Are Heart Transplants telling us something interesting?

[QED]

The ancients assumed the heart to have a far greater role than just being a pump. Now it seems that evidence is mounting that they may have been right all along:

Professor Schwartz has detailed over 70 cases which demonstrate this phenomenon.

In one such case, a young dancer received a heart-and-lung transplant. Before the operation, she had been very health-conscious; yet, the very first thing she did on leaving the hospital was to head for a Kentucky Fried Chicken outlet, and wolf down an order of chicken nuggets‹something she would never have done before. Her personality changed, too: she became aggressive and impetuous whereas, before, she had been calm and conservative.

She decided to investigate and, after much battling against the medical bureaucracy, she discovered that her heart­lung donor was an 18-year-old man who had died in a motorcycle accident. He had been an aggressive and impetuous lad who had a passion for Kentucky Fried Chicken‹in fact, uneaten KFC nuggets had been found in his motorcycle jacket on the very day of his death.

Another notable case is that of an eight-year-old girl who had received the heart of a 10-year-old girl who had been brutally murdered. After the transplant, the recipient began to experience horrifying nightmares. Her dreams were consistently about being murdered, and they were so traumatic that a psychiatrist was called in to help. What he heard convinced him that the girl was describing the actual circumstances of her donor¹s murder. When the details were given to the police, these proved to be so accurate that the killer was easily identified and apprehended.

A recent TV program (UK: Mindshock C4) interviewed a number of patients mentioned in the above study and presented a highly compelling case that some aspects of personality are indeed being transplanted along with the donors organs. If this indicates that personality is a material property that can literally be patched-in from one person to another, then doesn't this damage the claims of dualists that personality is something that transcends the material components of our bodies?

[micatala]

Wow. Assuming this is on the up and up, this IS very interesting.

Does it damage the dualists beliefs?

I suppose it does to some extent. On the other hand, if one is of the opinion that the 'personality stuff that is beyond the material' still has some kind of relationship or attachment to the material, then it only indicates that this essence 'pervades the body' rather than being restricted to the brain.

[Cathar1950]

It must be right it fits into my non-dualist beliefs.
think I saw this on the "outer limits".
It is interesting.

[QED]

OK, this does look a bit "Twilight Zone" but I think it might be genuine enough. Neural tissue exists in the heart and there is a two-way communications channel between heart and brain. From a purely logical point of view it makes sense for the heart to exchange a certain amount of information with the brain; in most of the studies on individuals the transplanted personality seemed to show up most in the sort of activities and interests they pursued after the transplant. Typically donors were fit and healthy and died through accident, while recipients were ill with heart disease and related complications.

I can readily see the heart guiding the brain in matters of energetics. Selection wise, a brain that has ideas which place too much demand on "its" heart will be at a greater disadvantage as one which "listens" to its heart. I also think that nature is more subtle in her approach to this sort of mechanism than we might imagine. While a robotics engineer might use telemetry to monitor things like temperature, strain, pressure etc. and moderate demand on the pump accordingly, evolution on the other hand is likely to go for distributed processing. I'm reminded of the Stegosaurus and its famous "second brain" which is actually an enlarged pelvic nerve plexus near the hips. Most animals including mammals have some expression of this feature only not developed to such a great extent. Presumably the need is proportional to body size and reaction time for it can be shown that the time taken for neurochemical signalling to effect a reaction in such large animals would be too great. A local process is therefore an effective solution if it can be given sufficient autonomy.

So it seems to me that what we see as aspects of mind are likely to be distributed and the heart, in this case, is another part of that system.

As for duality, I think the fact that something supposedly ethereal is transplanted in a mechanical operation demonstrates an intimate dependence on the material. The property of personality is contained within the physical entity. If the donor is in heaven, how come his desire for KFC is still walking the earth?

[Cathar1950]

I think maybe it was the "Twilight Zone".
It would not surprise me.
Even the brain distributes information when persons are damaged sometime functions come back as the brain regroups.
It seems to me that it is grounded in the material.
I have read that the body is an exension of the brain.
Cool stuff.

[BeHereNow]

micatala Does it damage the dualists beliefs?

I suppose it does to some extent. On the other hand, if one is of the opinion that the 'personality stuff that is beyond the material' still has some kind of relationship or attachment to the material, then it only indicates that this essence 'pervades the body' rather than being restricted to the brain.

QED If the donor is in heaven, how come his desire for KFC is still walking the earth?

I believe one explanation for this phenomenon is cellular memory. The cells of an organ experience and retain the experience of eating chicken nuggets, and transmit this to the brain, “electrically” or “chemically”, but not spiritually.

