We had a discussion in the WEPR a couple months back about transferring bodies and what effect that would have on the psyche, mind, and functionality of the human body. All knowledge and evidence points to the fact that the brain is responsible for all manners of consciousness and activity. Given this, it would be possible that, given the necessary surgeries needed to transplant a brain into a fresh body, the consciousness of the transplant-or would use the vessel and live on. Once man1 reaches an old age, he can use a brain transplant to use a new vessel to become man2, but with his own consciousness. If he was 80 before and is using a 20 year old man, he would add 60 more years to his conscious life.
Complications of various manners can occur:
Immorality, for example, dictates that it would be wrong of a man to take someone else's body for his own, just to live longer. Even though the transplant-ee signed the waiver to allow man1 to take his body, the majority may think of this as wrong.
Socially, how would you interact with others, and vice-versa? You just took the body of a 20 year old man that had his own friends and family, while your own family is pretty much gone. Would you be with man2's peers or with man1's peers that are in generations 3 and 4?
Lawfully, how would you be tagged and ID'd? Jonathan Morrison (man1) or Samuel Watson (man2)? Would businesses and workplaces accept one that took the body of another man? Would you be shunned among your co-workers, or instead be revered, as you would have half a century of field experience?
Naturally, how would the flow of nature go, if many other people decided to transplant their brains, assuming morality accepts it? Our population expenditure would dramatically increase, wouldn't it?
Morality#2, what would others think if you were to mate with what used to be your family, but physically not? Biologically, the two are supposed to be strangers, thus fit to mate and would produce healthy children with none of the complications that mating with blood members would ensue.
Personally, would Man1 stomach the fact that he's using another man (or woman?) as a vessel? Would he be able to function normally, or would he break down? I suppose that would have to depend on Man1's original psyche.
I personally find this an interesting thread, and I would love to hear from the rest of you. Think: living for more than 120 years. No one has ever done that before in recorded history. Would it not be insurmountably awesome?
I would also like to resurrect Moegreche from the nether so I could hear his insight on this. :3
......ok those 3 very veryyy lovely post but moving on..... over population, total deforestation, and full on global warming would later insue after such a developement.
I see people fingering the catch on Pandora's Box. There are some things that shouldn't be tampered with, and taking the natural out of natural life will only bring about far greater consequences.
I see people fingering the catch on Pandora's Box. There are some things that shouldn't be tampered with, and taking the natural out of natural life will only bring about far greater consequences.
....i don't believe it is an absolute.. because it has never been done then it would have unique consequences but who's to say whether they'll be more beneficial then detrimental.
over population, total deforestation, and full on global warming would later insue after such a developement.
all three are already happening w/o it. you can't say that extending life in such a manner would be the sole contributing factor to these things. sure... it may speed it up but we reproduce much faster then we die as it is. the deforestation and global warming points aren't very strong. scientific observation and study tells us that the earth goes through cycles... freezing then heating then freezing then heating... etc... if it freezes then alot of trees will die.
Growing old is mandatory, growing up is optonal.
only unless science progresses and finds ways in which to invalidate that claim
There would be no way to do this, the brain only lives ten seconds longer then the body, and if we somehow managed to put the brain in another body, you have to remember the brain dies too! If you were on the verge of death and you swapped bodys you would still die because you can't avoide old age it hits the brain too.
The reason why we can do heart transplants is because we "freeze" them to cease functioning, then implant them in a body, which is also "frozen", and finally make the two function.
There are ways we can keep the brain alive. For instance, stem cells can repair damaged, old tissues. To recreate new neurons would be dangerous at the most, but also beneficial. Assuming this will be in the near future, we would also delve more into our research to come up with solutions to these methods that would backfire or cause problems.
over population, total deforestation, and full on global warming would later insue after such a developement.
I can imagine there not being a problem. What were my methods stated in the OP again? It was taking a fresh human's body, placing your brain in their body, and continue life. Again: future. This could happen after terraforming Venus and Mars. Maybe Europa would also be fertile. We might be successful at traveling to the next star which is ~11 light years.
It would also be lovely to state some moral opinions about this issue, seeing as how I haven't seen but a couple, if that.
sonata plzzz think before u respond...... its annoying correcting and disproving u.... for the sake of the topic i WOULD right now but im on a psp sooo it becomes... a nuisance doing that while on one.
sonata plzzz think before u respond...... its annoying correcting and disproving u.... for the sake of the topic i WOULD right now but im on a psp sooo it becomes... a nuisance doing that while on one.
I can imagine there not being a problem. What were my methods stated in the OP again? It was taking a fresh human's body, placing your brain in their body, and continue life. Again: future. This could happen after terraforming Venus and Mars. Maybe Europa would also be fertile. We might be successful at traveling to the next star which is ~11 light years.
now.... if my eyes serve me correct. he just agreed with my statement.
