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What if a human mind got trapped inside a sheep's head?

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Discreet
 
Reply Sat 30 Apr, 2005 12:11 am
With all these new experiements that scientists have been conducting combining human organs in sheeps bodies and even more scarier scientists have injected human cells into lab animals

Stanford University endorsed a proposal to create mice with brains nearly completely made of human brain cells. Stem cell scientist Irving Weissman said his experiment could provide unparalleled insight into how the human brain develops and how degenerative brain diseases like Parkinson's progress.

Stanford law professor Hank Greely, who is in charge of the ethics commitee, said the board was satisfied that the size and shape of the mouse brain would prevent the human cells from creating any traits of humanity. Just in case, Greely said, the committee recommended closely monitoring the mice's behavior and immediately killing any that display human-like behavior.

So that leads me to believe that in more advanced animals with higher brain capacities an animal might actually be able to think like a human. To me when i think of that i get chills. Maybe its cause i was scared when i read the book animal farm....
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Bi-Polar Bear
 
  1  
Reply Sat 30 Apr, 2005 12:13 am
Well one only has to peruse the political threads to see that many humans have become possessed of a sheeps mind so I suppose the reverse is possible.
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CodeBorg
 
  1  
Reply Sat 30 Apr, 2005 01:07 am
"prevent the human cells from creating any traits of humanity."
HAH, no chance of that. There is no humanity in this world!

Somebody give lawyer-Hank a piece of cheese, pat him on the head,
and tell the scientists "He's a little cutie!"


"think like a human"?
For the most part, humans don't think. So it should be pretty easy to imitate
once we get the right lab instruments.

I think the scientists are trying to pull the wool over our eyes,
just for the sake of sheer(ing) madness.




------
If we could just HARVEST the mind, then we could RUE the world! . . . BAH!
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Mr Stillwater
 
  1  
Reply Sat 30 Apr, 2005 02:20 am
Quote:
Just in case, Greely said, the committee recommended closely monitoring the mice's behavior and immediately killing any that display human-like behavior


I am somewhat mystified by this, what could a mouse do that would be remotely 'human-like'? They are MICE y'know - not able to walk on their hindlegs or read or apply for low-paid jobs in the fast-food industry. Still they could possibly get a seat in the Senate.....
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CodeBorg
 
  1  
Reply Sat 30 Apr, 2005 02:56 am
Maybe they meant if the mouse ... starts to like humans.

"Human-liking".

That would, of course, be insane (of the mouse) and beyond comprehension (by us),
and therefore worth killing.

Good question, Mr. S.
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CodeBorg
 
  1  
Reply Sat 30 Apr, 2005 07:05 am
Genetic Mingling Mixes Human, Animal Cells
Quote:
Constitutional prohibitions against slavery prevents the patenting of people.



Darn!
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agrote
 
  1  
Reply Sat 30 Apr, 2005 09:44 am
Re: What if a human mind got trapped inside a sheep's head?
Discreet wrote:
Maybe its cause i was scared when i read the book animal farm....


I think you may have misunderstood it then, if it scared you for this sort of reason. Animal farm isn't about animals - the animals are suppsoed to be people.

As other people have suggested, sheep are unlikely to take over the world - they don't even have hands.
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fresco
 
  1  
Reply Sat 30 Apr, 2005 10:41 am
I see no baah to this proposition since the reverse is already true !
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Discreet
 
  1  
Reply Sat 30 Apr, 2005 11:27 am
yeah agrote i was just joking...lol no love?


And agrote what they re worried about is that if mice got a human mind and became to start in theory they could breed with other mice and spread throughtout the world. And then you ll have mice such as Pinky And the Brain trying to take over the world!!!
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Terry
 
  1  
Reply Sun 1 May, 2005 03:02 pm
I don't think that you could grow a human brain in a mouse's or a sheep's head - it just wouldn't fit. Neither mice nor sheep brains have a cerebral cortex like ours, so an animal brain - even with the addition of human neurons - could not possibly think like us.

