# Semantics of 'brain transplant' vs 'body transplant' **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [October 4, 2009, 11:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/semantics-of-brain-transplant-vs-body-transplant/512603 "2009-10-04T23:18:57Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2009, 11:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/semantics-of-brain-transplant-vs-body-transplant/512603/1 "2009-10-04T23:18:57Z")
I’ve often heard it said that the (as yet impossible) procedure of transplanting a living brain into a different body should actually be called a ‘body transplant’ -Presumably because the personality of the individual is embodied in the brain and therefore, just like a heart transplant provides the person with a new heart, the brain transplant provides them with a new body, so it’s a body transplant… Except I remain unconvinced. Transplantation is when you take something from one environment (generally one that is not able to sustain it indefinitely) and introduce it into a different, longer-term, more sustaining one. So a seedling is transplanted from a seed tray into a pot or a bed. A sapling is transplanted from a pot into a forest. A heart is transplanted from a dead/dying body into a living one. Why is it different for a brain? The fact that it may contain a personality is just completely irrelevant to the questions: What is the thing being moved? What are the environments it is being _removed from_ and _inserted into_? We could perform _two_ operations - one moving a living, functioning person’s brain to a fresh recipient body, and another similar move, but for a brain that is alive in a cellular sense, but due to some malady or other, incapable of thought. Those two operations would be technically very similar, and yet for the common argument to be valid, one case was a body transplant, the other a brain transplant. This is wrong. Insisting that a brain transplant should actually be called a body transplant is sophistry. Please stop it. ---
**Author:** ![Harmonious\_Discord](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/74df32/32.png) [@Harmonious\_Discord](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Harmonious_Discord)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2009, 11:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/semantics-of-brain-transplant-vs-body-transplant/512603/2 "2009-10-04T23:29:22Z")
Brain transplant: The personality from the old brain is transferred to a new brain after the old brain has been replaced. The body belongs to the old personality. Body transplant: The brain with the personality is transferred to a new body. The brain is left unchanged so the personality is in the brain it always was in and the body is different. ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2009, 11:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/semantics-of-brain-transplant-vs-body-transplant/512603/3 "2009-10-04T23:33:20Z")
Already addressed that point - The personality is irrelevant - the word transplant is referring to the moving of an organ from one physical place to another. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Tao\_s\_Revenge](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/73ab20/32.png) [@The\_Tao\_s\_Revenge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Tao_s_Revenge)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2009, 12:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/semantics-of-brain-transplant-vs-body-transplant/512603/4 "2009-10-05T00:07:45Z")
I think it depends on the persepctive of the thing. After all trimming your toe nails is a body-ectomy for the toe nail clippings. ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2009, 12:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/semantics-of-brain-transplant-vs-body-transplant/512603/5 "2009-10-05T00:11:43Z")
I really think the point is that it _doesn’t_ depend on the perspective of the thing. Why should it? ---
**Author:** ![The\_Tao\_s\_Revenge](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/73ab20/32.png) [@The\_Tao\_s\_Revenge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Tao_s_Revenge)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2009, 12:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/semantics-of-brain-transplant-vs-body-transplant/512603/6 "2009-10-05T00:37:30Z")
> [@Mangetout](#): > > I really think the point is that it _doesn’t_ depend on the perspective of the thing. Why should it? Why shouldn’t it? Are you saying the toe nail clippings aren’t losing a body? ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2009, 12:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/semantics-of-brain-transplant-vs-body-transplant/512603/7 "2009-10-05T00:59:43Z")
> [@The\_Tao\_s\_Revenge](#): > > Why shouldn’t it? Are you saying the toe nail clippings aren’t losing a body? No, I’m saying that bears no relation to the definition of transplant. It’s not an ambiguous term - it means taking something out of one place and planting it in another. ---
**Author:** ![wunderkammer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/ed8c4c/32.png) [@wunderkammer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wunderkammer)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2009, 1:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/semantics-of-brain-transplant-vs-body-transplant/512603/8 "2009-10-05T01:21:59Z")
But the definition of an organ transplant (noun) is a little bit different. > [@](#): > > Organ transplant is the moving of an organ from one body to another (or from a donor site on the patient’s own body), f **or the purpose of replacing the recipient’s damaged or failing organ with a working one from the donor site**. So while it sounds perfectly fine in a physical sense to say that a surgeon performed a brain transplant, or that she transplanted Hank’s brain into Dean’s body, we’re stymied by a few questions that typically come up with human transplants: “Who donated the brain?” and “Who received the brain transplant?” Nonsense questions, right? If anyone here is the recipient of anything, it’s Hank, and he’s receiving a body, not a brain. Dean didn’t receive a brain because Dean is dead and gone. The questions “Who donated the body” and “Who received the body transplant”, in contrast, are both answerable. You can avoid inconsistency if you stick to “body transplant”. Now, I’ll be the first one to feel insulted (or very, very sad for the human race) when people insist that the media should never use the term “brain transplant”. Surely most of us understand where the seat of consciousness is, and that you can’t cure Grandma’s dementia by giving her a brain transplant from an anonymous donor. Right? I’d be just as likely to think “cool, we have the technology to do brain transplants” as “someday I might have a body transplant”. I’d like to think that most people can grasp that concept. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Tao\_s\_Revenge](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/73ab20/32.png) [@The\_Tao\_s\_Revenge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Tao_s_Revenge)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2009, 2:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/semantics-of-brain-transplant-vs-body-transplant/512603/9 "2009-10-05T02:07:28Z")
> [@Mangetout](#): > > No, I’m saying that bears no relation to the definition of transplant. > It’s not an ambiguous term - it means taking something out of one place and planting it in another. Sure it bears relation. I’d explain further but **wunderkammer** already has in a much better way then I would have. We consider the brain to be the person. If we considered toe nail ends to be the seat of personal identity we’d look at it from their perspective. It’s all relative. ---
**Author:** ![TWDuke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/e495f1/32.png) [@TWDuke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TWDuke)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2009, 9:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/semantics-of-brain-transplant-vs-body-transplant/512603/10 "2009-10-05T09:17:22Z")
I think it will have a spiffy new market-tested name, like Total Body Upgrade™. ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2009, 8:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/semantics-of-brain-transplant-vs-body-transplant/512603/11 "2009-10-05T20:55:59Z")
> [@The\_Tao\_s\_Revenge](#): > > Sure it bears relation. I’d explain further but **wunderkammer** already has in a much better way then I would have. We consider the brain to be the person. If we considered toe nail ends to be the seat of personal identity we’d look at it from their perspective. > > It’s all relative. Well, it _isn’t_ relative, for the precise reason that _nobody ever uses the example you gave_ - nobody ever says they cut the body off the top end of their toenails - not even if someone else does the cutting, or they break off spontaneously.