Brain Transplants

[soleft]

Can anyone suggest a sci novel or film that deals somewhat realistically with the potentiality of brain transplants?

Thanks!

:*

[Beetwasher]

1. Incredibly, I Can't Really Think Of a Good One

and you said "realistically", so "The Man W/ Two Brains" doesn't count...

[soleft]

2. No, but it was much funnier to me when I watched it recently

I just ordered a video of Black Friday, a Boris Korloff movie from 1940.

Some movies that I thought might be quadi related are Face/Off - and I started reading the screenplay for Kevin's Smith Six Million Dollar Man revival. I'm finding it interesting to see how these movies gloss over science completely and avoid explanations.

[Beetwasher]

3. Well, Depends On How They Treat The Subject

Brain transplantation is something that's still pretty far off and probably completely impractical if you think about it...Why transplant a brain into another body? If you have that sort of medical technology, it would probably be much easier to repair the existing body w/ said technology...I imagine that severing the spinal chord in order to remove the brain and then place it in another body would render an individual completely quadripelegic and would be the most problematic aspect of the procedure. Although, it's possible that in the future the spinal chord may be able to be repaired using some sort of stem cell technology...Then you would have the person, encapsulated in the brain, w/ a whole new body...I guess maybe it makes sense if your body has an incurable terminal illness or degenerative disease...Or even old age for that matter...Though I imagine the same tech used to heal a severed spinal chord could also conceivably be used to heal such debilitating illness or even possibly old age...

Come to think of it, there may have been an Outer Limits (the new one) that dealt w/ the subject...Of course, there's also always "Spock's Brain" ;-) Though again, that violates your realistic condition...Also a Simpsons "TreeHouse of Horror" in which Homer's brain was transplanted into a robot...

[salvorhardin]

4. This isn't exactly what you're looking for

but it is incredibly close.

David Brin's Kiln People
http://www.davidbrin.com/othersfbooks.html

This is basically a kitch-noir detective story set in a world where people are able to copy their brains onto a blank golem who then happily runs off and does whatever you want it to do, comes home later on and you upload its' memories of the day onto your own. This novel is everything science fiction should be and really fun to boot.

[seasat]

5. There was a Robert Silverberg (I think) that dealt with the subject

I read a novel years ago that was on a theme where hardened criminals had their brains erased and a new personality inserted. One such criminal had the remnant of the old personality reassert itself and start to take over. Not quite a brain transplant but along a theme of erasing and reprogramming a mind like a computer.

[phantom power]

6. John Varley wrote some short stories and novels

with characters that would clone their body, as the opposite sex, and then transplant their brain into it.

Let's see. His short story anthologies were "Blue Champagne", "Picnic on Nearside". "The Ophiuchi Hotline" was a novel. Most of his stories are set in the same universe (not the same as his Titan trilogy).