>From: Spike Jones <spike66@attglobal.net>
>Reply-To: extropians@extropy.org
>To: extropians@extropy.org
>Subject: headless horseman
>Date: Sat, 06 Jan 2001 19:23:33 -0800
>
>We have discussed the possibility of keeping a head alive
>without a body, with inconclusive results. But could a
>body theoretically be kept "alive" without a head? If
>for instance a sophisticated medical team wished to keep
>organs for later transplantation, could they whack off the
>head {for freezing purposes} sew the big neck arteries
>into the big neck veins, sew a pipe onto the trachea, force
>air in and out, occasionally insert a smaller tube inside the
>air tube, squirt in premasticated food, etc.
>
>Would the decapitated heart continue to beat? Would
>the digestive system continue to digest? spike
>
Digestion and heart beating, and other such functions, are controlled by the
brain. You can notice this influence by the way your heart speeds up when
something exciting is about to happen, or how your stomach growls more when
you're hungry when you're in the restaurant and know food is coming. It's
fairly simple though - I think only two nerves control the heart (one makes
it speed up, one makes it slow down). A fruitful area of research would be
to design a microchip that can control all these bassic functions.
---------------------------------------------------
Zeb Haradon (zebharadon@hotmail.com)
My personal webpage:
http://www.inconnect.com/~zharadon/ubunix
A movie I'm directing:
http://www.elevatormovie.com
"Fish fuck in it." - W. C. Fields answer to why he never drank water.
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