Keeping a head alive.
Terry
head. ( http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a5_262.html )
It got me wondering if it would be feasible, with present day
technology, to deliberately keep a severed head alive?
I pictured one scenario where the blood supply to the brain was bypassed
to an external pumping system that took care of oxygenation, nutrients
etc. Then the head would be surgically removed to minimize traumatic
shock.
For arguments sake, lets say we are doing this is because a persons
major organs are failing, but his brain is still healthy.
Could the head remain alive for an extended/indefinite period? Could it
be conscious and maybe even communicate in some way? I see speaking as
being a problem due to the possible loss of the vocal chords or at least
the air supply to them, but perhaps this could be overcome?
What do people think? Science fiction, or technically feasible?
Gruesome musings I know, but hey, sometimes that just where your brain
wanders.
StarChaser_Tyger
>I was reading Cecil's discussion on the longevity of a severed human
>head. ( http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a5_262.html )
>
>It got me wondering if it would be feasible, with present day
>technology, to deliberately keep a severed head alive?
>
>I pictured one scenario where the blood supply to the brain was bypassed
>to an external pumping system that took care of oxygenation, nutrients
>etc. Then the head would be surgically removed to minimize traumatic
>shock.
>For arguments sake, lets say we are doing this is because a persons
>major organs are failing, but his brain is still healthy.
>
>Could the head remain alive for an extended/indefinite period? Could it
>be conscious and maybe even communicate in some way? I see speaking as
>being a problem due to the possible loss of the vocal chords or at least
>the air supply to them, but perhaps this could be overcome?
Just run the output from a squirrel fan into the bottom end of the
windpipe...You'd probably want to pull the plug pretty quick from the
constant renditions of 'I ain't got no body'...
--
Visit the Furry Artist InFURmation Page! Contact information, which artists
do and don't want their work posted. http://web.tampabay.rr.com/starchsr/
Address no longer munged for the inconvienence of spammers.
(Yes, this really is me.)
Joe Shimkus
wrote:
Well, it would require a continual refreshing of the blood supply as the
red cells die off and there's no marrow to produce new ones. However,
don't all current artificial blood pumps cause damage to the red cells?
If so, perhaps the blood would need to be refreshed more frequently than
the natural die off rate would require. Maybe we could replace the
blood with some hyperoxygenated fluorocarbon?
- Joe
--
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Lars Eighner
the lovely and talented Terry
broadcast on alt.fan.cecil-adams:
T> I was reading Cecil's discussion on the longevity of a severed
T> human head. ( http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a5_262.html )
T> It got me wondering if it would be feasible, with present day
T> technology, to deliberately keep a severed head alive?
Yes. This has been done with dogs. There is no reason, in
principle, that it could not be done with human beings.
T> I pictured one scenario where the blood supply to the brain was
T> bypassed to an external pumping system that took care of
T> oxygenation, nutrients etc. Then the head would be surgically
T> removed to minimize traumatic shock. For arguments sake, lets say
T> we are doing this is because a persons major organs are failing,
T> but his brain is still healthy.
T> Could the head remain alive for an extended/indefinite period?
No. Besides a mechanical heart-lung machine you would have to
have a mechanical kidney, a source of nutrition, etc. All of that
stuff simply won't work for a long time. A minor infection would
almost certainly be fatal, you wouldn't have enough bone tissue
to replenish the blood and would have to obtain donor blood,
I'm pretty sure you would have trouble with metabolism without
a liver, and difficulty maintaining the proper balance of insulin.
There have got to be dozens, if not hundreds of more subtle
problems.
T> Could it be conscious and maybe even communicate in some way?
It certainly could be conscious, at least for a time, and could wink
or move it's eyes. A computer interface directly to the brain is
not completely beyond the range of current or foreseeable technology -
it is just a matter of whether it would live long enough to learn
how to use it.
Head transplants have been done with animals, and this seems to
me the most promising line for long-term survival. The problem,
of course, is the spinal cord and we are a long way from being
able to graft a brain onto another person's spinal cord, considering
that we are a long way from being able to repair spinal cord injuries
when it is not a transplant. However, some progress is being made
in this direction. What strikes me as more doubtful than whether
this will ever be technically feasible is whether it will ever be
economically feasible beyond a few experimental cases.
