Upon reading, "O death, when is thy sting?" (http://www.economist.com/science/displaystory.cfm?story_id=12332939) from the Economist and having also recently read a volume of Battle Angel Alita i've had a thought.
I was thinking that when I die I'd like for my organs to be donated. It'd be kinda cool to have my heart pumping and pumping and pumping even though my brain dies. To keep it somewhere running off of solar power. Living, but devoid of personality. Sorta like an organic equivalent of a photograph keepsake. It sounds like a neat novelty.
I was also thinking that would it be possible for my brain activity to keep going even though my body dies?
I mean, if they kept my brain alive and functioning then would it be worth living to have conciousness and no body? How long does a brain live? Does a brain die as the body dies? If it does, then if we sever the body/brain correlation and have them living separate from each other would a brain be able to live indefinately? If so then could we preserve brains for future use in a more technologically advanced world where we could eventually have a body? In that respect Battle Angel Alita subsribes to the idea (as far as i can tell) that what makes a person is what a concious soul/mind does with its body (no matter the type) living life. It matters not the method of how we interact with the world but that we do and that we live and that it leaves an impression on a soul, whether for good or bad.
