Real Brains-in-a-Vat: What Could Possibly Go Wrong?

Dr. Mengele, call your office...

The human brains being grown OUTSIDE the body: Lab making miniature 'organs in a jar' is revealed

This will NOT stop here. The drive to be recognized as the first to produce some sort of achievement which will put their names in the textbooks will overcome any moral compunction which they might have, deep down.

"The goal for many researchers is to develop a brain exactly like a human's.

But some researchers say this would be a step too far.

Dr Martin Coath, from the Cognition Institute at the University of Plymouth, questioned why anyone would ever want to create a 'real' human brain.

'A human brain that was 'fully working' would be conscious, have hopes, dreams, feel pain, and would ask questions about what we were doing to it,' he said.

'Something we have grown in the lab, but on a much simpler level than a human brain, might be hooked up to electronic eyes, ears, and hands and be taught to do something - maybe something that is as sophisticated as many simple living creatures.

'That doesn't seem so far off to me.'"

There are other elements required for a living, cognitive brain, of course. Not the least of these is a fully connected and functioning vascular system. But that's not all that far behind, either.

The real missing element would be Life, which comes only from other life, as far as we know. Still, these brains are not made from scratch; they are made from living tissue.