Thread: not sure if this post goes here but what do you think

thanks for all the replys really interesting stuff i think i believe it would retain memories and personality of donor but would start to change with the body but still keep some of the original if that makes sense.

Originally Posted by JoannaB

I don't believe the dick is doing the thinking. I do however believe that my thinking is different than it would be if I had a dick.

I found all your comments very interesting, and I agree with most of them, I think.

Without a doubt.

Well, you're entitled to your own opinion of course, I just wanted to get mine out there too.

Originally Posted by debrajane

SleepySam

"We" might not "Be" in our Brain:

Organ Transplants and Cellular Memories
According to this study of patients who have received transplanted organs, particularly hearts, it is not uncommon for memories, behaviours, preferences and habits associated with the donor to be transferred to the recipient.

I'm sorry debrajane, but this is completely ridiculous. I opened this and scrolled to a random case (number 4) to read and saw nothing but an extremely racist and absurd story which proves absolutely nothing. Every single thing that changed about the recipient's personality that matched the donor's personality is something that the recipient knew about before the change. That destroys any sort of scientific backing, and obviously it's an emotional situation so it's perfectly rational that the recipient could be changed by it.

For anyone interested but too lazy to read the link, here it is:

Spoiler for Case 4:

The donor was a 17-year-old black male student victim of a drive-by shooting. The recipient was a 47-year-old white male foundry worker diagnosed with aortic stenosis.
The donor's mother reported:
"Our son was walking to violin class when he was hit. Nobody knows where the bullet came from, but it just hit him and he fell. He died right there on the street, hugging his violin case. He loved music and his teachers said he had a real thing for it. He would listen to music and play along with it. I think he would have been at Carnegie Hall some day, but the other kids always made fun of the music he liked."

The recipient reported:
"I'm real sad and all for the guy who died and gave me his heart, but I really have trouble with the fact that he was black. I'm not a racist, mind you, not at all. Most of [my] friends at the plant are black guys. But the idea that there is a black heart in a white body seems really...well, I don't know. I told my wife that I thought my penis might grow to a black man's size. They say black men have larger penises, but I don't know for sure. After we have sex, I sometimes feel guilty because a black man made love to my wife, but I don't really think that seriously.
"I can tell you one thing, though. I used to hate classical music, but now I love it. So I know it's not my new heart, because a black guy from the 'hood wouldn't be into that. Now it calms my heart. I play it all the time. I more than like it. I didn't tell any of the guys on the line that I have a black heart, but I think about it a lot."

The recipient's wife reported:
"He was more than concerned about the idea when he heard it was a black man's heart. He actually asked me if he could ask the doctor for a white heart when one came up. He's no Archie Bunker, but he's close to it. And he would kill me if he knew I told you this, but for the first time he's invited his black friends over from work. It's like he doesn't see their colour any more, even though he still talks about it sometimes. He seems more comfortable and at ease with these black guys, but he's not aware of it.
"And one more thing I should say. He's driving me nuts with the classical music. He doesn't know the name of one song and never, never listened to it before. Now, he sits for hours and listens to it. He even whistles classical music songs that he could never know. How does he know them? You'd think he'd like rap music or something because of his black heart."

Originally Posted by Dianeva

An analogy used in philosophy while discussing this may be relevant. Consider a ship that gradually has all of its planks, sails, and other parts replaced over decades. Eventually, no original part of the ship remains. Is it still the same ship?

I think it's just a matter of opinion. There's no real answer because we're asking for some objective categorization of something that we've only categorized ourselves. We roughly define ourselves to be the people we are, with our personalities, memories, bodies, etc. Usually that's a simple enough answer. Yet we have this false (I believe) sense that we're doing more than categorizing, that we're actually identifying some real definition of 'me', when none exists.

I think I understand your reason for saying we continue as the same person, but again, I think it's arbitrary. It seems like you may just be reacting to that gut feeling that we all have, that your identity has remained the same throughout the changes in your life. So you're defining identity in such a way that you'll always be the same person. I'm not disagreeing, since it seems like a suitable definition, I just don't see why this is an argument.

This is an interesting analogy, but are you accounting for the blueprint aspect of it? Please elaborate if I'm just missing something, but with this ship metaphor the entire structure of the ship is eventually replaced, after which it's perfectly reasonable to say that it's a different ship (even though many people won't lol). But with what I was saying about the brain, that doesn't happen. The blueprint never changes for your entire life, so is it really the same thing? Also, just for clarity, I can see how one could relate the brain blueprint to a ship blueprint, but I think that would be just an issue with grammar, because when I say brain blueprint I refer to a physical pattern underlying the structure of the brain, not just a design plan.

And I think it's an argument because this hypothetical situation is one of the only places where it could actually matter. It's the only thing that could possibly differentiate between two brains when the life situations involved are ambiguous and malleable.

Originally Posted by Dianeva

And to make it more complicated but not relevant to this discussion: if all the old parts were stored in a warehouse, and are later reassembled to make a new ship, which ship is the real original ship?

Trick question. Neither of them is!



Did I win?

Originally Posted by sleepysam

thanks for all the replys really interesting stuff i think i believe it would retain memories and personality of donor but would start to change with the body but still keep some of the original if that makes sense.

What do you think about the fact that brain damage can completely destroy both your ability to create and recall memories?

Originally Posted by SpreadLearner0

I remember reading a brief article recently about a neurosurgen named Eben Alexander who believes that while he was in a coma due to severe meningitis infection, he was still able to create new memories in the form of dreams while his brain was "totally shut off" from the disease. A lot of people say he has no evidence that his brain wasn't still active when this took place, and point out that in order to survive and describe the memories that he had to have functionality return to his brain.

I tend to view the brain as a more complex central nervous system, which is to say that it governs the animation of the body through complex circuitry, but what animates the mind is located some place more transcendent (or in a state of existence beyond descriptions of location).

But whose mind will inhabit whose brain? That's the real question here.

Alyzarin

But what about this?

Originally Posted by debrajane

Operation "Standstill" (???)

(6:55) - Pams body temprature would be lowered to between 10 and 15 degrees centergrade.

Her heart and breathing stopped.

Here brain waves flattened.

And

the blood drained from her head.

She would be clinically Dead for the whole hour of the operation.

What we want to do is bring that whole Brain to a halt.

***

Medical Proof of mind and memory outside the body 1of 2 - YouTube

***(10:12) 6,216 views



You guys should watch this