CodeBorg, the Constitutional prohibitions against slavery do not prevent the patenting of people or hybrids, only the treatment of them.
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extra medium
 
  1  
Reply Sun 1 May, 2005 08:56 pm
Well this all raises a cross-thread question (morality, self-identity, consciousness, is it a choice or curse?,what is repulsive?, etc.:

If you had a human mind that got stuck inside a sheep's body, and this human mind decided it wanted to be intimate with a human, should this be illegal?

Is this okay? Is this immoral? Is it repulsive? Why? Is this bestiality?

***

Well, okay then. I see that has you all up in arms.

What if this human mind in a sheep's body wanted to be intimate with another sheep? Is this okay then? Doesn't seem like this would be right either. I mean, the human mind would have unfair advantage over the sheep, and ...it just seems kinda somehow weirrrrrrddd.

I can see some out there will have problems with either of the above scenarios.

So what is this poor sheep/humanmind to do? Go through life celibate?

Woe to the human mind stuck in a sheep's body! Twisted Evil
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patiodog
 
  1  
Reply Sun 1 May, 2005 09:17 pm
...which, as has already been noted, does not have hands. Woe for the poor sheep... er, man... er, meep.
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Discreet
 
  1  
Reply Sun 1 May, 2005 09:23 pm
You can always rub against a tree or a trusty rock if all else fails
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patiodog
 
  1  
Reply Sun 1 May, 2005 09:24 pm
In the words of my avatar, "Ruff!"
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dlowan
 
  1  
Reply Sun 1 May, 2005 10:16 pm
I think the human mind would have so much trouble learning to chew cud, walk on four legs and fight the overwhelming urge to follow the other sheep, that it would turn to custaaaaaaaaard....
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CodeBorg
 
  1  
Reply Sun 1 May, 2005 10:28 pm
Brains seem pretty generic to me.

If you unplug one and plug it in somewhere else
it still computes based on the type and content of it's input.

Different patterns, different controls,
but same operations.

What would YOU do if your limbs and fur and eyes were different ... since birth?

I would take a nap. And then look for some food.
Hey, 94% of our DNA is identical to a sheep anyways, so why
not live in a field of dreams?
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dlowan
 
  1  
Reply Mon 2 May, 2005 12:29 am
But what abouit all the sheep hormones and chemistry? That would have to affect the brain.
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fresco
 
  1  
Reply Mon 2 May, 2005 01:05 am
dlowan,

You are correct if we are treating this as a serious question.

The "mechanisms of cognition" is a major philosophical issue between reductionist neuroscientists and holistic "life scientists".
The later argue that "cognition" is a sub-process of "living" and will include all levels of interaction from the visceral to the neural.
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agrote
 
  1  
Reply Mon 2 May, 2005 05:41 am
extra medium wrote:
If you had a human mind that got stuck inside a sheep's body, and this human mind decided it wanted to be intimate with a human, should this be illegal?


Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaaaaaasdefgh Laughing

*ahem*

You couldn't transfer your 'mind' from your brain to the sheeps brain - you could only give the sheep false memories and cognitions that resemble yours, so that the sheep thinks that it used to be a human. The sheep would still be a sheep, albeit a very clever one, and would be better off having sex with other sheep, rather than humans - and, conveniently, the sheep-body's hormones would give the 'human' sheep the necessary sexual desires for it to prefer to shag sheep than humans.
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dlowan
 
  1  
Reply Mon 2 May, 2005 05:48 am
fresco wrote:
dlowan,

You are correct if we are treating this as a serious question.

The "mechanisms of cognition" is a major philosophical issue between reductionist neuroscientists and holistic "life scientists".
The later argue that "cognition" is a sub-process of "living" and will include all levels of interaction from the visceral to the neural.

Indeed.

I think I am treating it both as a serious and non-serious question!

However, I so bet it will not be long before someone transplants some kind of brain into a skull it was never meant for.

Do you agree?
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