Head transplant

http://www.theguardian.com/society/2015/feb/25/first-full-body-transplant-two-years-away-surgeon-claim

Is this ethical? Would you want it for yourself?

Does the resulting body-head combination house two souls?

Originally posted by Great King Rat
http://www.theguardian.com/society/2015/feb/25/first-full-body-transplant-two-years-away-surgeon-claim

Is this ethical? Would you want it for yourself?

Does the resulting body-head combination house two souls?

Putting aside the considerable technical issues involved in removing a living person’s head, grafting it to a dead body, reviving the reconstructed person and retraining their brain to use thousands of unfamiliar spinal cord nerves, the ethics are problematic.

Maybe I should have continued reading, but I have to ask: if we can revive dead people, why not just revive the dead person?

Originally posted by C Hess
Maybe I should have continued reading, but I have to ask: if we can revive dead people, why not just revive the dead person?

A lot of dead people are dead due to irreparable brain damage.

I don't see any ethical issue in the concept itself. Obviously all medical procedures can have ethical issues in specific instances.

Originally posted by C Hess

Putting aside the considerable technical issues involved in removing a living person’s head, grafting it to a dead body, reviving the reconstructed person and retraining their brain to use thousands of unfamiliar spinal cord nerves, the ethics are problematic.

Maybe I should have continued reading, but I have to ask: if we can revive dead people, why not just revive the dead person?

I suppose in the not so far future it might be possible to "grow" headless bodies.

Also, when is a body dead? If it's just the brain that's dead but the body might still be able to function, it's not really "reviving" dead people.

Originally posted by Great King Rat
I suppose in the not so far future it might be possible to "grow" headless bodies.

Also, when is a body dead? If it's just the brain that's dead but the body might still be able to function, it's not really "reviving" dead people.

I've already talked about the possibility of doing this kind of thing in life
extension discussions here.

Although I was thinking more along the lines of a custom built/grown body
using your own cloned cells/DNA to avoid rejection issues and to avoid the
whole 'waking up in a different body' problem. [among other possible issues]


And if the technology works I would, and plan to, use it.

Originally posted by Great King Rat
I suppose in the not so far future it might be possible to "grow" headless bodies.

Also, when is a body dead? If it's just the brain that's dead but the body might still be able to function, it's not really "reviving" dead people.

What about the immune system? You wake up after surgery, only to find your immune system trying to remove your head. Damn! What drugs do you take for that?

Originally posted by C Hess
What about the immune system? You wake up after surgery, only to find your immune system trying to remove your head. Damn! What drugs do you take for that?

There are drugs to suppress immune responses that are used for organ transplants. They are not perfect, which is why it is important to find a good match. I am not sure why limb transplants are relatively rare. I would think limb transplants would come before full body transplants.

Originally posted by twhitehead
There are drugs to suppress immune responses that are used for organ transplants. They are not perfect, which is why it is important to find a good match. I am not sure why limb transplants are relatively rare. I would think limb transplants would come before full body transplants.

Same basic problem, connecting up the nerves. Reveal Hidden Content

Which is THE reason it's really unlikely this will happen in the claimed 2 years.

Once that issue is solved then the rest is [relatively] 'easy' to solve.

As in we already have most of the unbelievably difficult and complex steps solved already.

However making severed nerves talk to each other is a 'hard problem' and may well be decades off being
solved.

In the mean time we are likely to finish off the tech required to build/grow every organ from scratch
and be able to build/grow a fresh new body from their own DNA which will be better on many different
levels.

How does this surgeon intend to knit the nerves together? If they could do that a lot of paralysed people could be cured. If they can't do that the person is going to be left in an iron lung unable to do anything, potentially including talk (I don't know enough about the wiring). So, no I don't think this is ethical. It offers a false hope, a fate worse than death where other treatments, which may only be partially successful would extend life without leaving the patient paralysed and with the strange dysmorphia of occupying someone else's body. I think this surgeon is more interested in his career than his patients.

Originally posted by twhitehead
I don't see any ethical issue in the concept itself. Obviously all medical procedures can have ethical issues in specific instances.

Ethics? Who cares about ethics, it's all about science man!

Originally posted by DeepThought
How does this surgeon intend to knit the nerves together? If they could do that a lot of paralysed people could be cured. If they can't do that the person is going to be left in an iron lung unable to do anything, potentially including talk (I don't know enough about the wiring). So, no I don't think this is ethical. It offers a false hope, a fate wo ...[text shortened]... g someone else's body. I think this surgeon is more interested in his career than his patients.

So are you saying that people with severed spinal cord injuries that will almost certainly result in them being quadriplegic for life should be put to sleep? (or at least not operated on and allowed to die)

Originally posted by whodey
Ethics? Who cares about ethics, it's all about science man!

Clearly you have no ethics, but the rest of us do.

Originally posted by twhitehead
So are you saying that people with severed spinal cord injuries that will almost certainly result in them being quadriplegic for life should be put to sleep? (or at least not operated on and allowed to die)

How will a body transplant help? And no I'm not advocating compulsory euthanasia, you cannot read that into my post.

Originally posted by Great King Rat
http://www.theguardian.com/society/2015/feb/25/first-full-body-transplant-two-years-away-surgeon-claim

Is this ethical? Would you want it for yourself?

Does the resulting body-head combination house two souls?

Dude!