Head transplants

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upbeatjonm

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I saw in the news today, that a scientist in Italy believes we will be able to have the first “head transplant” within 3 years.:eek:
I seriously doubt this would ever be successful, but I think it raises some interesting questions from a Catholic point of view.
Aside from the obvious moral issues,
  1. If a person had such a transplant, assuming a new brain in their body, would they still be the same person?
  2. Would they still have the same “soul”?
  3. Would the donor’s soul still remain on earth, and if so where?
  4. Where does the soul exist, within the brain or the body?
 
The brain is the important part surely. So the ‘person’ (and so, I assume, the ‘soul’) is attached to the brain, not the body. So it is not a question of having a new brain in your body, but of having a new body attached to your head.

More problematically, where would the healthy body come from? Given controversies about diagnosing brain death reliably?
 
upbeatjonm said:
I saw in the news today, that a scientist in Italy believes we will be able to have the first “head transplant” within 3 years.:eek:
I seriously doubt this would ever be successful, but I think it raises some interesting questions from a Catholic point of view.
Aside from the obvious moral issues,
  1. If a person had such a transplant, assuming a new brain in their body, would they still be the same person?
  2. Would they still have the same “soul”?
  3. Would the donor’s soul still remain on earth, and if so where?
  4. Where does the soul exist, within the brain or the body?
Click to expand...
You pose some interesting questions. I agree that it won’t happen at least in our life time. However since we have artificial hearts and kidneys, knees, hips, shoulders, ankles and wrists. In the distant future maybe you could get an entire artificial body.

Then at that time somebody would push for you to be able to marry yourself(LOL). That way you could get double benefits from the government.😃 Since your body would be a whole new person.

I don’t mean to sidetrack this thread but thought it could bring up the rediculousness we face today.

:twocents:
 
upbeatjonm said:
I saw in the news today, that a scientist in Italy believes we will be able to have the first “head transplant” within 3 years.:eek:
I seriously doubt this would ever be successful, but I think it raises some interesting questions from a Catholic point of view.
Aside from the obvious moral issues,
  1. If a person had such a transplant, assuming a new brain in their body, would they still be the same person?
  2. Would they still have the same “soul”?
  3. Would the donor’s soul still remain on earth, and if so where?
  4. Where does the soul exist, within the brain or the body?
Click to expand...
Shades of That Hedious Strength by C.S. Lewis. Yes, the world of unreason is upon us!

Linus2nd
 
pfft

You think I’m getting my head transplanted onto another crummy body?

:rotfl:

 
No, the body’s soul would not remain, as a headless body cannot hold life, and personhood (ie, mind) resides in the brain.

Assuming the procedure worked, the head’s soul would become the soul of the new ensemble.

This would just be the next step up from multiple organ transplants. The head would just be getting all the organs (and limbs) replaced at once. Soul does not accompany transplanted organs.

I don’t think it would work, not in 200 years at least though. There is no way to rejoin the cervical spinal cord.

ICXC NIKA.
 
upbeatjonm said:
I saw in the news today, that a scientist in Italy believes we will be able to have the first “head transplant” within 3 years.:eek:
I seriously doubt this would ever be successful, but I think it raises some interesting questions from a Catholic point of view.
Aside from the obvious moral issues,
  1. If a person had such a transplant, assuming a new brain in their body, would they still be the same person?
  2. Would they still have the same “soul”?
  3. Would the donor’s soul still remain on earth, and if so where?
  4. Where does the soul exist, within the brain or the body?
Click to expand...
  1. The head is part of an integrated system. It is very unlikely this could be done. However, the new body’s immune system would immediately reject the head so the patient would have to be on anti-rejection medication for life. Assuming this is possible, several factors need to be considered: A) The blood types must match, B) The brain and body involved would have to be maintained at proper oxygen levels before the procedure, and C) the physical characteristics of the body should be as close as possible to the original body which was beyond repair.
  2. Each body would have the same/original soul, including the body that died. The location of the soul is not the issue.
  3. The donor body’s and soul will be reunited with its head at the final judgment, just as the recipient will get his body back.
  4. I am unaware of any Church teaching that places the soul in any particular part of the body.
The body is the Temple of the Holy Spirit. I think the Church would raise an objection on this point. However, that bridge has yet to be crossed.

Ed
 
upbeatjonm said:
I saw in the news today, that a scientist in Italy believes we will be able to have the first “head transplant” within 3 years.:eek:
I seriously doubt this would ever be successful, but I think it raises some interesting questions from a Catholic point of view.
Aside from the obvious moral issues,
  1. If a person had such a transplant, assuming a new brain in their body, would they still be the same person?
  2. Would they still have the same “soul”?
  3. Would the donor’s soul still remain on earth, and if so where?
  4. Where does the soul exist, within the brain or the body?
Click to expand...
And whose memory would it have??? Dear God have MERCY on us!!! God Bless, Memaw
 
upbeatjonm said:
I saw in the news today, that a scientist in Italy believes we will be able to have the first “head transplant” within 3 years.:eek:
I seriously doubt this would ever be successful, but I think it raises some interesting questions from a Catholic point of view.
Aside from the obvious moral issues,
  1. If a person had such a transplant, assuming a new brain in their body, would they still be the same person?
Click to expand...
I am assuming here that brain of the “donor” would come along with the head. In that case, what is taking place is not really a “head transplant” but a “full body transplant” of everything else except the head.

