Free Download John H. Evans, "Disembodied Brains: Understanding our Intuitions on Human-Animal Neuro-Chimeras and Human Brain Organoids"
English | ISBN: 0197750702 | 2024 | 240 pages | EPUB, PDF | 306 KB + 8 MB
Recent new technologies have brought the realm of science fiction to reality. The development of human-animal neuro-chimeras, which are animals with some component of a human brain, plays into society’s long-standing fascination with the crossover between humans and animals. In the same way, the development of human brain organoids-small parts of a human brain grown from harvested human cells-feeds our fear and fascination of disembodied brains. The general reaction to these technologies is shock or disgust.
This book closely examines the public’s response to such new scientific advances: the questions they raise about the biological essence of personhood, the ethics of growing and mixing human-animal parts, and the fears of dystopian misuse that might arise from the development of such technologies. There is a general public belief in a foundational distinction between humans and animals, and the development of human-animal neuro-chimeras violates this belief and creates opposition to the technology itself, regardless of the intentions behind its development. There is a similar foundational belief that disembodied human parts, such as harvested cells used for the creation of human brain organoids, are not truly separated from the original donor and therefore a brain organoid grown in a dish retains some essence of the person from whom the cells originated. This likewise results in concern and resistance to such technology being used at all.
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