# First Head Transplant



## The_Truth (May 2, 2015)

$11mn, 36-hour historic head transplant to be carried out in China in 2017 â€” RT News 



> Italian doctor Sergio Canavero, along with his Chinese colleague Ren Xiaoping, is set to conduct the world’s first head transplant on a 30-year-old Russian patient suffering from a rare disease. The operation is planned for December 2017.
> 
> The project was first announced in 2013, and the man who volunteered for the procedure is Russian Valery Spiridonov, who suffers from the extremely rare, progressive Werdnig-Hoffmann disease.
> 
> ...


What interesting times we live in. Something is to be said about future ethical dilemmas here.


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## Razare (Apr 21, 2009)

Yes, this is why I was warning about trans-humanism.


If it works, 20 years from now rich will be doing head transplants to keep themselves going... who knows what they'll do with it.

The whole world is becoming intellectually disgusting with technology.

Then it wont be long and the human farms will start for ograns and bodies. They may already have them going that we don't know about somewhere. Wouldn't surprise me.


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## Highway Nights (Nov 26, 2014)

Sounds interesting, hope it goes smoothly.


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## Amelia (Aug 23, 2015)

This sounds intriguing and pretty amazing. I doubt it'l work, though. 

And if it does, the future procedures will probably be abused in so many ways. Such as having the wealthy live longer, as stated above.


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## Purrfessor (Jul 30, 2013)

The thing is the brain and body are connected, and emotion is actually homed in the body. So changing bodies means a huge HUGE emotional reconfiguration that probably no human could ever hope to withstand because shock would shut you off. It's like giving blood to someone without them being your type except it's emotion... And there are no types. Complete emotional rejection. I'm glad it won't work because it will prevent terrible human farming for parts.


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## RobynC (Jun 10, 2011)

Razare said:


> Yes, this is why I was warning about trans-humanism.


Transhumanism is basically eugenics with high tech.



> The whole world is becoming intellectually disgusting with technology.


I don't know why people don't think of technology as a capability rather than some exalted thing that should never be regulated _(plus we regulate technology all the time, fire codes, speed-limits, etc)_.


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## RobynC (Jun 10, 2011)

Stelliferous said:


> The thing is the brain and body are connected, and emotion is actually homed in the body.


What?


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## Purrfessor (Jul 30, 2013)

RobynC said:


> What?


Your body is a storage house for emotion. Your brain doesn't contain everything about you.


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## RobynC (Jun 10, 2011)

@Stelliferous

How... your brain is where consciousness lay, there are structures in your brain that affect emotion, the only thing that is outside the brain is some of the endocrine glands. Admittedly that can effect you!


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## Tucken (Dec 13, 2009)

Razare said:


> Yes, this is why I was warning about trans-humanism.
> 
> 
> If it works, 20 years from now rich will be doing head transplants to keep themselves going... who knows what they'll do with it.
> ...


their heads will degrade anyways even if the body is exchanged. then what are they gonna do change their heads too? 

the results of this experiment... there is gonna be much confusion in it for him. modern people like to think that everything about a person is in their brain but the body and the heart has much to do with identity, intelligence and other things. 

Interesting nonetheless  

If we could grow new organs that is probably a good medical advancement. Im cautiously pro it.


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## Tucken (Dec 13, 2009)

Stelliferous said:


> The thing is the brain and body are connected, and emotion is actually homed in the body. So changing bodies means a huge HUGE emotional reconfiguration that probably no human could ever hope to withstand because shock would shut you off. It's like giving blood to someone without them being your type except it's emotion... And there are no types. Complete emotional rejection. I'm glad it won't work because it will prevent terrible human farming for parts.


For a head type you have great understanding of, appreciation of, and insight into the function of the body and heart =). Thats no small feat, head types are usually insular and cocooned but you're unusually wholesome. Good luck to you, I see that great things are possible for you!


