Brainiacs

The Mythical Pipedreams of Transhumanist Tech Execs

Two weeks after 17-year-old Mary’s baby died, she wrote in her diary, “Dream that my little baby came to life again; that it had only been cold, and that we rubbed it before the fire and it lived. Awake and find no baby. I think about the little thing all day. Not in good spirits.”¹ Mary’s own mother had died of an infection a few days after giving birth to Mary, so death haunted her.

At the time, demonstrations of the power of galvanism were popular. Galvanism, named after scientist Luigi Galvani (1737–1798), was the process of giving electric shocks to parts of a dead body that resulted in the muscles contracting. One experiment on an executed murderer brought this result: