Quit while you're a head

The pioneering operation about to take place in China is not a "head transplant." It's a body transplant; since the personality resides in the brain,  you can't transplant a head.

And despite what the surgeon says, that's hardly a technicality. It's the difference between being you and being someone else.

Kind of like the problem which the fictional Dr. Sheldon Cooper of "The Big Bang Theory" figured out about the transporter beams on his beloved "Star Trek:" if you disassemble a person at a molecular level and then reassemble that person, he or she will not be the same person. Just an identical copy.

So every time Captain Kirk was beamed down to the surface of some planet, they killed him and then created an identical copy with the same memories and everything, but whose consciousness had never existed before that moment  Although the new Kirk was not aware of it, the memories were somebody else's.

Well, no. It's really not like that. Except sort of.

This is a pretty bizarre post. Writing it is a reminder that we live in pretty bizarre times.

HT: Drudge