I am following a forum elsewhere where debates are commonplace, and this topic pops up about a child in China, which has a third arm and whether or not it should be removed. Of course you have your regular pro and con speakers, pro saying the child will be ridiculed and it might influence development of the body, the cons saying the child could do extraordinary things with it and that the child that way learns the value of "words hurt not" and become a better person.

Regardless of that main discussion, all of a sudden someone posts this remark and my hair stood on end. THIS IS NOT TRUE!

The remark was the following:

I would love to whoop his butt *giggles* There are cases known where the person has hardly no brain matter at all, only just inside the outer rim of the skull. I have seen the X-rays. It was on Discovery if I am not mistaken. And these people functioned just like you and I, no problem at all. The brain adapts, and with that it is the most wonderful thing inside man. I think that the brain is perfectly capable of adapting to this extra limb and in fact capable of operating it.

I looked up a wee bit of info and it is called neuroplasticity, the ability of the brain to adapt to deficits and injury.


Anyway.. yeah.. to the person's words

ROTFLMAO!!!!!

Robotic Prostetics use just that kind of brain power that the poster says it can't produce!.
Follow the linky to the 4th paragraph.

"The brain doesn't work that way" is an incorrect argument!

I do have this image of a dimunitive Shiva, but then I am something of a sick pup myself

*laughs* Just to make my point even more *giggle* So far no-one has even jumped on the "fact" the person posted. Of course it isn't really relevant in THAT discussion since there it is mainly debated whether or not to remove it, and not whether or not it could have function.

OK, since in this case they can't wait to ask him (although in general that should be the rule -- don't remove any of my members without asking me in advance) the only solution is to apply the "what a sane person would want" kind of -*test*-('"). So that's the question that we want to ask ourselves (assuming that we are sane :

- would you want to be a freak and be treated as one?
or
- would you prefer to be able to use a third arm?

Now respond honestly to this question, and you'll find the right solution.

Easy enough, isn't it? My choice is the first: I rather not be a freak.

Mind.. for those feeling so inclined, if you like to whack people (or play with the stupidity of some ), you can do that here:

Post #40 holds the comment on the brain-arm thing. This link is purposely left non-clickable. I don't need referring hits to here on that place

I would rather the arm, but then I am really already a freak…

The first time I heard that story, I thought it would be awesome to have three arms. How many times have we all wished for another hand? But since neither arm was fully functional, if I were in the same position, I'd sacrifice one. Not only so people didn't look at me like a side show freak, but also if there was any hope that with physical therapy I might gain more normal function of my leftover arm.

Well, the poster kinda has a point there. Kinda. The brain has a sort of "body map" which tells you there's one arm to each side of you, etc. That's why people who've lost a limb have "phantom limbs", where they think they're feeling pain in a limb that isn't there anymore. It's confusing, because their brain's body map doesn't match up with the realities. However... I'm not sure how this would apply to someone born with a third arm; obstensibly, their body map might be different, accounting for that arm. Then again, it might not; most mammals have relative symmetry in their bodies, and so the brains might be hardwired to expect that. Who knows. It'd be stupid to assume this, however. As to whether the arm should be removed or whether it'd be useful... again, dunno. I don't think it'd make a bit of difference.