I would think it quite possible that the stomach might experience this. The heart is not in direct contact, but is connected to the stomach, less likely, but still possible.
This might put the thought of chicken nuggets into the brain/mind, and we have a form of a subliminal suggestion, causing an urge.
It might be the same with physical activities, external to the human body.

If this can be shown to be scientifically “true”, it does not preclude the possibility of the spiritual being on the other side having the personality (wants, desires, urges) of the previous material being.

If there is a persistence of personal identity onto the other side, there is a connection, a commonality with the material being and the material world. It seems to me this is a truism.
Among other things, this connection or commonality might be an urge for chicken nuggets.

I have not heard any explanation for this phenomenon that I believe precludes the possibility of a spirit world.
But I have not heard them all.

[Goat]

The ancients assumed the heart to have a far greater role than just being a pump. Now it seems that evidence is mounting that they may have been right all along:

Professor Schwartz has detailed over 70 cases which demonstrate this phenomenon.

In one such case, a young dancer received a heart-and-lung transplant. Before the operation, she had been very health-conscious; yet, the very first thing she did on leaving the hospital was to head for a Kentucky Fried Chicken outlet, and wolf down an order of chicken nuggets‹something she would never have done before. Her personality changed, too: she became aggressive and impetuous whereas, before, she had been calm and conservative.

She decided to investigate and, after much battling against the medical bureaucracy, she discovered that her heart­lung donor was an 18-year-old man who had died in a motorcycle accident. He had been an aggressive and impetuous lad who had a passion for Kentucky Fried Chicken‹in fact, uneaten KFC nuggets had been found in his motorcycle jacket on the very day of his death.

Another notable case is that of an eight-year-old girl who had received the heart of a 10-year-old girl who had been brutally murdered. After the transplant, the recipient began to experience horrifying nightmares. Her dreams were consistently about being murdered, and they were so traumatic that a psychiatrist was called in to help. What he heard convinced him that the girl was describing the actual circumstances of her donor¹s murder. When the details were given to the police, these proved to be so accurate that the killer was easily identified and apprehended.

A recent TV program (UK: Mindshock C4) interviewed a number of patients mentioned in the above study and presented a highly compelling case that some aspects of personality are indeed being transplanted along with the donors organs. If this indicates that personality is a material property that can literally be patched-in from one person to another, then doesn't this damage the claims of dualists that personality is something that transcends the material components of our bodies?

I did see the abstract on pub-med, but somehow, I am skeptical. The original paper was published in a non-peer reviewed journal.

It might be.. but the person I know that had a lung/heart transplant did not go through those changes.

[Aqualung]

When people have major surgeries like transplants, it can be very stressful, and VERY hard to get used to. Heck, my mom just got a pacemaker put in, and she's having a lot of trouble getting used to the idea, and that's not even a new ORGAN! I don't think it has anything to do with the organ itself, but it's more of the psychological response to getting a part of you taken out and then replaced with somebody else's parts. That's just freaky.

[Sleepy]

The gut has more nerve endings in it than your brain. Look it up if you like! OK some of you will say you did look it up and I'm wrong, thats because you looked it up in a book. You should look it up in your gut, and my gut tells me I'm right!

Love Colbert

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid ... 7758574879

Seriously though, I watched this with interest, fascinating program. Problem with these things is really the concept is so new and information so vague that more research needs to be done before it will threaten any dualist position.

Eventually the gut issue may come into play though! Gut transplants hail transfer of intelligence!! I can see the headlines now, you heard it first here folks!

[Deuce]

doesn't this damage the claims of dualists that personality is something that transcends the material components of our bodies?

Not really.

As far as the cravings This makes more sense.

I believe one explanation for this phenomenon is cellular memory. The cells of an organ experience and retain the experience of eating chicken nuggets, and transmit this to the brain, “electrically” or “chemically”, but not spiritually.

Nothing mentioned here has anything to do with spiritual nature. I also belive a heart transplant in and of itself is enough to change someones perspective on life (introvert to extrovert). There doesn't seem to be much in the way of proof here either. Does anyone have a link to a verifiable source about the girl who solved a murder case?

I'm having a hard time believing professor Schwartz...

Dr. Schwartz's major research focus has been in the controversial field of parapsychology. The stated goal of The VERITAS Research Program is "using individuals called mediums to communicate with the deceased" and using scientific methodology and protocols to measure the results. Subject mediums have included television-psychic John Edward and "researcher"-psychic Allison DuBois. Some of his experiments have been funded and featured by HBO premium television network.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gary_Schwartz