--
Lars Eighner eig...@io.com http://www.io.com/~eighner/
Consider what might be fertilizing the greener grass across the fence.
tscottme
Dana Carpender
Have no idea how feasible this is, but has anyone else read the *nasty*
little short story by Roald Dahl on this very subject?
--
Dana W. Carpender
Author, How I Gave Up My Low Fat Diet -- And Lost Forty Pounds!
http://www.holdthetoast.com
Check out our FREE Low Carb Ezine!
Grady
<dcar...@kiva.net> wrote:
>Have no idea how feasible this is, but has anyone else read the *nasty*
>little short story by Roald Dahl on this very subject?
It was a long time ago and I don't remember what
was so nasty about it. The image of the brain in
the fluid was creepy and there was something about
the wife lighting a cigarette that was snarky, but
what else made it nasty?
Dana Carpender
It had to do with the relationship between the wife and the guy whose
head was in a tank. Actually, it was just his brain, with one eyeball
floating on the surface; they'd prop a newspaper up in front of it from
time to time, and the only way "he" had to register emotion was the
dilation or contraction of his one pupil.
Anyway, he'd been very controlling and domineering, and before
undergoing the removal of his brain -- he had a terminal illness -- he
commanded her not to do any of the things he'd always forbidden, nor to
ever get involved with another man. At the end of the story, she lights
a cigarette within view of his eyeball, and sees his pupil constrict in
impotent rage. She then tells his friend and partner that, now that
he's stable, perhaps she should take him home and care for him there.
The implication is that she's going to be having the party/orgy of her
life, all in front of his eye -- which he can't even shut.
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and James and the Giant Peach not
withstanding, that Mr. Dahl had one *mean* imagination.
Lalbert1
I asked your question to a friend in the cryogenics business and he said that
severed head viability has already been accomplished. It's not publicized
because the adverse reaction of the public would probably halt further
research. So the experimenters proceed quietly until the idea can be gently
segued into public awareness. In the meantime there is tremendous response
from large corporations that have been shown the HIAC project (HIAC stands for
"head in a cubicle"), and the project title should tell you why business
leaders are excited. A corporation staffed with only heads is a lean and mean
business - no vacations required; no rec facilities; no parking facilities; no
lunch room; no toilets, etc. The company can be run by just a bunch of heads
wearing telephone headsets, each head in teeny tiny cubicle. The mind boggles
at the prospects.
Les
Lalbert1
writes:
>Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and James and the Giant Peach not
>withstanding, that Mr. Dahl had one *mean* imagination.
He coined the word "gremlin". Gremlins are worse than "bugs".
Les
Boron Elgar
If you have no body, can your mind still boggle? Or play Boggle, for
that matter (the 5x5 one, the 4x4 being too easy.)
Boron
Nick Danger
news:3rG96.3530$JG.4...@news.shore.net...
> Dana Carpender <dcar...@kiva.net> wrote:
> : Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and James and the Giant Peach not
> : withstanding, that Mr. Dahl had one *mean* imagination.
>
> "Charlie" as well.
What happened to those kids shouldn't happen to a dog.
Lalbert1
writes:
>If you have no body, can your mind still boggle? Or play Boggle, for
>that matter (the 5x5 one, the 4x4 being too easy.)
>
>
I think that a mind can boggle without a body. And that begs the question (I
never thought I would ever use that phrase), is mindedness a function of the
entire body? Or is it exclusively a brain function?
Les
Hugh Jass
>I think that a mind can boggle without a body. And that begs the question (I
>never thought I would ever use that phrase), is mindedness a function of the
>entire body? Or is it exclusively a brain function?
>
>Les
Ask Stephen Hawking...
Hugh
Dana Carpender
It's my experience that there is such a thing as somatic memory. Most
career bodyworkers can tell you stories about touching one specific
spot, and triggering a flashback of traumatic memory; certainly it's
happened with a few of my clients. It's a humbling experience.
