Brain transplants are purely science fiction for now, but while it might be called a brain transplant, it’s more of a body transplant. Assuming you’re taking a useless body with a useful brain and a useful body with a useless brain, and swapping, the person, being in the brain, is getting a new body. The owner of the brain-dead body wouldn’t get a new brain. Their family would get the useless brain and useless body to bury.
If that sounds grim, it’s because it is, and the potential for abuse would be so great. Imagine a random wealthy, 79-year-old pederast dictator who would demand that some family give up their ten-year-old child to receive his brain. Maybe they get compensated for their child, maybe they just get to keep living. Is that something medical science should allow? Would there be any condition in which it’s ethically or morally okay? And what if, with healthy body replacements, a brain can only live 150 years? After the second or third transplant, what would be the ethics or morality of taking a good mind (say, one that might cure cancer) and giving that brain 10 more years of life, versus giving a 10-year-old only 10 more years before that body just drops dead at 20 (maybe to be a recipient of another brain with a dying body, but to make things fun, let’s say a body can only get a new brain once: remove the second brain, and a third one cannot be successfully transplanted in)?
‘Well, who would miss it?’ enquired Benjy. ‘I thought you said you could just read his brain electronically,’ protested Ford. ‘Oh yes,’ said Frankie, ‘but we’d have to get it out first. It’s got to be prepared.’ ‘Treated,’ said Benjy. ‘Diced.’
‘Thank you,’ shouted Arthur, tipping up his chair and backing away from the table in horror.
‘It could always be replaced,’ said Benjy reasonably, ‘if you think it’s important.’ ‘Yes, an electronic brain,’ said Frankie, ‘a simple one would suffice.’
If full body transplants become possible, the most obvious way forward is growing bodies in vats. When you hit 30 or 40, you start up a new body using your own DNA and swap over at age 50 or 60.
[waves hand] It’s fine. Just have to 3D print the new body and a regulation that requires everyone take a body of the opposite sex. That way trans people can get the right body and the rich can gain some empathy for trans people real fast.
I was actually kinda thinking how interesting it would be to have to take a body of the opposite sex. That’s actually how I play Cyberpunk — a game in which you play a mercenary who gets possessed by Johnny Silverhand, a rock star turned terrorist whose mind was stored on a chip that you steal from the company that did it to him. And he’s played by Keanu Reeves. (For the two people who don’t know.) So you can be a guy, or you can be a girl. For the guy, they got this new guy, he’s a good voice actor, but he sounds New York and the character is in California, so there’s a bit of a disconnect there. But he does sound like a street tough, so it works. The girl is played by Cherami Leigh, a relatively well known voice actor, at least in anime. So as a nerd, I mean, I’m drawn to Cyberpunk because Keanu Reeves was Neo, because Idris Elba was Roland (Deschain from The Dark Tower; also Luther from the BBC series of the same name)… and because Cherami Leigh was Asuna in Sword Art Online. It’s a total geek fest. Or I could play this guy who’s… pretty much just done this. Nah, I’m playing Asuna but bad.
Anyway, a finer point of the game people don’t get is, it’s presented as Johnny is taking over V via the chip. But — and the game slaps you across the face with this multiple times — V was killed in the prologue. Johnny is on the chip (in her head), Johnny is the reason you’re alive. It’s Johnny’s body now, but the remnants of V are clinging to existence, and slowly fading. The whole point of the chip is that the person whose mind is on it gets the body. That’s why it exists. To allow Saboru Arasaka — the patriarch of the company — to try to live forever. They were just gonna put it in some younger person’s head and let him take over that body, but it didn’t play out that way. Whole lotta details, ins and outs, it’s weird… point is, the way the game seems meant to be played, it’s about an older guy taking over a younger lady’s body. (Or a guy if that weirds you out, that is an option, but IMO it’s the lesser option.) And the game makes frequent reference to it. In one ending, a guy says “but you’re a chick,” and you play it off. It doesn’t really matter to him, he’s just reacting based on what he sees. (It’s not a spoiler without context.) There’s also the time when Johnny says “you remind me of me when I was younger, minus the charisma — and the impressive cock.” The line technically works if you chose to play a guy (it’s more of an insult, implying Johnny’s new equipment is smaller), but it works better if you pick the girl.
