the brightness bursts and bears the rose
and the ring of water contracts to a cluster
to one drop of azure brine that falls.
O magnolia radiance breaking in spume,
magnetic voyager whose death flowers
and returns, eternal, to being and nothingness:
shattered brine, dazzling leap of the ocean.
Merged, you and I, my love, seal the silence
while the sea destroys its continual forms,
collapses its turrets of wildness and whiteness,
because in the weft of those unseen garments
of headlong water, and perpetual sand,
we bear the sole, relentless tenderness.
Pablo Neruda
Dire Straits, Sultans of Swing (quite a jam session)
Funny Thanksgiving conversation with doctors from N.I.H. At dinner they told me a head transplant is planned sometime in the next few years, I kid you not, a real head removed from a diseased body will be attached to a healthy body whose head, obviously, suffered a fatal injury. Attaching nerve fibers to electronics is possible and with the experienced gained from near future head transplants, at least for the living, attaching heads to robots will be possible.
ReplyDeleteThe big problem with this start ups idea is freezing the brain and so far companies that do this run into many problems. One of the complications is getting a certified medical person who can declare the individual dead in time, particularly if the person is being cared for at home. Another big problem is the freezing process requires chemicals to prevent damage to the cell brains. These chemicals take time to be absorbed and not all cells end up absorbing them.
And finally the biggest problem: If you where Einstein there would be a huge public interest in reviving him, but for the average Joe or Jane that would not be the case. Also consider that such frozen individuals brought back to life will lack the modern skills sets of the era they are awoken in, so whose responsibility is it to educate them? Not only that but a person declared as dead, with a death certificate, may not have the same rights as the living...Something to think about...
Changing heads has long been the work of "those who know best" ...
Delete"THE conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country. We are governed, our minds are molded, our tastes formed, our ideas suggested, largely by men we have never heard of. This is a logical result of the way in which our democratic society is organized. Vast numbers of human beings must cooperate in this manner if they are to live together as a smoothly functioning society.
Our invisible governors are, in many cases, unaware of the identity of their fellow members in the inner cabinet.
They govern us by their qualities of natural leadership, their ability to supply needed ideas and by their key position in the social structure. Whatever attitude one chooses to take toward this condition, it remains a fact that in almost every act of our daily lives, whether in the sphere of politics or business, in our social conduct or our ethical thinking, we are dominated by the relatively small number of persons — a trifling fraction of our hundred and twenty [now 320] million — who understand the mental processes and social patterns of the masses. It is they who pull the wires which control the public mind, who harness old social forces and contrive new ways to bind and guide the world.
...
It is the purpose of this book to explain the structure of the mechanism which controls the public mind, and to tell how it is manipulated by the special pleader who seeks to create public acceptance for a particular idea or commodity. It will attempt at the same time to find the due place in the modern democratic scheme for this new propaganda and to suggest its gradually evolving code of ethics and practice."
(A Closer Look At MOMCOM's DNA - 4, quoting Bernays, "The Father of Public Relations").