ANOTHER ONE FOR THE TRANSHUMANIST SCRAPBOOK: HEAD TRANSPLANTS
Yes, you read that headline correctly: scientists now believe head transplants are possible. Nay, perhaps even desirable. Consider this:
First-ever human head transplant is now possible, says neuroscientist
Note that the article is accompanied by large picture boldly emblazoned at the top of the piece, depicting the wondrous advantages of head transplants to people with terrible disfigurement. But the real Frankenstein possibilities are noted at the very end of the article:
"Paraplegics with qualifying injuries (i.e., enough spinal cord left intact to allow for a head transplant) could in theory regain the full use of a (donor) body. Likewise, patients with muscular dystrophy could be given whole new lives. Aside from the enormous technical challenges a head transplant would present, another potential barrier is cost. Canavero estimates that the total cost of a head transplant would be at least €10 million euros ($13 million.)"
Now, notably absent in this wondrous new vista of head transplants is any consideration of the human person and how all this might be affected. Transplant recipients - particularly of heart transplants - have long recorded that they have unusual emotions, foreign emotions, and even foreign memories, someone else's memories. Now imagine this with, well, someone else's head.
The whole possibility reminds me not so much of Percy Shelley's Frankenstein (yes, I said Percy, not Mary), but rather of Mel Brooks' Young Frankenstein (that's pronounced Frahnk-n-STEEN, for those of you who haven't seen the movie), where an incompetent lab assistant (played by Marty Feldman) robs a local brain depository not of the brain of its most prestigious sanctified and brilliant resident, but of the defective brain of its most addle-minded and criminal nincompoop.
Well, look around. We have abundant heads of nincompoops - think of Congress or Parliament here, or of the White House, the Bundeskanzlei, the Elysee Palace, 10 Downing, the Old Lady of Threadneedle, the Fed Reserve chairmen, BIS groupies - so the whole problem all along has been the wrong people in the wrong place with the wrong heads on the wrong bodies.
We can, for example, solve the world's financial problem by (1) cloning Murray Rothbard several times (2) severing his/their heads, and (3) transplanting the Rothbard heads onto the Bernanke, Rockefailure, Rottenchild bodies, et voila! financial sanity. And, in the ultimate touch, we could at the same time give them human hearts by transplanting a few of those we'd clone from someone known for sanctity, after growing their organs in various pigs or goats(we'd have to shop around for some suitable candidates... Francis of Assisi maybe).
....ah, the bright transhumanist future beckons.
***
The trouble is, folks, that some of these people would actually think all this is good (except maybe the heart transplant part, because they already think they have human hearts).
But either way one slices it (er.... that may not be the best choice of words here), one thing is abundantly clear:
These people are nattering nut-kabobs.
See you on the flip side.
12 Comments
Help the Community Grow
Please understand a donation is a gift and does not confer membership or license to audiobooks. To become a paid member, visit member registration.
frankfurter, a highly seasoned german sausage…..the Egyptians were doing the same stuff.
Watch the Rocky horror picture show for further insights….. Brad got caught with a flat, and needed a $atenic mechanic.
Seems the meduza machine turned the good guys back into stone. The vatican has the entire collection, with fig leaves sewn on for display….the morons running the show are destined for the wax museum over in Niagara Falls.
Also consider the implications in criminal law. Criminal id and tracing (except for eye/corneal shots) is almost always based on below-the-neck id: fingerprints, dna, body mass, etc. Wealthy crooks should be lining up.
I’ve always entertained the fantasy of having the ability of shrinking someone’s head at will. Probably the only magic/superhero power I’ve ever craved. Could you imagine pointing your finger at Rahm Emmanuel or Hillary Clinton and then watch their head shrink to the size of a small coconut? They’d never be able to show themselves in public again. What a weapon that would be. Not only could you do useful service to mankind, but you could have some great laughs as well.
Be careful Joseph. One of those lame brains might be after your head with your fabulous mind!
I like the head swapping idea, the matching up of bodies and heads could be a lot of fun.
Kissinger’ head on a stick, no wait……….
Ron Paul’ head on Benny B
Obama’ head on Romney……ugly
And finally……….
The Pope’ head on a stick………..repeat for every elite and bankster
You’ll need a new heading for this category.
Heads and/or Tail apothecary shops coming soon.
Give Me Head shops.
How About Some Tail? shops.
Back to robbing the graveyards.
Babylon 2600 BC – updated, transhumanized, corporatized, and ready for shopping-on-line/ all body patrs available, also software(or is that wetware?), & other essential living-add-on accesories. Beware your knock-offs, without the appropriate certifications of course.
Missed or late payments will be terminated.
You get the idea?
Everythings for sale.
(Souls, as yet not included).
Will that be AMX, M/C, or VISA?
gods been dealing in souls from the beginning…..as a footnote it has been 440 years, 40 in the wilderness, and 400 as told in the bible….and then judges are sent in, since the discovery America by ahem….Columnbus. 50 th aniversary since the JFK incident is coming up….are your spidey senses tingling?
Wierd that raw meat covered spawns flies.
“Transplant recipients – particularly of heart transplants – have long recorded that they have unusual emotions, foreign emotions, and even foreign memories, someone else’s memories.”
fascinating, emotions and memories are functionality of the brain, yet the transplanted heart does what the brain usually does for a particular person.
this also reminded me of what Dr.Pete Peterson said in a projectcamelot interview that if the parents of a new born child were to have their heart close to the baby’s heart as they cuddle the infant, the child’s intelligence will be affected by the parents.
How is it possible for the heart to do the job of the brain even after the brain no longer exist?
Very hot from the press and relevant too:
Can An Organ Transplant Change A Recipient’s Personality? Cell Memory Theory Affirms ‘Yes’
Donors may give a ‘new life’ to organ transplant recipients due to memories stored by organs, according to cell memory theory.
http://www.medicaldaily.com/articles/17233/20130709/organ-transplant-organ-donation-cell-memory-theory-personality-change.htm
This looks like shades of The Ghost in the Shell except what was transplanted in story was the brain and spinal cord. To a android body made of metal electronics plastics. By the way who are the people who going to provide the bodies for these transplants. We have enough problems now with organ transplants and the uber rich preying on the rest of us already.
Hi Marcos,
Yes, but the greater philosophical question for Motoko Kusanagi in “Ghost” was that she had so little actual “meat” left, that she was a ghost inside this, admittedly awesome, mecha-body. Of course there’s the other story of ghost hacking. Shiro Masamune is a brilliant writer.
Interesting that people report someone else’s mental image pictures or impressions from someone else’s meat being x-planted into their body. My issue with this whole head transplant is the premise that “you” are contained within the fatty cheese twixt your ears. I disagree with such. Yeesh, do we really need to see Kissinger’s head on top of some dead male model? This is not my ideal scene. Whether it’s worshiping Yahweh or worshiping meat, they both seem masochistic and stupid.
This is insanity that no transplants (or even pills!) can set right…