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Mailing List Logs for ShadowRN

Message no. 1
From: Brian Johnson <john0375@****.TC.UMN.EDU>
Subject: Re: Meat Drones/real frontal lobotomies
Date: Mon, 18 Nov 1996 11:06:08 -0600
A prefrontal lobotomy cuts the tissue connecting your right and left
lobes of your brain. It had some success in treating patients who were
violent, but only some of the patients were cured. others just got the
disadvantages of the lobotomy (no communication between lobes).

This is NOT the same as turning a person into a vegetable. They are
still capable of speech, movement, thinking, and others. So they still
have a 'soul'. personally, I don't think anything you do to a body
without implanting cyberwear would affect essense (much).

Besides, why would you need to perform surgery on someone, why not just
buy the poor person who was underwater for 20 minutes from their poor
family. give them a lot of money, and tell them that the person will
lead a nice, quiet life?

Sorry If this has been covered all ready.
Message no. 2
From: Mike Elkins <MikeE@*********.COM>
Subject: Re: Meat Drones/real frontal lobotomies
Date: Mon, 18 Nov 1996 12:23:29 -0500
>A prefrontal lobotomy cuts the tissue connecting your right and left lobes of your
>brain. It had some success in treating patients who were violent, but only some
>of the patients were cured. others just got the disadvantages of the lobotomy (no
>communication between lobes).
>
>This is NOT the same as turning a person into a vegetable. They are still
>capable of speech, movement, thinking, and others. So they still have a 'soul'.
>personally, I don't think anything you do to a body without implanting cyberwear
>would affect essense (much).

The story, as I remember it from a lecture 10 years ago (In other words, possibly
not very well), was that pre-frontal lobotomies were in fact used to treat violent
patients, but after a few years people started to notice that, although these people
were much nicer to be around, they weren't exactly fun to be around. In fact,
although they could talk and walk, there wasn't much personality there. So
although they could "think", it is not at all clear to me that they still had a
"soul". Of
course some people find the idea that a soul could be dependent on a few
thousand very concrete and mortal neurons rather disturbing. Science doesn't
really have the tools to answer questions like that very well. On the other hand,
6th world magic does... FASAMike could tell us what the aura of a PFL patient
with no personality left looks like, and thereby answer a terribly difficult real-world
philosophical debate, but I suspect he wont; it is unlikely to improve anyones'
game and likely to just piss off people who don't subscribe to the philosophy he
chose as correct.

Double-Domed Mike
Message no. 3
From: Mike Elkins <MikeE@*********.COM>
Subject: Re: Meat Drones/real frontal lobotomies
Date: Mon, 18 Nov 1996 12:33:26 -0500
<snip section on pre-frontal lobotomies>

>Besides, why would you need to perform surgery on someone, why not just buy
>the poor person who was underwater for 20 minutes from their poor family.
>give them a lot of money, and tell them that the person will lead a nice, quiet
>life?

Well, a pre-frontal lobotomy "victim" has a few advantages IMHO. One: You know
the exact amount of brain damage (because you caused it). You are garunteed a
fully functional meat drone. Two: Having a victim who can still walk and talk is a
big plus. Essentially you have a drone with an autopilot. All you need to do is
connect the remote control gear to the places the frontal cortex used to connect to
and voila, the decker now overrides the drone's personality. Much easier than full
muscle control (which would take a LOT of bandwidth for all the feedback).

Of course, all of this is SO beyond our present technology its laughable, but its at
least as plausible as bug spirits infiltrating the govenrnment...

Double-Domed Mike

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Disclaimer

These messages were posted a long time ago on a mailing list far, far away. The copyright to their contents probably lies with the original authors of the individual messages, but since they were published in an electronic forum that anyone could subscribe to, and the logs were available to subscribers and most likely non-subscribers as well, it's felt that re-publishing them here is a kind of public service.