Most bodyworkers have stories of picking up other people's pain from
time to time, too. Luckily it doesn't happen to me a lot, but it has
from time to time.
amy.e.gleason.1
> I asked your question to a friend in the cryogenics business and he said that
> severed head viability has already been accomplished. It's not publicized
> because the adverse reaction of the public would probably halt further
> research. So the experimenters proceed quietly until the idea can be gently
> segued into public awareness. In the meantime there is tremendous response
> from large corporations that have been shown the HIAC project (HIAC stands for
> "head in a cubicle"), and the project title should tell you why business
> leaders are excited. A corporation staffed with only heads is a lean and mean
> business - no vacations required; no rec facilities; no parking facilities; no
> lunch room; no toilets, etc. The company can be run by just a bunch of heads
> wearing telephone headsets, each head in teeny tiny cubicle. The mind boggles
> at the prospects.
Ok, to claim something that preposterous, you're going to have to back it
up with SOMETHING. Either that, or you're kidding, in which case I'll
slink away quietly.
I can't imagine that any company would find it more financially viable to
fund this research than to pay human beings. Creepy.
L & k,
Amy
Boron Elgar
There are quadraplegics who are fully "minded." And granted, the body
is still there, but I don't think a some of 'em would notice if it
were gone.
Boron
Mirhanda Sarko
If you take it at face value and assume that the story is true, wouldn't the
"worker heads" still be human? I find that my brain needs a break long before
my body anyway, so it kind of nullifies the idea that these heads wouldn't need
any vacation or off hours or anything.
Kind of merges with the other thread about whether people with disabilities
have lives worth living. I would think losing ones body to be the ultimate
physical disability, and wouldn't the ADA cover them too? This whole idea
would probably make *more* work for employers! I would think a better idea for
cheapo employers would be working on AI and better voice synthesis.
Mirhanda
Boron Elgar
Amy...your leg must be 10 yards long by now.
Boron
jdh...@ubsi.com
<Pine.SOL.4.31.01011...@herald.cc.purdue.edu>,
And anyway, they haven't really thought it thru. It ain't *that* lean
and mean. Brains are still biological, they still need nutrients, they
need someplace to put the waste. And the minds would still have their
own set of requirements. Does anyone really think that vacations are to
let JUST the body rest? Most of us spend most of our work day with our
bodies at rest. So, sorry: vacations: Check. restroom and lunchroom: c
heck, with modifications (read HIGH initial cost upfront to dramatically
change the layout of an existing building, or design a new one from
scratch). Parking? Well, okay. They're immobile, but *someone* is
going to have to maintain and care for the brains, so *smaller* parking.
Recroom (this would have to be ala virtual reality, we'll give them
Quakeworld to start out (heh heh)) would come out cheap, but still
necessary, or you're going to experience dramatic loss of productivity
due to burn out. *THEN* you're going to have to do something about the
psychology. All of a sudden you've got these brains with urges that
have been rendered, well, irrelevant.
So, besides being just plain icky bad, it's also financially
dumb-as-a-post. IMNSHO. I hope it's a joke, too.
Justin Hiltscher
--
(this sig intentionally left blank)
Sent via Deja.com
http://www.deja.com/
Doug Yanega
> And anyway, they haven't really thought it thru. It ain't *that* lean
> and mean. Brains are still biological, they still need nutrients, they
> need someplace to put the waste.
We've been over this before, but to rehash something important:
A head, in and of itself, is going to require a very small blood supply,
require few nutrients, and produce few wastes. I've discussed this exact
problem on some medical newsgroups (it's not all that gruesome or unusual
a topic there), and the consensus is that the major hurdle we face is that
*present* life support and organ replacement technologies all center on
maintaining this huge and complex body of ours. We don't have a good
artificial liver yet, for example, mostly because the total amount of
activity the liver is taking care of is enormous and diverse - it's hard
to simulate on a practical scale. If we were, as a society, not so totally
creeped-out by the prospect of having a head but no body, this wouldn't be
relevant: we probably *do* have technology advanced enough to deal with
waste processing for something as small as a head, whose entire nutrient
input can be controlled. If someone was *really* determined to stay alive,
even if it meant losing their body, we could probably do so, except that
we've had no practice at it - without experimentation to work out the
wrinkles, it'd be a terribly dangerous and risky thing to be the first to
attempt it. If people weren't so creeped-out, there could be more and
better experimentation to get things ironed out in advance.