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## Purrfessor (Jul 30, 2013)

RobynC said:


> @_Stelliferous_
> 
> How... your brain is where consciousness lay, there are structures in your brain that affect emotion, the only thing that is outside the brain is some of the endocrine glands. Admittedly that can effect you!


It has been known for quite a long time that your consciousness is not in your head only. Your head is where The Holy Spirit is, not your consciousness. Just study Chi and you know that your consciousness is in your blood, mostly throughout your body. There is blood in your brain but it is a small percentage of your consciousness.


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## KiRrRr (Jul 30, 2015)

Stelliferous said:


> It has been known for quite a long time that your consciousness is not in your head only. Your head is where The Holy Spirit is, not your consciousness. Just study Chi and you know that your consciousness is in your blood, mostly throughout your body. There is blood in your brain but it is a small percentage of your consciousness.


Interesting thought.... but as a (neuro) biologist I have to disagree with you here.
I have never heard of someones conscious changed by having a blood transfusion for example 
While all kinds of processes of consciousness can be affected by brain damage etc....
But maybe our idea of consciousness is also different, and I do have to say I have not studied Chi that much, so maybe you can explain me this a bit more in relation to consciousness or have a nice informing link or something like that ?

I do agree that I'm not sure if this head transplant will work out.... 
I doubt if your brains will accept this new body, I think there will be big problems in the parietal lobe where body mapping lies
I don't think the brain will be able to communicate with the body.....

A famous case was of the worlds first succesfull hand transplant... The receiver felt detached from the hand and had it removed 2 years afterwards again (If you think this is interesting you should look at Body integrity identity disorder).

And as has been said before we don't have to worry about rich people living longer... since our brain cells die as well .


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## Purrfessor (Jul 30, 2013)

KiRrRr said:


> Interesting thought.... but as a (neuro) biologist I have to disagree with you here.
> I have never heard of someones conscious changed by having a blood transfusion for example
> While all kinds of processes of consciousness can be affected by brain damage etc....
> But maybe our idea of consciousness is also different, and I do have to say I have not studied Chi that much, so maybe you can explain me this a bit more in relation to consciousness or have a nice informing link or something like that ?
> ...


Funny you're a neurobiologist because it's the science of the brain that is taking attention away from other aspects of consciousness. Modern science has evidence that the brain signals and patterns are always directly tied with human behavior, like mental illnesses and such have specific brain behaviors, and this causes people to connect the dots too quickly and assume that the origin of all behavior/consciousness is the brain and are under the assumption that medication that alters the brain chemicals will ultimately fix a condition. However this is not true, the brain is the "middle man" in that what it does is what it is told to do by consciousness. Consciousness goes by many names; free will, chi, will power, etc. This side of human behavior has been largely dismissed in the western world because Darwin's theory's of evolution claimed that there is no free will, using evidence that shows genetic evolvement over time in the pursuit of survival as the foundation for that claim. But the problem is it's only half true and people don't seem to care. 

There is this yin-yang of a system that drives human behavior - evolution only found the yang. Yin = freedom; Yang = survival. These two desires are the driving force for human life. The survival aspect is well known in modern times but for some reason we decided to forget the other half that has been studied for millenia: freedom. Yin yang works because it's not two opposites at war, but rather two opposites working together - and it is the circle of the opposite color inside one color that symbolizes that the other side is influencing any given side. So with freedom, to achieve freedom one must survive. And to survive, one must achieve freedom (break patterns and adapt). It is beautiful! 

With that aside, "chi" has been studied for a long time. Chi is the inner energy of your soul, which is the primary energy that can be controlled. This energy can be moved throughout your body by way of focus. Martial artists sometimes practiced this to a great extent until they had as much control over their body as possible. There are still monks who practice this art form today because the freedom of the body is extremely spiritual in effect. With the power of chi you can actually control your Internal temperature, your pain tolerance, and your attention (meditation). Some people who have mastered controlling this energy have withstood freezing temperatures without their body hear lowering. The Chi is your soul, and it doesn't rest in the head.. Nor can it solely. 