In other words, the person who would take consciousness after the procedure would be the “donor” of the head. The ”recipient” would simply die once his head was severed (and presumably discarded).
  1. Would they still have the same “soul”?
Click to expand...
Each person would retain his soul. It is just that the neck shoulders, arms, and so on would now belong to the person who “donated” the head. The “recipient” would, as I mentioned, be deceased.
  1. Would the donor’s soul still remain on earth, and if so where?
Click to expand...
If by “donor” you mean the one who provided the head, then yes, he would be present on earth as the “body” that everyone sees. The soul of the “recipient” (the one who provided the body from the neck down) would be in the afterlife (Heaven, Purgatory, Hell: whichever awaits him).
  1. Where does the soul exist, within the brain or the body?
Click to expand...
The soul exists in a person’s entire body, brain included. Once the neck, shoulders, and so forth were attached to the head, the entire body from the neck down would become part of the body of the person to whom the head belonged.

The soul is in the entire body, but the brain performs a particularly vital “integrative” function: in other words, without a brain (at least a brain stem and medulla), an adult human body disintegrates and effectively becomes a corpse.

Hence the soul would, in effect, follow the brain wherever it goes.
 
upbeatjonm said:
I saw in the news today, that a scientist in Italy believes we will be able to have the first “head transplant” within 3 years.:eek:
I seriously doubt this would ever be successful, but I think it raises some interesting questions from a Catholic point of view.
Aside from the obvious moral issues,
  1. If a person had such a transplant, assuming a new brain in their body, would they still be the same person?
  2. Would they still have the same “soul”?
  3. Would the donor’s soul still remain on earth, and if so where?
  4. Where does the soul exist, within the brain or the body?
Click to expand...
If you are imagining the heads being exchanged, then—assuming each person survived the procedure—each one would be alive, each would retain his soul, but the soul would (so to speak) follow each one’s brain. Each one’s (newly attached) body would belong entirely to that soul.

In reality, what is being exchanged in such a case is the bodies from the neck down, not really the heads.
 
Memaw said:
And whose memory would it have??? Dear God have MERCY on us!!! God Bless, Memaw
Click to expand...
Memory is stored in the brain, so the composite could only have the memories of the person whose head is attached to a new body. (If heads are switched, then memories would follow the brains.)

This is weird and I doubt anyone could pull it off within three years, but I don’t think it’s particularly morally repulsive (provided we’re not killing anyone in the process, of course).

Usagi
 
I haven’t read that specific article you mentioned but I have read several other studies and scientific papers that support the idea that this can be done so I guess this Italian person is just continuing the research…or experiment in this area. According to what I have read the proponent of this think is feasible because after you fully separate a head from its body, the head still remains alive of I recall correctly for 30-45 seconds as this is the timeframe that takes to send signals to the brain telling brain the body is no longer there. Proponents say that you can “fool” the brain if within that time period you connect the brain to something that basically prevent the signal “body is not here” to arrive to the brain. Skeptics argue that the time frame is extremely sure and it would be nearly impossible to achieve this before the signal gets tot he brain. I agree with the skeptics and hardly doubt this will work as you would need to bring superman or have supernatural powers to do a successful head transplant in less than 30 seconds.
But in the weird event that sometime in some point in thebfute this is done I tend to agree with GEddie.
 
This brings a new meaning to the saying, “She’s got a good head on her shoulders.” 🤷

Are Y’all familar with Queen of the Borg from Star Trek? This is really old news. :rolleyes:
 
upbeatjonm said:
I saw in the news today, that a scientist in Italy believes we will be able to have the first “head transplant” within 3 years.:eek:
I seriously doubt this would ever be successful, but I think it raises some interesting questions from a Catholic point of view.
Aside from the obvious moral issues,
  1. If a person had such a transplant, assuming a new brain in their body, would they still be the same person?
  2. Would they still have the same “soul”?
  3. Would the donor’s soul still remain on earth, and if so where?
  4. Where does the soul exist, within the brain or the body?
Click to expand...
They are probably looking for a big grant.
 
I neither am aware of Church teaching that address such things. However, principally speaking, I think if either the person associated with the body, or the person associated with the head, died at some point, then their soul has departed the flesh. Any “reanimation” of that flesh would be more along soulless “zombie” lines, I would think. But I’m willing to learn more. :o
 
I find the CBS article far from bordering on the absurd. It is miles across that boundary.

As far as I can see, even trying such experimentation on animals is a gross violation on animals rights and anything with humans would be a massive violation of medical ethics. Has CBS become the National Enquirer??

The brain is massively interconnected to the rest of the body. The quadraplegic is far more likely to be fully healed before this head transplant nonsense is even remotely feasible on animals.

What those Russian scientists did back in 1959 is disgusting. If it had any real validity, that work would have been developed in earnest by other scientists around the world.

In the photo, I see a dead dog that seems to have some neural pathways activated and connected to a poor little dog who has had it’s head severed from it’s body. Pretty disgusting if you ask me. That is not science.

motherboard.vice.com/blog/soviet-scientists-made-this-two-headed-dog
 
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