Let's face it: we already have technology that allows people to use a
computer keyboard using nothing but their eyes, and a computer keyboard
can be used to speak. So, there can be no argument that a bodiless person
would lose any truly significant communication abilities; they can see,
hear, and communicate just as well as someone who has a body but is
paralyzed. Take that one step further now: who has greater potential
mobility and chance to lead a productive life - a person whose head is
attached to a 200-pound dead weight that lies in a hospital bed and
requires constant feeding and waste elimination, or a person whose head is
attached to a stair-climbing scooter-like device (a la the Ibot/Ginger)
with robotic arms, and has a self-contained nutrient/waste system that
only needs minor maintenance every couple of days? I'd rather have a
functional artificial body than a real one that doesn't work at all, and I
wouldn't be surprised if other people would make the same choice
(especially if their real body has something like terminal liver cancer or
whatever). If you had a choice between being dead or being Robocop, which
would you pick?
Dylan Thomas might find this an interesting topic...
Doug Yanega Dept. of Entomology
Entomology Research Museum Univ. of California
Riverside, CA 92521 909-787-4315 (opinions are mine, not UCR's)
http://entmuseum9.ucr.edu/staff/yanega.html
"There are some enterprises in which a careful disorderliness is
the true method" - Herman Melville, Moby Dick
Nick Danger
> In article
> So, besides being just plain icky bad, it's also financially
> dumb-as-a-post. IMNSHO. I hope it's a joke, too.
And to think they just took "gullible" out of the dictionary...
Lalbert1
Danger" <ham...@nevermind.net> writes:
And sometimes they don't laugh.
Les
(I wonder what "icky" bad means?)
Lalbert1
writes:
>On Thu, 18 Jan 2001 15:21:27 -0500, "amy.e.gleason.1"
I blame society.
Les
Lalbert1
writes:
>Lalbert1 wrote:
>>
>> In article <3a6b3547...@news.carroll.com>, Kalk...@bwu.edu (Boron
>Elgar)
>> writes:
>>
>> >If you have no body, can your mind still boggle? Or play Boggle, for
>> >that matter (the 5x5 one, the 4x4 being too easy.)
>> >
>> >
>>
>> I think that a mind can boggle without a body. And that begs the question
>(I
>> never thought I would ever use that phrase), is mindedness a function of
>the
>> entire body? Or is it exclusively a brain function?
>
>It's my experience that there is such a thing as somatic memory. Most
>career bodyworkers can tell you stories about touching one specific
>spot, and triggering a flashback of traumatic memory; certainly it's
>happened with a few of my clients. It's a humbling experience.
>
>Most bodyworkers have stories of picking up other people's pain from
>time to time, too. Luckily it doesn't happen to me a lot, but it has
>from time to time.
Yes, that's what I was referring to when I wrote "mindedness": somatic memory.
I used to think of it only as a memory for a missing body part, but your
description of triggering memory through touch is a better description.
Les
The Incredible Dutch Courage
>I blame society.
That's bullshit. You're a white suburban punk just like me.
""IS HE MAN OR MONSTER OR... IS HE BOTH?"
kay w
Previously:
>>>fund this research than to pay human beings. Creepy.
>>
>>Amy...your leg must be 10 yards long by now.
>
>I blame society.
Congratulations! You've done it again; what a hoot of a thread.
Thanks,
kay
kay w
Address munged. AOL isn't necessarily comatose, evidence to the contrary not
withstanding.
Hugh Jass
Ann McCaffry made it sound romantic and (almost) inviting. Wouldn't
it be exciting to have a starship for a body? How many OCD friends do
you have...wouldn't they make great city brains? An underachiever
could still be a traffic light controller for minimum wage.
Or you can go the Heinlien route and create an encephalitic clone
every twenty or thirty years. Spare parts if ya need 'em, full body
transplant every hundred years or so. Only drawback is that you would
have to defecate denaro to afford it. Nursing home care for your
idiot twin aint cheap.
