This brilliant piece from the Mid-Western doctor, discusses a very puzzling phenomenon, that people who are organ transplant recipients often undergo personality changes that seem to belong to the organ donor. It is said that emotions are transferred, especially those held at the time of death. From the perspective of mainstream materialist medicine, this claim must be rejected because organs such as the heart, are just pumps, purely material structures, and no more. But, if the claims detailed below are correct, and there is now a substantial body of reports and evidence on this, this is a direct challenge to the materialist theory of mind, that the mind is just the brain, and that’s that. Indeed, even mainstream medicine is coming to the view that the gut may have a “brain,” or at least be integrated into cognitive processes.
If, to put it simply, if organs are part of the “brain” and consciousness, what does this mean for the theology of organ transplants? Certainly, there are massive problems with any type of brain tissue transplant. And, if organs are from executed prisoners, as in communist China, which is evil of course, what follows then about the moral behaviour, or lack of it, after the organ transplants? I have no simple answer to such questions, but it does show how science generates challenging public policy issues which we cannot ignore.