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'Contributor Arthur Caplan I am head of medial ethics at NYU Langone Medical Center'
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'Doctor Seeking To Perform Head Transplant Is Out Of His Mind'
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The neuroscientist Sergio Canavero of the Turin Advanced Neuromodulation Group in Italy thinks the time has come to start transplanting heads. Canavero plans to announce his noggin exchange program at the annual conference of the American Academy of Neurological and Orthopaedic Surgeons (AANOS) in Annapolis, Maryland, this June. His ambitions have gotten plenty of attention this week. They should. It is both rotten scientifically and lousy ethically.
Dr. Canavero is not trying to perfect an approach that is cosmetic. He does not seek to find a way to give you the body that you always dreamed of without the burden of diet or exercise. He wants to use head transplantation surgery to extend the lives of people whose muscles, bodily organs and immune systems have degenerated or wasted away.
Scientifically what Canavero wants to do cannot yet be done. It may never be doable.
To move a head on to someone else’s body requires the rewiring of the spinal cord. We don’t know how to do that. If we did there would be far fewer paralyzed people who have spinal cord injuries. Nor, despite Canavero’s assertions to the contrary, is medicine anywhere close to knowing how to use stem cells or growth factors to make this happen.
And when you move a head to another body you need to pour huge amounts of immunosuppression into the recipient to fight of rejection by the new body. This is a big problem for heart and liver transplants, with the drugs damaging the transplanted organs and other parts of the body. Cancer, infections and premature death are the result of the toxic nature of immunosuppressive drugs.
It is even worse in trying face transplants. Rejection is common and side-effects are miserable. A whole head would only be even more of a nightmare for the recipient of a body to endure.
Ethically the big obstacle is what will happen if I stick an old head on a new body. The brain is not contained in a bucket—it integrates with the chemistry of the body and its nervous system. Would a brain integrate new signals, perceptions, information from a body different from the one it was familiar with? I think the most likely result is insanity or severe mental disability.
End Citations
The head transplant reads as a very complex and problematic, scientific, medical and ethical issue at this point in time.
Philosophically and theologically, if a head transplant could be successfully completed, from a Biblical-Christian world-view, would the head transplant recipient have a soul/spirit?
According to John R. Burr and Milton Goldinger there exists a debate within the scientific community on whether or not human beings are entirely physical, or if they could have an immaterial nature. Burr and Goldinger (1976: 319). The existence of the human spirit is not empirically verifiable, and its existence from a Christian perspective would primarily rely on Scripture. Thiessen (1956: 227). Richard Taylor writes that the idea of an immortal soul cannot be seen as necessarily false. Taylor (1969)(1976: 334). However, he reasons that if there is difficulty explaining how the body can do certain things, it would be no less difficult explaining how a soul could do certain things. Taylor (1969)(1976: 336). For Clarence Darrow the immaterial soul does not exist and cannot be reasonably conceived. Darrow (1928)(1973: 261). Jesus stated that God is spirit in John 4:24 and therefore I reason God is not of a material nature and cannot be proven by the use of matter or scientific experiment.
M.E. Osterhaven explains that in the Hebrew Bible, spirit is at times the Hebrew word ‘ruah’ and means breath of air or wind. This breath gives human beings life and rationality. Osterhaven (1996: 1041). He writes that in the New Testament sometimes the terms spirit and soul are used synonymously, at times the spirit is viewed as spiritual and the soul is understood as natural. Osterhaven (1996: 1041). Osterhaven explains that the idea of soul can be used for a living being, person or spiritual nature, and although the term can be used interchangeably with spirit some difference in explaining the two have occurred in the Hebrew Bible and New Testament. Osterhaven (1996: 1036).
Thiessen provides a possible explanation that the soul would feature human imagination, memory and understanding, while the spirit features the reason, conscience, and will. Thiessen (1956: 227). This is speculation of course, but I am not convinced that there is definitive difference between the human soul and spirit.
For Strong. the most often documented word used for spirit in the Hebrew Bible is ‘ruwach’ roo’-akh. Strong (1986: 142). The most common word used in the Hebrew Bible for soul is ‘nephesh’ neh’-fesh. Strong (1986: 105). The most used word for spirit in the New Testament is ‘pneuma’ pnyoo’mah. Strong (1986: 78). The most common world for soul is ‘psuche’ psoo-khay. Strong (1986: 106).
As with a belief in God, who is spirit, a Judeo-Christian belief in the soul/spirit is not based in empiricism or scientific explanation, but in the religious philosophy and faith presented by God through numerous scribes, prophets and apostles, and Jesus Christ himself. The existence of God as the ultimate spirit was revealed and the fact that persons are made in the image and likeness of God (Genesis 1:26-27) means that human beings as well share this spiritual nature, although finite in comparison to God’s infinite nature.
To insist that only empirical knowledge is true knowledge is to abandon all supernatural revelation that claims that there is a spiritual reality. There is a historical consistency of the Biblical message and actual historically documented persons provided information that supported the notion of a spiritual realm and the existence of the human soul/spirit.
With the idea that 'the soul would feature human imagination, memory and understanding, while the spirit features the reason, conscience, and will', the soul and spirit are the non-physical human mind working through the physical human brain.
This should be the case with any true human being, even one with a head transplant.
But how this brain would work with the 'Frankenstein' type body donated from another person, I am not certain.
BURR JOHN, R AND MILTON GOLDINGER (1976) (eds), Philosophy and Contemporary Issues, London, Collier Macmillan Publishers.
DARROW, CLARENCE (1928)(1973) ‘The Myth of the Soul’ in The Forum, October, in Paul Edwards and Arthur Pap (eds), A Modern Introduction To Philosophy, New York, The Free Press.
OSTERHAVEN, M.E. (1996) ‘Soul’, in Walter A. Elwell (ed.), Evangelical Dictionary of Theology, Grand Rapids, Baker Books.
OSTERHAVEN, M.E. (1996) ‘Spirit’, in Walter A. Elwell (ed.), Evangelical Dictionary of Theology, Grand Rapids, Baker Books.
STRONG, J. (1986) Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible, Pickering, Ontario, Welch Publishing Company.
TAYLOR, RICHARD (1969)(1976) ‘How to Bury the Mind-Body Problem’, in American Philosophical Quarterly, Volume 6, Number 2, April, in John R. Burr and Milton Goldinger (eds), in Philosophy and Contemporary Issues, London, Collier Macmillan Publishers.
