Italian neurosurgeon appeals to billionaires to fund first human head transplant | Hacker News Reader

Italian neurosurgeon appeals to billionaires to fund first human head transplant

stuff.co.nz

44 pointsMarlonPro48 comments

IT'S A FULL BODY TRANSPLANT NOT A HEAD TRANSPLANT :)

I can't help but think of a potentially horrifying black market that preys on the young and healthy, who's clients are old and rich.

Just look at the American healthcare system.

Wouldn't that be every health insurance scheme, ever? What the poor old lack in wealth, they usually make up for with political power concentrated over decades so even in cases of single payer healthcare, the young will always subsidize the old.

Sure, I'm only familiar with this one though.

Relevant movie: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2140379/

This seems much relevant to the parent http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1334260/

A very disturbing movie and not just because of the inevitable gruesomeness of it. The complacency with which everyone in the film ultimately acts is just as horrifying as its premise.

For me, Futurama is the first thing that comes to mind.

So I'm kind of waiting for Nixon's head to be attached to a robot body now.

If you're going to do relevant movie, I'd say Freejack. How can you not love Emilio Estevez vs. Mick Jagger and Anthony Hopkins?

this classic B-movie seems more relevant than either:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0052646/

Sadly we already have this in the form of illegal organ trade. (even against the will of victims)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organ_trade#Illegal_organ_trad...

You still end up a quadriplegic, I believe

Since the idea is to save the patient from degenerative disease, recovering non-autonomous functions might not be a requirement - he only need a healthy body for now. It's still hard, but more feasible I guess.

That's presumably one of the issues that the funding from the called-upon world's billionaires is supposed to fix, you would think.

If someone knew how to solve nerve connection/regeneration with $20 million of funding, they wouldn't be asking for funds to do a body transplant.

I guess that depends if they eventually figure out how to fully connect the nerve endings in the spine.

That would be a far more valuable and practical medical breakthrough than full head transplants, at least in the immediate future.

I think the comparable market for organs would actually be more popular. I'm sure most wealthy villains would take a functional kidney over a body they can't control.

Dictador will live forever

Oh, it won't be a black market. There will be lobbying and laws will be passed authorising the preservation, transport and sale of war casualties from "rogue states".

Are you extrapolating from something that did happen with other organ transplants, or just assuming it would happen even though it didn't happen with other organ transplants?

BTW, one big problem for a rich old guy is, it's very likely that their head is the weakest link, not the body. If the body has cancer which has metastasized, the head is not very useful. If the body has some other problem, it could probably be better solved by transplanting a single organ. And most of all, a rich guy who had all the means to care for his body is very likely to have preserved it in a nice shape but his memory is failing them, etc. etc. An old brain in a new body doesn't sound that great, really, not as a means for life extension. "Just for fun" might interest some generally healthy aging people, on the other hand; these people would be heavily stigmatized though, in all likelihood, even if they managed to get the body and were willing to take all the risks.

I think it could be very useful in rare cases is the upshot.

Let's say I'm going to live until 50 (head+body), but then get a replacement 20 year old body when I'm 40. What happens to me? Can I make it to a higher age now? Will my mind eventually just turn into mush anyway?

not apples-to-apples comparison, first thing comes to my mind is Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) and how it (may) hurt environment.

When rich guys are saying something, others should listen, even though they are wrong

- http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2014/01/140117-trans...

- http://www.sierraclub.org/trade/trans-pacific-partnership

If that was likely to happen, I would expect to see the same with human organs that we already know how to transplant. We do not. So I find your extrapolation very unlikely.

I am always surprised despite all the difficulties we have in Italy with our politicians, how many individuals open up with innovation and excelence.

Aside that I hope this can save the Russian computer scientist.

This has been done before in dogs, and it is pretty creepy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vladimir_Demikhov. It was the base for the plot of one of the X-files movies.

The thought of a head transplant creeps me out like almost nothing else, probably because of that X-Files movie (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_X-Files:_I_Want_to_Believe)

But that's not connecting the nervous system up

This probably won't be either. If we knew how to do that, we would have tried it on an animal successfully first.

What we need is brain transplants. Then when we've perfected that, we need to secretly abduct various politicians and other powerful people, and replace their brains with those of better people who volunteer to take their places. Then, since the brain transplant won't be obvious, we can have a better society without these sociopaths ruining it for us.

You have to fix people in general to do that. Brain transplanting in that scenario won't actually work. Hell, many scientist don't want to do politics.

I completely disagree. You don't need a scientist to take over a politician's body, just some normal, reasonably-intelligent person who's willing to listen to others and isn't evil or corrupt.

The problem is that politicians tend to be sociopaths, who as a group comprise probably about 5% of the entire population. The stupid ones go to jail, but the smart ones become politicians, CEOs, etc., because they can outcompete regular people since they don't have a conscience to hinder them. So if you replace their brains with those of non-sociopathic people (the other 95% of the population), things should improve.

Near the end of the video it is suggested that the head transplanted onto a younger body would rejuvenate and hence it would make sense to cultivate clones of yourself and periodically transplant your head onto them to live eternally. This is both horrifying and hard to believe.

How come nobody mentioned this classic soviet SciFi novel:

Professor Dowell's Head

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Professor_Dowell%27s_Head

This was (for the most part) debunked on several reasonably reputable sources: http://www.businessinsider.com/head-transplant-hoax-2015-4

No, it was not debunked. A bunch of news articles re-posted Kotaku UK's 'evidence. Even the article you linked states:

"Kotaku UK published a comprehensive breakdown on this conspiracy theory"

The Doctor firmly denied this- and is without a doubt, a real neurosurgeon.

What makes this cost $17 million?

Wouldn't be surprised if a lot of that went to insurance....as in malpractice insurance, even though I'm sure the recipient will be signing various wavers

Wild guess: a huge amount of stemcells required?

Notice it doesn't say the first "successful" human head transplant.

Lots of such qualifying details are not uttered, because they are assumed according to certain maxims which govern constructive conversation among rational people.

Where can I find these maxims written down?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cooperative_principle

The Hippocratic Oath is probably a good starting point, given that the guy asking for the money is a surgeon.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hippocratic_Oath

I didn't realize some still consider logic based on Greek gods.

You'd be happy, then, to note the modernized version also included in the article.

This procedure has been done on monkeys in the 70's. It might not give this man any control over his new body, but at least he won't suffocate to death from spinal muscular atrophy.

That is implied, otherwise first 'head transplant' would be done centuries ago by some dr Frankenstein.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com