true then I am SO getting the body of a walrus.

>> ^nickreal03:
... Nothing special here please move on.


Please, be our guest.

Please DO NOT view the below perversion of science unless you can remain "unsentimental". It is the result of work by Vladimir Demikhov in 1954, on dogs. It is the upper body of a small dog grafted onto the shoulders of a larger dog. I can recognize that there may have been made advances in vascular surgery but just because you can, doesn't mean you should. In this case it's two dog brains and therefore two dog 'souls'.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m_AHPF7hnTM
^WARNING VIEWER DISCRESSION^

Dghandi has an interesting point though. Better to be a paraplegic and alive? Maybe, but it's the brain stem that runs the ticker, so all that would have to be connected. Maybe some day.

>> ^NinjaFish:
>> ^nickreal03:
When people will realize that we are just organic machines? Nothing special here please move on.

"thats like, your opinion.. man"


The dude abides.

We have the equivalents of grafted heads on non-functioning bodies already. That would be the C1-C2 spinal cord injuries that are ventilator dependent and completely paralyzed. I was attending an international critical care conference back a few decades ago, and we were discussing the ethics of taking a 22 year old man, a C2 quad injured in a motorcycle accident, off his ventilator to allow him to die. To compound the dilemma, the patient had requested no sedation be administered as he wanted to experience the sensation of dying. The U.S. physicians clearly stood out from the rest of the international community on the issue. Most of the U.S. docs said they would not remove an entirely conscious person from life support, that they would treat their depression and get them counseling, etc. etc. The European, Canadian, and Australians on the panel were of the strongest opinion that if they considered the patient to be of sound mind, they would grant their wish to preserve the right of self determination. Although, they said they would strongly encourage him to consider sedation for the event.

I, for one, am a strong advocate of a person's right for self-determination, as long as the patient isn't mentally ill. I think it's extremely arrogant to judge a person's quality of life and think that judgment should supersede the patient's own determination.

I would not want to continue living as an isolated brain. And I would greatly resent anyone trying to force me to do so.

Ever see that REALLY ugly chick with a super hot body? Well.. we have a solution.

Don't forget that we have devices to artificially monitor and maintain a heart beat, devices to breath for you, devices to filter your blood (to an extent), etc.. That said, to keep a head alive on a donor body I'd imagine they'd focus on reconnecting innervation to the new heart, innervation to the new diaphragm, and potentially to a large muscle group that could then be tied through external sensors to operating basic prosthetics. The person would probably live like a C1/C2 quadriplegic, breathing and speaking with the help of a ventilator, using a pacemaker and other devices to monitor and maintain the body. He would also be taking intense immune system inhibitors, since his head would be a giant pile of antigens as far as the body's blood was concerned.

I'm in agreement with chilaxe; Stephen Rose is a bum.

(and I think you mean self-termination, snoodoc)

^
Good point. I'm going out on a limb and saying a severed spinal cord will never be restored to a functional state, in situ.

Bioprosthetics will be the way to go
http://www.neurotechreports.com/pages/NPWorkshop.html

I don't see as how your body does anything but:

A) keep your brain alive
B) provide sensory input to your brain


If it weren't for all the damn nerves, this might be fun!

Too bad Dawkins isn't a sifter to say this more eloquently than I can. The body, and therefore the brain, are simply exceedingly effective devices to help perpetuate the amazingly complex replicator molecules that have been successfully making more and more of themselves for eons. The brain is simply the control center for the carrier machine that protects and proliferates DNA. Perhaps psychologists or philosophers of consciousness will tell us something different in the future; but for now, the evidence points to the fact that consciousness is simply an advantageous byproduct of the ever increasing process that helps make DNA make more of itself.

Also, I've posted the Demikhov vid Schmawwy pointed to:
http://www.videosift.com/video/The-unethical-work-of-Vladmir-Demikhov

^
Rhesus
Is there a "will" involved anywhere along this path. What compels DNA to replicate. Sometimes it seems inadequate to reduce it to chance chemical bonding. Though, it does appear the entire earthly biomass heaves and churns at the command of the double helix. Ultimately, I make the decision whether mine is perpetuated or not. Right now the DNA is saying, "perpetuate, perpetuate," Damn stuff won't leave me alone.

Stem cell science is still in very early stages, but scientists in 2006 restored the ability to walk in rats with injured spinal chords by growing new nerve tissue across the entire injury site.

Stem cell-based organ replacement is already being done today, and interesting work has been done on hearts, bones, breasts, penises etc (long list in that link).

In that view, head transplants seem pretty crude.

^
Rhesus

That seems to be the answer for the question: "What's the use of the brain in evolution?"

The question that's more important to me in the big picture: "What's the use of the brain for humankind today?"

I think the answer is that the use is whatever we choose it to be. (But I hope it's to increase human freedom .)

^
"The question that's more important to me in the big picture: "What's the use of the brain for humankind today?"

That's the point. Why has so much of our energy shifted away from procreation, which from DNAs standpoint, is the only thing that matters. An ant colony's social structure is solely based on perpetuating DNA. Humans, on the other hand, are off writing books, painting pictures, composing music, etc. Suddenly, evolutionarily speaking, there's all this wasted effort. Or is it wasted? I took up guitar so I could make music and..............meet girls. Damn, shot myself in the foot again.

heard the Vatican gave these monkey-head replacers all kinna monies...pope onna bird-body....now that'd be somethin'....

Heinlein, "I Will Fear No Evil"....great book-consciousness from one body in and to another.....

I think issues here are being conflated. Culture is an outgrowth of the process of chemical evolution; it cannot be considered alongside it. All cultures are systems of behaviors resulting from the nature of chemicals. Culture as it stands is a solution--developed by trial and error--to a problem. The problem WE have comes from the coexistence of two conflicting facts: 1) humans must in be the same places for extended periods of time in order to procreate at the maximum sustainable rate (we are an altricial species who invest much in offspring); and 2) humans have developed a subsistence strategy to maintain survival to a reproductive age that requires management of limited resources. Getting to the point, our brains/minds spend more and more time on aesthetic pursuits because we've come to a point where the products of these pursuits benefit the cohesion of societies, keeping us sanely together, sharing resources, making babies and not killing each other at rates that would destroy the genes our bodies so dutifully protect. The best use for the brain, I think we all agree, is to uncover the hidden keys each brain holds to unlock the answer of how to keep us all alive, making babies, for ever and ever, RAmen.

>> ^cheesemoo:
I don't see as how your body does anything but:
A)...

Meatsuit!

I'm going to have to come back and absorb this awesome thread more carefully.

Futurama settled this debate.