Ive actually been doing my own scientific research on the muscles in the body and the emotion that is attached to each muscle. When you move your chi to an area of the body you begin to release an emotional feeling from your repressed consciousness into your consciousness. An example is sexual orgasming and the different types of orgasms one can experience just by allowing the pleasure to flow from beyond the genitalia and into other areas of the body. Pleasure is just one way to guide the chi through your body. And in certain spots of the body there is certain emotion, which can be experienced and controlled by simply managing your chi. 

When you behead somebody, you're not actually taking them because the chi cannot be isolated in the head. All emotion is found in the body, all survival is found in the head. 

This is is also why you can't just upload someone's mind into a computer. Your mind isn't you. It's just a part of you.


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## marbleous (Feb 21, 2014)

This is science. It might not work at first, but that doesn't mean they wouldn't be able to get it to work in the future. We can control the spin of electrons for goodness sake, and those are much smaller than neurons. We can send robots to distances farther than we could ever travel in our lifetime with extreme accuracy. And although it may be abused, like any new technology, smartphones for instance, it can be abused. That is not a big deal imo, we will develop a standard to make it safe for the vast majority, rest assured. Heck, I just got done reading a thread about a girl jumping into a dead horse's body, didn't need much technology for that...

Logistics aside, this surgery will be extremely interesting from a scientific point of view. How interesting would it be to compare the personality of the original persons to the new hybrid person! This will reveal so much about how consciousnesses and personalities are formed, if they are original to the body or head. Most people say it's the head, or no, that the soul lies in the heart, but this is mostly speculation! What if a new personality is formed completely, the new hybrid person has the personality of a baby since they're learning to coordinate their head to their body! XD

I wonder how the dense wire harness of nerves are connected between the body and head. How they may know to heal together, connecting the nerves of the brain and the spine. I imagine a bundle of male wire connectors connected to the head, and a bunch of female connectors to the body, each with care taken to make sure that the right nerve went to the right muscle... Then pulling them all out, getting a new body, and plugging the wires into the new body ports as fast as you can, at random! Left calve nerve to right upper lung, heartbeat to right pinky toe, what a spasmodic performance!

How even can they provide enough oxygen to the head when it is separated from the body? Step 1, keep decapitated head alive. XD Well, if this isn't even a requirement, could they attach a corpse head to a body? Why don't they try that? XD


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## Carpentet810 (Nov 17, 2013)

Lends a whole new meaning to getting head.


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## TheIsrafil (May 19, 2014)

Stelliferous said:


> Funny you're a neurobiologist because it's the science of the brain that is taking attention away from other aspects of consciousness. Modern science has evidence that the brain signals and patterns are always directly tied with human behavior, like mental illnesses and such have specific brain behaviors, and this causes people to connect the dots too quickly and assume that the origin of all behavior/consciousness is the brain and are under the assumption that medication that alters the brain chemicals will ultimately fix a condition. However this is not true, the brain is the "middle man" in that what it does is what it is told to do by consciousness. Consciousness goes by many names; free will, chi, will power, etc. This side of human behavior has been largely dismissed in the western world because Darwin's theory's of evolution claimed that there is no free will, using evidence that shows genetic evolvement over time in the pursuit of survival as the foundation for that claim. But the problem is it's only half true and people don't seem to care.
> 
> There is this yin-yang of a system that drives human behavior - evolution only found the yang. Yin = freedom; Yang = survival. These two desires are the driving force for human life. The survival aspect is well known in modern times but for some reason we decided to forget the other half that has been studied for millenia: freedom. Yin yang works because it's not two opposites at war, but rather two opposites working together - and it is the circle of the opposite color inside one color that symbolizes that the other side is influencing any given side. So with freedom, to achieve freedom one must survive. And to survive, one must achieve freedom (break patterns and adapt). It is beautiful!
> 
> ...