I doubt if science could pull off either of those scenarios today, but
I will bet we'll be seeing one or both in our lifetimes. When my body
wears out, maybe they'll be able to plug my brain into a 911 center as
a dispatcher for a few years while I save up enough to clone my next
body and bring it to maturity.
Assuming I will need some time off for rest and VR recreation, let's
say I work 12hr shifts*6 days a week. At $20 per hour (1) that = $75k
per year (approx.) Subtract 20% for brain housing maintenance and IV
feeding and invest $5k per month in mutual funds that average 10% per
year. In 20 years I will have approx $3.8 mil. Use that to pay for
clone and his maintenance for the next 20 years, and continue to
invest $5k per month. End result: after a total of 40 years as a
talking head I walk away with a new body, a $3.8 mil nest egg, and a
pension check from my old employer.
From an employers viewpoint, who wouldn't want an employee that
started his shift with the flick of a switch, who never took a
smoke/pee/food break, and who was housed on site and instantly
available in case of emergency? They might want to cap your pension
to 30 or 40 years but heck I would get bored after awhile and might
not mind going back to work by that time and starting the whole mess
all over again.
Assuming the feasability of such a scheme, how many lifetimes could
one live out before the brain wore out or it's storage capacity got
full or whatever? What percentage of the population would even do it?
If it were available as an option, would *you* do it?
Hugh
(1) Salary based on conservative estimate of pay rate increases over
the next 30 years or so (while this body wears out) in my last job.
Could be converted to any non-physical, technical, quasi-professional
or professional occupation. YMMV, income range dependant upon prior
work experience and training (for example, a software designer job
would pay better than traffic light controller at a neighborhood
school zone.)
Tank
would lose any truly significant communication abilities; they can see,
hear, and communicate just as well as someone who has a body but is
paralyzed<
I bid 10,000 Quatloos on the newcomers!
--
Tank
"Remember to pillage before you burn"
Anny Middon
news:3A672E2F...@kiva.net...
>
> It had to do with the relationship between the wife and the guy whose
> head was in a tank. Actually, it was just his brain, with one eyeball
> floating on the surface; they'd prop a newspaper up in front of it from
> time to time, and the only way "he" had to register emotion was the
> dilation or contraction of his one pupil.
>
> Anyway, he'd been very controlling and domineering, and before
> undergoing the removal of his brain -- he had a terminal illness -- he
> commanded her not to do any of the things he'd always forbidden, nor to
> ever get involved with another man. At the end of the story, she lights
> a cigarette within view of his eyeball, and sees his pupil constrict in
> impotent rage. She then tells his friend and partner that, now that
> he's stable, perhaps she should take him home and care for him there.
> The implication is that she's going to be having the party/orgy of her
> life, all in front of his eye -- which he can't even shut.
I'll have to dig up the story and reread it, because I saw the wife as much
more vengeful than that. I have this vague recollection that she didn't
just light up in front of him but blew smoke directly at his floating eye.
My idea of what was going to happen after she got him home was more in the
line of, "Oh, gee, did I just use your tank as an ashtray? Silly me! ...
Hey, I wonder what effect vodka in the tank would have. Do you want a
little drinky-poo? ... Honestly, doctor, I have no idea how that toilet
cleaner got in his tank. Gee, his eye does look a bit red and sore, doesn't
it?"
Anny
Dana Carpender
Anny Middon wrote:
>
> "Dana Carpender" <dcar...@kiva.net> wrote in message
> news:3A672E2F...@kiva.net...
> >
> > It had to do with the relationship between the wife and the guy whose
> > head was in a tank. Actually, it was just his brain, with one eyeball
> > floating on the surface; they'd prop a newspaper up in front of it from
> > time to time, and the only way "he" had to register emotion was the
> > dilation or contraction of his one pupil.
> >
> > Anyway, he'd been very controlling and domineering, and before
> > undergoing the removal of his brain -- he had a terminal illness -- he
> > commanded her not to do any of the things he'd always forbidden, nor to
> > ever get involved with another man. At the end of the story, she lights
> > a cigarette within view of his eyeball, and sees his pupil constrict in
> > impotent rage. She then tells his friend and partner that, now that
> > he's stable, perhaps she should take him home and care for him there.
