Ralph, did you see the rerun of the Star Trek episode “Spock’s Brain” the other day, too?
You’d still have to reconnect the brain to the spinal cord, which is the biggie here.
This has struck me as impractical of late, since we ‘edit’ so much of what we see - memory is not a factual record, and we also remember and forget different things for different reasons. I’m not sure how a machine would replicate this.
Greg Egan wrote a story ‘Learning to be me’ wherein a durable electronic device is implanted into the skulls of newborn infants, learning to mimic every brain function (the idea being that if you capture brain function in a device, then you’ve got the person in there).
But I wonder… even if we were able to do this - lets say we invented some kind of nanotech that could replace neurons one by one, would it be able to create a structure that was an exact duplicate? Would not the process of measuring the activity of a neuron actually alter that activity?
I wonder how many different artificial implants it would take before your brain ceased to be a human brain.
Also, if you could place a brain in another body, wouldn’t that be a body transplant instead of a brain transplant? 
Here’s an idea then… (nanotech again) - inject a bunch of self-replicating nanoconstructors - their task is to set up camp at a suitable site in the spinal column, remove a piece of one of the vertebrae (reinforcing the space with a stronger, more compact material), then they construct a ‘universal coupling’ in the space, after that, they re-route the neurons through it, (one at a time, so there is no significant disruption to the function).
When the time comes to effect the transplant, the universal coupling is separated and marry it up with a similar one in the new host body.
The only tricky part is that the nanomachines have to understand the layout of the neurons in the spinal column, so that they can meaningfully connect them into the coupling and not end up with a leg motor neuron wired up to a finger etc. Well, it isn’t the only tricky part, but it is certainly one of the biggies.
No sex.
Big downside from here, buckaroo.
Oral sex would be possible, no?
Some of these plans are so elaborate that one might as well have the nanodingledangles just roaming around constantly refurbishing the body.
Quick question: At what point of mental retardation does it become permissable to kill somebody?
Read
William And Mary by Roald Dahl
Fortitude by Kurt Vonnegut
Re-Copying The Mind Into The Machine
This raises the issue of pattern identity vs body identity. Would the mind in the machine be you or just a copy of you? Is there a difference?
or a new body could be cloned by an (as yet undetermined )
method which produces a force grown body with no head;
so there you are with an old head on a new body- the proud citizen of the future.
SF worldbuilding at
http://www.orionsarm.com/main.html
One would need to eliminate those sections of DNA reponsible for those bits of brain or block the enzymes responsible during the initial growth. The “Reptile” part of the human brain carries out the basic life sustaining functions of the body like breathing so the clone would only need a nutrient IV untill brain implantation.
Well…that goes without saying, doesn’t it? I mean, not having nerve-grafting technology at hand when you performed the operation would render the whole concept moot.
But…even if we HAD the technology, If I were the surgeon, I’d still rather only have to worry about reconecting the spinal cord, than worry about reconnecting the spinal cord, AND the optic nerves, AND the Statoacoustic nerves, AND the Glossopharyngeal nerve, AND…well, all the other major nerves in the skull.
Why not just harvest stem cells? I seem to remember reading that they will change into whatever type of tissue they are introduced into, e.g. injecting them into a muscle will make more muscle, into the brain will make more neurons… You could either do the brain transplant with neuron therapy to get rid of the senility, or just do the entire body and let it integrate the new cells into the structure.
I only went to armchair university to study genetics (and I didn’t graduate with honours), but I think I’m right in saying that it isn’t quite as simple as ‘bits of DNA responsible for bits of brain’ - I believe that it may be true that the proteins coded by the bits of DNA ultimately responsible for brain development, may also be essential to other important non-brain functions.
From the point of view of the patient, yes, from the point of view of the surgeon, no, from the point of view of the patient’s friends and relatives… hmmm… maybe.