I read How to Build a Person” by Justin Lieber, a professor at the University of Houston who also writes science fiction. This selection is taken from his novel “Beyond Rejection” and is set in the fictional future year of 2112 in a Houston hospital where they transplant brains from one person into the body of another.
The story starts with the hospital giving a class on their attempt to transplant a mind into a human body. The test subject’s name is Sally Cudmus, and she has been frozen in ice for two years. The story discusses the difficulties of implanting a brain into a body and the problems that could occur if a mind was implanted into a body that was not its own. They explain that this is possible because the brain can adapt to major changes within days. An example they give to demonstrate this is with reverse goggles.
If a person puts on goggles that make everything appear upside down, the person would be disoriented. After a few days, the subject’s brain would adapt to these changes, making what the goggles made upside down right side up. If the goggles were then taken off, everything would again seem upside down until the brain once again adapted to this change. In this story, it is said that a mind is like a tape, and the only thing this tape needs is a body similar to its original to function. I do not agree with this because a brain is not like any other organ that can be transplanted.
A person’s brain is dynamic in that it functions uniquely and is one of a kind. No matter how similar the body types may be, a human’s brain and thoughts cannot be transferred to another body. In my opinion, a person’s brain would not adapt to such a drastic change as a body switch. In the end, the subject wakes up remembering who they once were. After touching their new body, they realize they are no longer in their original form.
The subject does not like this because his new body was much different than his own. He no longer had a penis and the muscular form he once had was gone. Also, a tail-like extension had grown from his spinal cord to his feet. The subject realizes that he will no longer be who he once was and is understandably discontent. Philosophy.
