On Mar 1, 5:41 pm, Stathis Papaioannou <stath...@gmail.com> wrote: > On Fri, Mar 2, 2012 at 8:32 AM, Craig Weinberg <whatsons...@gmail.com> wrote: > > It depends how good the artificial brain stem was. The more of the > > brain you try to replace, the more intolerant it will be, probably > > exponentially so. Just as having four prosthetic limbs would be more > > of a burden than just one, the more the ratio of living brain to > > prosthetic brain tilts toward the prosthetic, the less person there is > > left. It's not strictly linear, as neuroplasticity would allow the > > person to scale down to what is left of the natural brain (as in cases > > where people have an entire hemisphere removed), and even if the > > prosthetics were good it is not clear that it would feel the same for > > the person. If the person survived with an artificial brain stem, they > > may never again feel that they were 'really' in their body again. If > > the cortex were replaced, they may regress to infancy and never be > > able to learn to use the new brain. > > It's not a completely adequate artificial brain stem or cortex if it > doesn't work properly, is it? Just as an artificial heart that doesn't > increase output appropriately in response to exercise is not > completely adequate, though it might be adequate to prevent the person > from dying immediately.
That's what I'm saying. It may be the case though that no artificial organ can be completely adequate in every sense - or even a transplant. It's one thing when it's a kidney, but when it's a brain, I don't think we can assume anything. Craig -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
