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 Transplant Transcripts  (9 ratings)by Mike Maguire Page 2 of 2 - Did you feel guilty about cheating death when all before
you had to face it?- No. Frankly, no. It all seemed like a natural thing to do. My years of dedication made the operation possible and as a doctor it was my duty to preserve life, even if that meant my own. We should pursue the cheating of death any way we can. - Do you believe in an afterlife? - Not at all. The idea seems like wishful thinking to me. - Many would consider that a rather depressing belief. - I feel it's contrary to depressing. It makes the life we have more valuable. If you've got a big eternal afterlife coming, then there's not much reason to care about what's going on here. But if this is all you've got, then you better make the most of every bit of it. The idea of no afterlife doesn't bother me at all, other than giving me the desire to avoid death. - Ok, so you had cheated death and happily continued on with the project. What came next? Girlfriends? - After a couple years, yes. I started dating girls from the front office. I told them I was an interning college student. It was a miraculous feeling, after years of being an old man, to meet these young girls and see them looking at me with attraction. You know, whenever I talk about this, people inevitably ask about sex. - I won't be an exception. What was it like in your new body? - Fantastic. I had the sex drive of a young person. We had modified my brain's hormone center to mimic a teenager's and of course I had teenage testicles. - [laughs] Teenage testicles? - Yes, teenage testicles! It was very, very nice having all those hormones. And I had much better luck with girls than I'd had in my previous life. I had never been a smooth talker, but now I had a lifetime of wisdom and social experience. There was also a sort of detachment which made me much better at reading and dealing with people. - What do you mean? - Having a new body and persona was like playing a game. I certainly didn't feel as if I was really this young handsome guy, so it was like controlling a character. I was in charge, but it wasn't me. This feeling gave me an objectivity when it came to, say, judging how someone felt about me. - So you had a lot fun? - Yes, but there were downsides too. I found myself trying to have engaging conversations with girls that were in reality over fifty years younger than I and with whom I shared no common experiences. And everything was new and fresh and exciting for them, but I would feel a great sense of redundancy. It got better as the girls I was dating got older. I was able to find more interesting ones and ones whose natural intelligence better matched the wisdom of my years. But even then I would find problems. Have you ever used a pet name with a woman you're getting serious with, and then you think about how you used the same pet name with your last girlfriend and you find it a little depressing? Multiply that by decades of the same pet names, the same lines, and you find yourself a little bored. - Is that why you've never married in this body? - That's a lot of it. I've certainly had my chances. Mainly, I don't want to get tied down. There's still so much work to be done here with the project. As I see it, I can wait till my next body to get married and to have kids. - So you're already planning your next transplant? - Yes. I'm forty-six in this body, one-sixteen total. I figure in about ten years I can be the first brain to be moved into a third body, possibly a woman's. It'd be an important step and the change would be fun. It's been too long since I've experienced something new.
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