All of those things are already happening. I find it hard to believe that if they were to happen after this hypothetical situation began to be practiced that it would be the major cause of all of those problems. We would consume an even greater amount of resources but we already consume massive amounts of resources and spew out massive amounts of by products(co2)... Those problems have other contributing factors that need to be dealt with before you can just say that "immortality" would be the reason behind it. I imagine it being a super expensive procedure and only a very limited number of people being able to afford it. taking that into account, I don't see it causing that much of a problem... plus as OP states... one person must die before the other uses his/her body.
the problem with terraforming is..... the level of gravity on the astral body that we would use. astronauts in space experience bone loss and muscle loss... mars has a smaller gravitational pull if my memory serves correct. for those born on a planet of lesser gravity... could they sustain the immense strain from a planet of greater gravity. i mean if you had a set of planets with slightly higher and higher gravity then maybe... but that's doubtful. its most likely going to be like us and mars where the gravity is significantly different.
i don't think this data says that such planets can't be colonized... it just makes me think that once you go there and live there for too long that your trip will have been one way and you'll not be able to return.
as for morals... its hard defining those in a way that others will accept them, so i will define them by my terms and give a description based off of that. I think morals are the set of beliefs that predetermine our immediate responses to situations. In this way we make decisions based off of our morals without any immediate logical thought. we don't consider the benefits or detriments of the subject because we already label it as "right" or "wrong" based off of our "morals".
for this subject i think it would be case to case. as for me I'm not sure which decision i would make. Its the same thing as an organ transplant. if transplanting organs is "wrong" then transplanting "bodies" is wrong. for me i think it would depend on the method by which the body was collected. if it was a death that left the body intact and wasn't a murder then i don't think there would be a problem for me. faced with the uncertainty of what comes with death I don't know if i would even say no to a body that was collected via unsavory means.
Freakenstein i can tell u r a brilliant mind as well but, there r a few.... gaps... in ur logic as well.
Sonata's posting record - and the post in question - seem to be well thought-out responses. And using "leet speak" while offering no real rebuttal makes you a useless troll, you useless troll.
Anywho, as to the morality of such an endeavor, I have to ask: What would the moral objection be? If there is some sort of greater good, how would prolonging human life go against this prime directive? Most arguments that try to posit some sort of greater good often accept some intrinsic worth to human life, so prolonging that life would seem to complement any such system. One could object by pointing out the devastating environmental consequences of prolonged human life. Perhaps with an increased life span, we run the risk of eradicating all life on Earth. But we don't know if this outcome is even probable, so can we really be morally culpable if it obtains?
I think it would be really interesting to see what ethical commitments we would have to take on to get the conclusion that prolonging human life is immoral. It would seem prima facie evident that we would need some utilitarian commitments (probably a utilitarian structure of ethics) which may or may not negate any sort of moral imperatives - I'll need to think about this. Feedback is always helpful here.
But there could be some compelling moral reasons to extend human life. Think about how scientific developments progress. Someone has a conceptual idea and after years and years (sometimes generations) of research and development, a consumer-friendly product might be developed. But imagine a world where those brilliant minds who truly understand the concept and have a lifetime of experience under their belt don't die. We wouldn't lose those decades of research and experience. Rather than some grad student developing the research of someone who studied under someone else who develop this idea in the first place, we could have a community led by these original innovators. Think of all the ideas and potential that are lost simply to old age and death! I strongly contend that research in just about any field could be advanced by having a longer lifespan.
This could also have interesting consequences for environmental issues, and mankind as a whole. Imagine where we might be if, say, Einstein were still alive. To be able to see and understand the change in a product or a theoretical system is an invaluable resource for that community.
I don't get how that would hel-p since your brain too deteriorates so it would just die. Also the body would have to be alive up until the operation for this to even work so i think it's impossible. Plus who would be stupid enough to sign a waizer for dis? Unless you use prisioners that are on death row I don't think this will ever be feasable.
no man has greater love than this: to give one's life for a friend. recognize that paraphrase? it means that that is the absolute most moral thing possible, I don't know anyone who can do this and Freakenstein's method requires it. then there's the chance of the operation fails. and even if it works fresh bodies can't keep a brain alive forever.
which is to say, the only ways to stop aging are: a machine body,one that can maintain itself and a brain indefinately, and that isn't that far off
Next is cranial and bodily regeneration, and that stretches the laws of physics and chemistry
3rd, superfying, which is to say, making it to that the body can maintain indefinately.
Off all these options only one of them is plausible, the machine one. But machines still have to be repaired
it's biologically inpossible. your brain doesn't mulitiple his cells, (if it does, it's known as cancer.) maybe we can a lot longer than we do now, but immortal, no. the cells would die slowly, and the telomeres in the rest of the body wouldn't always hold. cells would stop to multiple. (actually, that's why we get old.) mutations would occure, no doubt. and you know the law of murphy wich is not of murphy: everything what can go wrong, goes wrong. you would die. it could take a long time, but not into enternety.