> > The implication is that she's going to be having the party/orgy of her
> > life, all in front of his eye -- which he can't even shut.
>
> I'll have to dig up the story and reread it, because I saw the wife as much
> more vengeful than that. I have this vague recollection that she didn't
> just light up in front of him but blew smoke directly at his floating eye.
She did, IIRC, blow smoke in his direction when she noticed his pupil
contracting.
>
> My idea of what was going to happen after she got him home was more in the
> line of, "Oh, gee, did I just use your tank as an ashtray? Silly me! ...
> Hey, I wonder what effect vodka in the tank would have. Do you want a
> little drinky-poo? ... Honestly, doctor, I have no idea how that toilet
> cleaner got in his tank. Gee, his eye does look a bit red and sore, doesn't
> it?"
Dahl left it to the imagination. Clearly our idea of what would be most
torturous for this husband varies.
Opus the Penguin
>Nick Danger writes:
>>And to think they just took "gullible" out of the dictionary..
>
>And sometimes they don't laugh.
Yeah. Like the time I wrote a whole discourse on why Seattle time was 4
minutes different from Vancouver. I thought you would be so proud and you
didn't even comment.
--
Opus the Penguin
Opus the Penguin
>Dylan Thomas might find this an interesting topic...
?
--
Opus the Penguin
Anny Middon
> Anny Middon wrote:
> > My idea of what was going to happen after she got him home was more in
the
> > line of, "Oh, gee, did I just use your tank as an ashtray? Silly me!
...
> > Hey, I wonder what effect vodka in the tank would have. Do you want a
> > little drinky-poo? ... Honestly, doctor, I have no idea how that toilet
> > cleaner got in his tank. Gee, his eye does look a bit red and sore,
doesn't
> > it?"
>
> Dahl left it to the imagination. Clearly our idea of what would be most
> torturous for this husband varies.
Or what would be more satisfying (or entertaining) for the wife.
Anny
Mirhanda Sarko
>
>From an employers viewpoint, who wouldn't want an employee that
>started his shift with the flick of a switch, who never took a
>smoke/pee/food break, and who was housed on site and instantly
>available in case of emergency?
I dunno...why would my body-less head not want to smoke anymore? Not
having hands wouldn't do it, I'd just need help to smoke. I think my
nicotine-addicted brain would still want to smoke, not to mention my
orally-fixated mouth.
Mirhanda
Lalbert1
<opusthe...@nettaxi.com> writes:
In all honesty I never saw it. I try to read almost everything that gets
posted, and even if the subject matter is of no interest I will skim down the
headers looking for posts by people I always read, like yours. But I have
found that AOL misses picking up some threads now and then. Also, I have been
away from the computer for the last two weeks, and have missed a lot of posts.
Les
Rich Clancey
{Les's Heads in Cubicles shaggy dog story deleted}
+ I can't imagine that any company would find it more financially viable to
+ fund this research than to pay human beings. Creepy.
Wait till you've been in the work world for a few decades.
There is no idea, however idiotic, which some company wont try if they
think it will make them money.
--
rich clancey r...@world.std.com rcla...@massart.edu
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
It was practically held that the salvation of one's soul must
not be made too depressing, or the young people would have nothing to
do with it.
-- Wm D Howells _A Modern Instance_
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Rich Clancey
+ Doug Yanega wrote:
+ >Dylan Thomas might find this an interesting topic...
+ ?
+ --
+ Opus the Penguin
me too
Joe Shimkus
wrote:
> Opus the Penguin (opusthe...@nettaxi.com) wrote:
> + Doug Yanega wrote:
> + >Dylan Thomas might find this an interesting topic...
>
> + ?
> + --
>
> + Opus the Penguin
>
> me too
"Do not go gentle into that good night. Rage, rage against the dying of
the light."
