Pearls Before Swine by Stephan Pastis for July 14, 2022

If you do that, make sure to get a normal brain; not an abnormal brain.

Abby Normal?!

Brain replacements is not possible due to an act of Congress. If it was possible, the constituents would demand brain replacements for the warped and distorted brains currently found in a politician’s head.

Pig could just have an old pocket calculator inserted next to his existing brain; it would be an upgrade.

Lobotomy is probably closest

When Pig thought heard about changing his mind, he thought he meant exchanging!

And so who gets the low grades after the swaps happen?

Pig doesn’t realize that you have to have a brain to swap in the first place.

If I can change my oil, my socks and my mind… why NOT change my brain?

I’d opt for a reset-button. Or maybe an usb-port, labeled ‘insert learning stuff here’.

Maybe it’s not a thing today … but tomorrow … ?

Eh, me heards pig brain make good dish.

Brain and brain! What is brain?

Has Pig ever heard of a brain transplant?

I don’t see what the problem is. I’ve changed my mind plenty of times.

Not yet anyway, Pig!

I need what little I’ve got.

I have a new hip and a new shoulder. Now I’d like a new spine.

Just join a cult: ta-da – brain changed!

If you could do that, you wouldn’t be you anymore. You’d be someone else but in your body.

Do you mind losing all your data?

I work with some people who need this!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heslington_Brain

Oy!

Frank did it, even Mel Brooks and Gene Wilder did it, why can’t we?

The brain controls everything, including essential things like heartbeat and breathing. Even if one could, that’s not a change one should make.

Why do people think the body is like a well constructed car where every part can be swapped for a new one?

Surely! Especially with unrelenting bombardment of Media propaganda and public school and university indoctrination.

I’m ok with my brain. It’s got some things in there that I couldn’t legally show other people, but all in all it’s in good condition. I’d rather we be able to take our brains and plop them into a cyborg body. That way when the parts started to wear out, you just pop on a new one.

With the direction technology is headed, your may not need to swap your brain. Just add a few extra CPUs and someone else can control it.

Let’s see what the long-term effect is for the mRNA vaccines.

The cure for Alzheimer’s…keep periodic backups of your brain, at any time you can wipe it clean, defrag it, mark the bad sectors and reload from backup. Maybe even get an upgrade to newer, more up to date hardware.

The brain and the mind are separate entities.

If there’s a way to upload then download the contents, it might work.

i fear they may be working on that

In the meantime, Pig, make a habit of changing your mind filter.

See last Monday’s Lay Lines.

Mary Shelley would have argued the point.

When our daughter was little I read her an Oz book with a character called the Glass Cat. It had its nasty pink brain replaced with a green one that made it be friendly and reasonable. After that our daughter liked to do brain transplants on me. She said she belonged to the Frequent Brain Buyers Club and got discounts. Sometimes she’d stop halfway through a transplant, just after removing the old brain, and wander off for a minute or two. My role was to sit there with my mouth open till she came back with the new brain.

When science fails, look to fiction. I Will Fear No Evil, by Robert A. Heinlein.

This was a Far Side punch line.

Somewhere back in time, your ancestors were worms. Somewhere far ahead,(should our species not obliterate itself), your descendants will be very different from you. This is the brain you got. Try not to damage it. Maximize its possibilities. Enjoy your current visit to “consciousness”. You get one shot, then your atoms disperse, never to reassemble. Good luck!

Plop Plop Fizz Fizz, oh what a relief it is!

The concept of a brain translplant is looking at the human body from the wrong perspective. Given all the neuropsychological information that a brain has at its disposal, we should be saying Mrs. Jones just had a body-transplant.

Weekly World News had a story 35 years ago about a brain transplant in Russia. … no, wait, they started out to do one but the damage to the one was so bad they transplanted the entire head instead. No idea why I still remember that, it was hardly the most outlandish thing they published.

This week’s Lay Lines speaks to this. https://www.gocomics.com/lay-lines/2022/07/11?ct=v&cti=1404859

I put an abnormal brain into a three-foot tall, two-hundred pound pig?!?!?!?

Sure, it is, Pig. Just find a small German town that has a mad scientist who has a crush on his cousin and is obsessed with dead people. He can probably find you a new brain and replace it very easily. He might even do it for free.

Dr. Michael Hfuhruhurr perfected that exact operation.

So far, brain transplants are too complex for our science.

So, Pig does have a point in panel 4….

Remember the episode of ‘Friends’ where Joey’s sitcom character was going to get a new brain and Ross pointed out how implausible that was (and still is)? This strip reminded me of that.

You said it, Pig. I’ve been checking scientific publications for some time now, and they still haven’t got this going!

Factory reset?

If i ever have a family crest that would be our motto.