Artificial Me

Artificial Me

Sitting in the dentist chair for two hours isn’t fun, but I do like having my teeth is good condition. I have the world’s worst teeth, but you may already know this. What amazes me is the incredible techniques that have been developed to help us stay well. I tried to pay attention to what was going on, but I have no idea what all the jargon and technical words meant. I just know they fixed my teeth, and the only thing that hurt the next day was where I had to get shots to numb up my mouth.

I don’t even want to consider what people had to endure just 100 years ago as dentists, doctors and barbers tried to fix people. That’s right. Barbers were an inexpensive doctor back in the day, especially if you needed blood-letting. The red and white barber pole was an advertisement to have your hair cut, or your blood let, which means taking out some of that bad, bad blood which must be making you sick. Many people died of blood-letting in the past. The explanation for the death must have been that not enough blood had been drained. Scary.

George the Second and George Washington both died after substantial blood-lettings. It has been largely discontinued, but recent research shows the iron build-up in blood may result in various diseases. The solution? Blood-letting.

Think about some other technologies I carry around on my own body. I have a bridge in my mouth. Someone in the past thought to themselves about how to cover up that big ugly gap where a tooth is missing. Why not build a dental device which bridges that gap, and attach it to the teeth around the gap? And think about the first patient this was tried on. Bridges in mouths are common today, but the first patient had to be convinced to have two good teeth ground down so the bridge could be attached. I would have loved to hear the dentist explain it. Maybe the first experiments were dentists who needed a bridge. It surprises me how many of the medical advances of the past were tried on the inventor first. Sometimes they experimented on their families.

It is thought Marie Curie may have died from her continued exposure to radium. Her fingertips produced so much radiation that her lab books showed fingerprints when photographic film was placed between the pages. From x-rays to casts to filled cavities in my mouth, the medical advances I’ve used seem commonplace today, and it makes me wonder what parts of me will be replaced in the future.

How much of me has to be replaced before more of me is artificial than real? What happens when scientists can transfer my mind into a computer? Is the computer me, or just me up to that point in my life?

It’s enough to make my poor human brain hurt. But I like to think about what people in the future will think when they find my dried out skull and notice most of the teeth are filled, drilled or fake. Will they even know what a bridge is by then? Think about this. Centuries ago people used to drill holes in people’s heads. We know because we have found skulls with holes drilled in them while the people were alive. I don’t know why they would drill a hole in someone’s head, but there are people who still do this, and let other people do it to them.

As we live in the bridge from our past to today, to whatever the future will bring, I expect there to be an abundance of discovery, adventure and experimentation. I just did a commercial for pain patch which places capsaicin directly on the skin as a patch to help with the pain from shingles. Think what makes peppers hot. Then concentrate it at eight percent. It has to hurt when it is put on, but apparently shingles hurts much, much more.

As we discover more and more about how and why the body works, there will be more and more amazing cures and advances. The amazing pace of change seems to get faster and faster. We may experience a time when something earth-shattering will happen every day. As the amount of information available continues to increase, how can we hope to keep up? Maybe that is your assignment. Invent the next technology which coordinates the light-speed developments so we can connect point A with point B and get the real solutions we need in the future. Sponsor someone who is innovating; contribute to those who are trying to get us to that better tomorrow.

I hope to see you in that brilliant, creative, innovative tomorrow, and maybe I may have some real parts left.

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