- Dylan Thomas
--
PGP Key (DH/DSS): http://www.shimkus.com/public_key.asc
PGP Fingerprint: 89B4 52DA CF10 EE03 02AD 9134 21C6 2A68 CE52 EE1A
Dana Carpender
Rich Clancey wrote:
>
> Opus the Penguin (opusthe...@nettaxi.com) wrote:
> + Doug Yanega wrote:
> + >Dylan Thomas might find this an interesting topic...
>
> + ?
> + --
>
> + Opus the Penguin
>
> me too
Perhaps he's thinking that this would be a way to "Rage, rage against
the dying of the light."
--
Jerry Bauer
Joe Shimkus <j...@shimkus.com> wrote:
>In article <G7HKu...@world.std.com>, r...@world.std.com (Rich Clancey)
>wrote:
>
>> Opus the Penguin (opusthe...@nettaxi.com) wrote:
>> + Doug Yanega wrote:
>> + >Dylan Thomas might find this an interesting topic...
>>
>> + ?
>> + --
>>
>> + Opus the Penguin
>>
>> me too
>
>"Do not go gentle into that good night. Rage, rage against the dying of
>the light."
>
> - Dylan Thomas
>
Dylan Thonas has Come and Gone
-- Mason Williams --
(Sung to the tune of "London Bridge is Falling Down")
Dylan Thomas has come and gone,
Come and gone,
Come and gone.
Dylan Thomas has come and gone,
His blood turned to words.
Greg Goss
>For arguments sake, lets say we are doing this is because a persons
>major organs are failing, but his brain is still healthy.
We aren't even on the road to a synthetic liver. In all the best SF
stories on this context, they seemed to include the spine (coiled for
convenience). Two of Niven's stories from the early sixties featured
such a character. I don't know the science newer than those 35 year
old stories.
StarChaser_Tyger
Both of the 'coiled spinal cord' stories that I think you're talking
about are the ones where the guy was in a space accident and lost his
entire body, essentially, and is kept as a brain in the jar. The need
for the spine was to attach the various bits and pieces of the ship to
so he could control them. <He feels breathing as the air handling
systems work, the jets are controlled by his legs, etc.> The story
mentioned something about an 'artifical liver' being a complex machine
that required his human partner's attention to.
--
Visit the Furry Artist InFURmation Page! Contact information, which artists
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(Yes, this really is me.)
Beckett Graham
wrote in:
>Message-id: <9cjr6t86ab3aesu16...@4ax.com>
>Both of the 'coiled spinal cord' stories that I think you're talking
>about are the ones where the guy was in a space accident and lost his
>entire body, essentially, and is kept as a brain in the jar. The need
>for the spine was to attach the various bits and pieces of the ship to
>so he could control them. <He feels breathing as the air handling
>systems work, the jets are controlled by his legs, etc.>
This sounds a lot like the "Brainship" series by Anne McCaffrey. (Ship Who
Sang, etc.) Although in those books, the entire body was present. The
person's growth was stunted in childhood to enable him or her to fit into the
center console.
And all of the organs were hooked up to the ship in the way you describe.
Beckett
Greg Goss
>>Both of the 'coiled spinal cord' stories that I think you're talking
>>about are the ones where the guy was in a space accident and lost his
>>entire body, essentially, and is kept as a brain in the jar. The need
>>for the spine was to attach the various bits and pieces of the ship to
>>so he could control them. <He feels breathing as the air handling
>>systems work, the jets are controlled by his legs, etc.>
>
> This sounds a lot like the "Brainship" series by Anne McCaffrey. (Ship Who
>Sang, etc.) Although in those books, the entire body was present. The
>person's growth was stunted in childhood to enable him or her to fit into the
>center console.
> And all of the organs were hooked up to the ship in the way you describe.
Starchaser correctly identified my two Niven stories from the early
sixties.
I've also read McCaffrey's stories, but I think that they came later.
I think, but am not certain that the brainship stories came after even
the Star Trek episode where the aliens stole Spock's brain as a
processor for their starbase.
Kornbluth had a novel (Wolfbane?) where aliens wired up kidnapped
people as processors. One of the wired brains regained conciousness.
I read the story in the seventies, but it "felt" older than either of
the above.
I mentioned the Niven because Niven is much closer to the science in
the stories he writes. McCaffrey writes fables.