[ExI] head transplant again

[spike]

-----Original Message-----
From: extropy-chat [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf
Of BillK
Sent: Saturday, January 23, 2016 1:52 PM
To: ExI chat list <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
Subject: Re: [ExI] head transplant again

On 23 January 2016 at 21:28, spike wrote:
> If you are stout of heart and in the mood for this sort of thing, view the
Wiki page on head transplant:
>
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Head_transplant
>
>>... A thought occurred to me.  Plenty of people react with revulsion when 
> they hear of the notion of head transplants.  But I don't and plenty of
people here do not.  I had an advantage of sorts:
> I heard of head transplants when I was a child aged nine.  Children's
minds are pliable and open.
> Perhaps having heard of the notion then caused some kind of permanent
brain dam...  rather..
> um... development.
>


>...I was going to nod in agreement, but I have to be careful with the
stitches round my neck.

BillK
_______________________________________________


It was a teaching moment.  The thought occurred to me that my son is now the
age I was when I heard of the head transplant in 1970, all the way down to
the week.  So I decided to have a discussion with him about it.  He reacted
with instinctive revulsion.  But with discussion, his line of reasoning went
down the same path mine did when I was aged 9 years: I don't see why not.
The peg on my ethics-o-meter and his were both pointing to the lime-green
region.

I misspent my youth in Florida, not far from Daytona where yearly we have
Bike Week.  Seems every year we would hear of some drunken fool slamming
into some hard object on his bike and encountering the pavement head first
with destructive enthusiasm.  The result was a breathing corpse, which was
usually buried a few months or even years later.  We know there are
perfectly healthy young people with total paralysis, and some of the
paralyzed people with conditions that will slay them.  

Knowing there is a steady reliable source of otherwise undamaged bodies with
mashed frontal lobes (from Bike Week at Daytona and other sources) and
plenty of heads in desperate need of a body, I can think of no good ethical
reason to not swap the heads or bodies depending on your perspective.  The
one would enjoy improved quality of life, while the other would not know or
care.

spike