by Jack » April 25th, 2006, 9:40 pm
nuit: Avoid personal attacks like this to be more credible.
reknaw: Birchwood is correct. Also, remember that just because something is too complicated at this moment in time doesn't mean that we'll never be able to achieve it. At one point doing any work on the heart that didn't result in death was considered impossible. Now we transplant them. Jolt them out of arrhythmia. Reanimate the deceased(albeit we only have a few minutes in which to do this). Currently we are working on the cloning and surgical installation of whole organs. Even one step further: growing new organs in humans!
birchwood: Remember also that it used to be thought that if a human being exceeded 35mphs they would suffocate. Vaccinations were thought to be vile works of the devil, and against the hippocratic oath. Man would never leave the ground, let alone break the sound barrier or leave the atmosphere. Every innovation has it's detractors, and in a way they are correct: at that time the technology is too new to be as effective as whatever is currently in place. However, given a little time and energy, anything is possible.
CuriousG: Way to hyperbolize. Your body grew from a single cell. When you get a cut, you body heals itself. What's weird is that it knows when to stop.. You don't end up with a twin. The mechanism(s) for regeneration are in every cell of your body. What you're talking about are the limits of our current conscious knowledge and ability. Did you know that Egyptians had "healing temples"? You go in, lay down for a period of time(anywhere from 30 minutes to a few days), the priest(s) recite a spell, and you walk out cured of your ailments. They did this for colds, VDs, cuts, and broken bones(mind you: they set the bone first). We live in(as far as anyone can tell) an infinite universe in which there is room for everything. It is no more unlikely to change the genitalia of a human being than it is for a woman to lift a car off of her child. All the required parts are there already. One need only apply a sufficiently developed technology.
Lissar: You are correct about the uterine lining. The uterus is specifically designed to perform this function. Basically, nuit is correct though. Who says you have to destroy tissue in order to change gender? You're looking at genitalia as a single finite unit, and not as a collection of smaller units which can be reorganized to perform a similar function. No destruction, no autoimmune response. Also, every second of your life your unconscious is constantly controlling and altering your heart rate, the rate at which you breathe, the levels of your hormones, your perspiration, and a million other little things like processing the billions of bits of information it receives every second from your eyes, ears, nose, skin, and tongue into a form which your conscious mind will recognize and be able to utilize. No one knows the potential of human beings.
I am open to PMs, as well as responses in the forums.
"The trouble with the world is that the stupid are cocksure and the intelligent are full of doubt." Bertrand Russell
"By doing certain things certain results follow." A. Crowley, Book of Lies
"Dum spiro, spero." - Cicero