Welcome back.
Within the next fifty years we’ll be able to “swap minds” across species and experience what animals feel, according to Marc Hauser, cognitive neuroscientist and professor in the department of Psychology and the Program in neurosciences at Harvard.
He offers two current oddities. A chicken with a shred of quail brain acts like a quail but crows like a chicken. A man with Parkinson’s disease, receives a piece of pig brain, rises from his wheel chair and is soon playing golf. Today, we can swap brain tissue across species.
Here’s the question: when will the elderly man start to act like a pig? surely, little changes of this sort can also bring about such unexpected consequences.
Think abou this: One day soon, we will be able to ingraft animal powers (i.e. the smelling prowess of a dog) into the human makeup. The X-Men are right around the corner.
What do you think?
see you in the mystic…
Alex
I’d like to order some gills and begin the genus, “homo-natator” (swimming–man).
Life’s complicated enough as it is.
how about wings –“homo-volador”?
I love the wings idea … beautiful, but I still long to see the 2/3’s of the planet that isn’t visible from the sky.
Re: Parkinson’s and pigs … Regardless of the possibility of some snorting and an unusual fondness for mud baths, I think human dignity would be best preserved by the pig over the Parkinson’s. Anyway, sharing pig traits may not be all bad. Who knows, perhaps he could help us find truffles.
I’d like an extra set of hands. I believe that would make me “Homo-manus.” If I was irish, I could even be “Homo McManus.” There ya go. The future.
Lori, you made me chuckle. Thanks.
interesting, but there’s a difference in acting like a quail and becoming a quail…just cause i think i’m smart doesn’t mean i are…not to get spiritual, but who can make himself taller by thinking about it? (now gravity inversion boots, that’s what’ll do the trick).
yes, the chicken didn’t become a quail, it just acted like one.
Did the chicken still cross the road and if so why?