Replacement Bodies: Near or Far Away?

[madcat8000]

Ok from my perspective we are theoreticaly close to being able to grow a replacement body. I feel that this will be a "killer app" because it seems harder and more difficult to fight ageing and genetic diseases in a body already damaged. So what do we do with the brain? Just transplant it or try to read the information from it and copy it? A brain transplant has the limitation/beneafit of enforceing some kind of biological life span limit. But it can also transmit diseases. Are we anywhere close to being able to read and transfer memories? Could we even realisticly store that kind of information? Is there even any technology that could input that into a developting brain?

Attn: Please keep personal morals and religion out of this topic please!

 

[Maz88]

see what you are raising is definitely something interesting. i think in general, i would be better for humans to not understand why certain things function the way they do. and if we ever to reach a point were we transfer memories or able to do what you mentioned then there is no purpose in living anymore.
philosophically speaking, Plato said that humans are born with the knowledge and memories already implanted in their mind. he says that as humans live through the days the memories they have or the things they learn are basically things that are brought back to the brain.

 

[Evo]

Ok from my perspective we are theoreticaly close to being able to grow a replacement body. I feel that this will be a "killer app" because it seems harder and more difficult to fight ageing and genetic diseases in a body already damaged. So what do we do with the brain? Just transplant it or try to read the information from it and copy it? A brain transplant has the limitation/beneafit of enforceing some kind of biological life span limit. But it can also transmit diseases. Are we anywhere close to being able to read and transfer memories? Could we even realisticly store that kind of information? Is there even any technology that could input that into a developting brain?

Attn: Please keep personal morals and religion out of this topic please!

Ok, so a human clone would be raised to the age of 20-30 years. You are the clone. How do you feel about being killed so that some other person's "brain" can replace yours?

 

[Andy Resnick]

Ok from my perspective we are theoreticaly close to being able to grow a replacement body.

We are nowhere close to doing anything like this. The best we can do is grow small amounts of single types of tissue (skin, maybe cartilage and smooth muscle). This is substantially simpler than an organ- even a simple one like the stomach contains multiple cell types. We don't have synthetic blood, even.

 

[mishrashubham]

So what do we do with the brain? Just transplant it or try to read the information from it and copy it? Could we even realistically store that kind of information? Is there even any technology that could input that into a developing brain?

Problem is that we are still pretty unaware of how exactly memories are stored physically in our brain and the precise of mechanism of retrieving the memory from its location when required is also not well known. We know that memories are stored in form of individual folds in the brain. But there is no strict code as such according to which data is stored unlike in DNA or Magnetic hard disks. Or even if there is such a code, we have yet to discover it. And it'll take many years to reach that stage (considering that we have only been able to develop pieces of tissue artificially till now).

 

[gerben]

Ok from my perspective we are theoreticaly close to being able to grow a replacement body. I feel that this will be a "killer app" because it seems harder and more difficult to fight ageing and genetic diseases in a body already damaged. So what do we do with the brain? Just transplant it or try to read the information from it and copy it? A brain transplant has the limitation/beneafit of enforceing some kind of biological life span limit. But it can also transmit diseases. Are we anywhere close to being able to read and transfer memories? Could we even realisticly store that kind of information? Is there even any technology that could input that into a developting brain?

Attn: Please keep personal morals and religion out of this topic please!

We are nowhere near being able to put "you" in a new body.

Certain organs can be transplanted with some success, like kidneys for example. So You could fantasize about having a spare body for replacements parts in case some of yours fail to function properly at some point. Plenty of animals have been cloned now, so it is not unthinkable that after a bit of experimentation it would be possible to clone a human. This clone could immediately after birth be sedated and intravenously fed. Then after it has grown enough its organs might be used as replacement parts for you.

 

[madcat8000]

Yeah the transplanting part was the big problem i saw. I was really wondering if nerve regrowth or nerve to wire technology had advanced much. Growing a clone or even useing sexual recombination (to eliminate an untreatable genitic disease) of cloned gametes seems like a slam dunk if research was applied directly to it. Of course brain transplants would come first as so many people want to help those with spinal wounds. And part of my idea was anti ageing. I don't think we can fix our bodys, if you want to make it to 120 or what ever the maximum life span should be i really think tradeing in the old junker around 50 or 60 years would be ideal.

 

[Ken Natton]

Then after it has grown enough its organs might be used as replacement parts for you.

Growing a clone or even useing sexual recombination (to eliminate an untreatable genitic disease) of cloned gametes seems like a slam dunk if research was applied directly to it.

I'm not at all sure that you have payed any attention at all to Evo's post. The insurmountables here are not practical. They are ethical.

 

[madcat8000]

Yes but i was only interested in the practical. However in my opinion life is for the living. The body that never wakes up dosent count as a life to me. I suppose the practical thing to do would be to prevent all but the brain stem from developing then replace the brain with a space filler to ensure proper head development. I am sure everyone will hate that opinion but its my deduction after a decade of soul searching. If uve done as much as drooled on another person u count as a life. To me its about the community of man not the fact of being human flesh.

 

[jackmell]

Ok, so a human clone would be raised to the age of 20-30 years. You are the clone. How do you feel about being killed so that some other person's "brain" can replace yours?

How about incubating the clone without self-awareness? I don't think that's unreasonable. We of course would have to know more about how the brain functions to turn this and other things on and off.

In reply to the OP though, I believe we will ultimately solve the riddle of mind, memory, and consciousness and will one day create synthetic programmable brains.

 

[madcat8000]

OOOOOOOOHHHHHHHHHHH I think i misunderstood Evo. Did you think I intended for the clone to be awake for those years? That would be unethical as hell! No I just ment a copy of the body in a vat for lack of a better term. I would imagine that with the progress of science the body could be matured to the level of a twenty something in a few months or years. I would never support a natural gestation or conscious awareness for what ammounts to a replacement somatic body. And the only reason I bring it up is that I do not believe that the human body can be fully repaired like a car can. I am not sure that even if the timeing mechanism of the body was turned back to an earlier date it would fix damage like the loss of collagen in the skin, weakness of the muscles, osteoporosis. The first generation that has a firm grip on why we age will have already taken most of that damage. I donno I just like to imagine how the future will work out. meh