For anyone interested in life extension

Nanashi

http://www.businessinsider.com/valery-spiridonov-head-transplant-2015-4

Don't really have much to add beyond this. It's pretty awesome stuff though. The fact that this is even within the realm of possibility makes the argument for cryonics that much stronger.

http://www.businessinsider.com/valery-spiridonov-head-transplant-2015-4

Don't really have much to add beyond this. It's pretty awesome stuff though. The fact that this is even within the realm of possibility makes the argument for cryonics that much stronger.

Re: ethics

If the procedure works, you can estimate that its future application can be used to save N lives. You can assign an X% probability to the procedure working. As long as N*X is > 8, it would be more unethical to carve up the body and parcel out the organs.

Wouldn't the real equation be N*X > 8N ?

Because the real question is if you save more lives using one body for one life, or one body for eight lives.

Unless (pardon me, this just occurred to me) you're calculating that this one procedure will save all of those lives for a one-shot cost of eight lives.

Even so, all the future lives it saves will come at an opportunity cost of eight other lives not saved, right?

Perhaps I'm missing something, but this seems clear to me.

None of which is to say that the research isn't worth doing anyway, necessarily.

0evand11y

Assuming this procedure worked generally, is it more ethical to donate the whole body to one person, or to parcel it up and donate the organs individually? If the latter, is there an ethical application for this procedure? If the successful procedure is ethical, I'm inclined to err on the side of assuming the research is ethical. If it's not, we get into the much more complicated problem of a shortage of donated organs, despite what appears to be an available effective and ethical solution (making organ donation opt-out instead of opt-in). So, in a sane world, I'd be inclined to conclude it was ethical because there wouldn't be an organ shortage. In an insane world, I'm somewhat leery of ethical conclusions that assume no other ethically mandated changes are allowable.

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