Anyway, that’s my take — I mean, that I kinda had that in mind based on my current favourite game.
Brain transplants are purely science fiction for now, but while it might be called a brain transplant, it’s more of a body transplant. Assuming you’re taking a useless body with a useful brain and a useful body with a useless brain, and swapping, the person, being in the brain, is getting a new body. The owner of the brain-dead body wouldn’t get a new brain. Their family would get the useless brain and useless body to bury.
If that sounds grim, it’s because it is, and the potential for abuse would be so great. Imagine a random wealthy, 79-year-old pederast dictator who would demand that some family give up their ten-year-old child to receive his brain. Maybe they get compensated for their child, maybe they just get to keep living. Is that something medical science should allow? Would there be any condition in which it’s ethically or morally okay? And what if, with healthy body replacements, a brain can only live 150 years? After the second or third transplant, what would be the ethics or morality of taking a good mind (say, one that might cure cancer) and giving that brain 10 more years of life, versus giving a 10-year-old only 10 more years before that body just drops dead at 20 (maybe to be a recipient of another brain with a dying body, but to make things fun, let’s say a body can only get a new brain once: remove the second brain, and a third one cannot be successfully transplanted in)?
Douglas Adams
If full body transplants become possible, the most obvious way forward is growing bodies in vats. When you hit 30 or 40, you start up a new body using your own DNA and swap over at age 50 or 60.
[waves hand] It’s fine. Just have to 3D print the new body and a regulation that requires everyone take a body of the opposite sex. That way trans people can get the right body and the rich can gain some empathy for trans people real fast.
I was actually kinda thinking how interesting it would be to have to take a body of the opposite sex. That’s actually how I play Cyberpunk — a game in which you play a mercenary who gets possessed by Johnny Silverhand, a rock star turned terrorist whose mind was stored on a chip that you steal from the company that did it to him. And he’s played by Keanu Reeves. (For the two people who don’t know.) So you can be a guy, or you can be a girl. For the guy, they got this new guy, he’s a good voice actor, but he sounds New York and the character is in California, so there’s a bit of a disconnect there. But he does sound like a street tough, so it works. The girl is played by Cherami Leigh, a relatively well known voice actor, at least in anime. So as a nerd, I mean, I’m drawn to Cyberpunk because Keanu Reeves was Neo, because Idris Elba was Roland (Deschain from The Dark Tower; also Luther from the BBC series of the same name)… and because Cherami Leigh was Asuna in Sword Art Online. It’s a total geek fest. Or I could play this guy who’s… pretty much just done this. Nah, I’m playing Asuna but bad.
Anyway, a finer point of the game people don’t get is, it’s presented as Johnny is taking over V via the chip. But — and the game slaps you across the face with this multiple times — V was killed in the prologue. Johnny is on the chip (in her head), Johnny is the reason you’re alive. It’s Johnny’s body now, but the remnants of V are clinging to existence, and slowly fading. The whole point of the chip is that the person whose mind is on it gets the body. That’s why it exists. To allow Saboru Arasaka — the patriarch of the company — to try to live forever. They were just gonna put it in some younger person’s head and let him take over that body, but it didn’t play out that way. Whole lotta details, ins and outs, it’s weird… point is, the way the game seems meant to be played, it’s about an older guy taking over a younger lady’s body. (Or a guy if that weirds you out, that is an option, but IMO it’s the lesser option.) And the game makes frequent reference to it. In one ending, a guy says “but you’re a chick,” and you play it off. It doesn’t really matter to him, he’s just reacting based on what he sees. (It’s not a spoiler without context.) There’s also the time when Johnny says “you remind me of me when I was younger, minus the charisma — and the impressive cock.” The line technically works if you chose to play a guy (it’s more of an insult, implying Johnny’s new equipment is smaller), but it works better if you pick the girl.
Anyway, that’s my take — I mean, that I kinda had that in mind based on my current favourite game.