Intriguing. But your ying-yang dichotomy doesn't seem to be the only way of interpretating the relationship between freedom and survival; speaking from a purely scientific viewpoint, it is no small wonder that freedom is a necessary component of survival, in the sense that freedom of choice would lead to more enriching and fulfilling experiences, thus increasing growth of the brain and stimulating the body to youthfulness. Feeling free can be physiologically linked to greater survivability rates without the dichotomy you assume, it seems. Thus, the "survive" portion can be, feasibly, place olat the top of the hierarchy of needs, with freedom listed as a necessary component.


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## Purrfessor (Jul 30, 2013)

TheIsrafil said:


> Intriguing. But your ying-yang dichotomy doesn't seem to be the only way of interpretating the relationship between freedom and survival; speaking from a purely scientific viewpoint, it is no small wonder that freedom is a necessary component of survival, in the sense that freedom of choice would lead to more enriching and fulfilling experiences, thus increasing growth of the brain and stimulating the body to youthfulness. Feeling free can be physiologically linked to greater survivability rates without the dichotomy you assume, it seems. Thus, the "survive" portion can be, feasibly, place olat the top of the hierarchy of needs, with freedom listed as a necessary component.


Well that's how yin yang works. I tried to describe it in two sentences but basically what you said is how the yin yang is supposed to be (partially) interpreted. From a survival stand point, freedom is needed and that's why the symbol has a circle of the opposite color in each of its sides. You're only looking at the one side though, because from a freedom standpoint survival is needed. Reverse everything you just said, it fits for the other side too. Think of it like the God principle, in that no matter how much evolution of the universe is documented, there is still the possibility of God creating the stuff that creates. It's like that with freedom, in that behind all the survival could be the conscious will of freedom allowing it all to happen. Therefore it is impossible to determine a hierarchy between the two, thus there is simply a yin yang relationship between the two because it's understood that both are driving factors for humans and should be treated with equal respect.


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## TheIsrafil (May 19, 2014)

Stelliferous said:


> Well that's how yin yang works. I tried to describe it in two sentences but basically what you said is how the yin yang is supposed to be (partially) interpreted. From a survival stand point, freedom is needed and that's why the symbol has a circle of the opposite color in each of its sides. You're only looking at the one side though, because from a freedom standpoint survival is needed. Reverse everything you just said, it fits for the other side too. Think of it like the God principle, in that no matter how much evolution of the universe is documented, there is still the possibility of God creating the stuff that creates. It's like that with freedom, in that behind all the survival could be the conscious will of freedom allowing it all to happen. Therefore it is impossible to determine a hierarchy between the two, thus there is simply a yin yang relationship between the two because it's understood that both are driving factors for humans and should be treated with equal respect.


Which is why I specified "from a scientific viewpoint." The flipside of the ying-yang would go into existential musing; i.e., "what makes life worth living?" While the science could swoop in and say "what helps us survive?" Freedom would have different and equally fulfilling roles in each. This makes sense. But what makes freedom the core reason for living, metaphysically?


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## Purrfessor (Jul 30, 2013)

TheIsrafil said:


> Which is why I specified "from a scientific viewpoint." The flipside of the ying-yang would go into existential musing; i.e., "what makes life worth living?" While the science could swoop in and say "what helps us survive?" Freedom would have different and equally fulfilling roles in each. This makes sense. But what makes freedom the core reason for living, metaphysically?


Freedom is actually the root of all emotion. From anger to fear to pride, freedom is the goal of the feeling. Anger is a fuel to impact and change the enviroent that would otherwise envelop you in its direction. Pride is a way to escape feelings of worthlessness. Altruism is a way to escape feelings of pride. Whatever emotion you feel, the goal of it is to not be trapped by something. 

Philosophically, freedom entails being alive instead of just merely surviving. Dance, love, games - all ways to exercise freedom. As your own God, you seek freedom to feel good. To be conscious and to be real. To exist like you matter. To just be, without restriction. To have control and to dictate your directions. As your own God, seeking what you want.


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## Sophidophie (Jul 30, 2013)

I've read about this procedure. If it works out, I don't doubt they will manipulate stem cells to harvest perfect bodies for people, eliminating the need for plastic surgery.


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