Damn Alien you know, I hadn’t considered that. I don’t know then, in terms of sheer plausibility, whether it could EVER done. The brain requires a constant supply of oxygenated blood. CONSTANT. You can’t just chuck 'er in a bowl of ice-chips while you’re busy doing other things. Heh.
Good points.
Prolificisticationist asked me to post this here so here goes. What if (and I am not saying that I believe this either) one posits brain as the receiver of the mind, and your brain tunes to receive from your mind. So mind doesn’t exist inside the brain, but outside. So, in the case of transplants the mind would stay intact, since after the transplant it would still receive from the same source. This goes with the theories of Rupert Sheldrake and morphogenetic fields, google will help if you’re interested.
Hmm, a thought just came up. What if schizophrenia is actually an inability to restrict what you receive, so you receive from other minds too? Besides the subject, but it’s funny anyways 
One interesting facet of the brain/mind problem is that it appears not all desire may be in the brain. I watched on the news many years ago the accounts of two people who received heart transplants; each reported having peculiar desires several months after their operations. One gentleman had an odd urge to play the guitar, and promptly bought one and began playing. He was surprised to later find out that his donor was an avid guitarist, one who took much joy in playing music. The other fellow, oddly enough, began knitting! He received the heart of a lady that loved to knit.
In light of the above information, the mind/body problem still exists, but perhaps there are other factors than merely the brain that determine identity.
I remember that now, Matthew! That puts all sorts of holes in my earlier proposition that “the whole of one’s sense of self resides in the brain.”
You and ol’ Alien Corpuscle Bath are going to hit it off just fine, I can see that right now.
OK, let me summarize so far
This seems fatastic to me. For two things to be the same thing, they have to share all characteristics in common, including space and time. How could that new person still be me? The ONLY thing we have in common would be space and time. A better explanation seems to me to be that I would no longer exist. Who this new person might be is yet to be discovered, but I am gone forever. Irrecoverably lost. It is like the I Robot example of the robot’s positronic brain getting blanked and reformatted.
It sounds like urban legend to me. I get a heart transplant from a mass murderer and suddenly turn evil. Good scary movie fodder, not reality. I think.
Well, I began my discussion with this very point. The mind and the brain are not one and the same because you can lose your mind but still have your brain in-tact and working fine. It seems undeniable. However, it seems impossible to lose your brain and still have your mind.
I would of course be compelled to agree because your mind is going to go if your brain goes. Whether or not a brain transplant is ever medically possible (I tend to think it will be possible someday) is beside the point. If it were possible, it seem evident and undeniable that one of two results would happen, Either your mind would be lost forever or your mind would reside wherever your brain resides. It seems impossible that your mind would remain behind in your body absent the brain.
I know. I know it sounds weird, but I’m tellin’ ya man: He and I both saw it on some (legitimate - not tabloid) news program, we just can’t remember which one!
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Now allow me to point you guys in another direction. (You can click on the quote for its source.)
My dad underwent a quintuple bypass procedure in 1993 and, almost to a letter - exhibited the same personality change as described above. From that time onward, he was never the same man again (he was still himself, but with that incredible streak of meanness). It made (and still makes) me so goddamned mad that, if I were to be given the choice today of having open-heart surgery or dying… Well. It makes me mad.
In the medical literature it’s referred to as (and I’m not making this up…) open-heart psychosis. This doesn’t happen in every case, obviously or there’d be 20/20 specials & Primetime specials all over the place. But I wonder how this might fit into our discussion of identity, brain, and mind? I assure you, you don’t ever want to see a loved one change like my dad did. It just tears your heart out (unintentional pun) - he was incredibly cruel, spiteful, hurtful, mercilous.
Maybe having a near death experience just turns 20% of the people down the way of selfishness? Trauma is always the catalyst for change in human behavior, whether for virtue or for vice. Selfishness is a way, it is just not The Way. I could see how a man could decide that whatever time I have left I am living it for ME, to please ME, and to hell with everybody else. Not saying I agree with the choice but it is a choice.
In a sense, the brain is just a signal organizer. Its a secondary system created by the body to manage the signals the body produces. The mind might be in the whole body, just with the most frenzied acitivity in the brain. The mind here being the result of a synthesis of brain and body.
So in the hypothetical brain transplant the signal organizer would be the same but with different incoming singals.
So lets imagaine that we took the brain from Thomas and placed that into the body of Richard, then you would get a whole new person. He would be a synthesis of traits from both the old Thomas and the old Richard. Because some of Thomas’ traits came from his body, not his brain.
That’s my theory.
Apocalypse, who the hell are you quoting? 
And not so long ago (like one week) I would have disagreed; now, with what Matthew reminded me of (and my father and all), you could be right!
Yeah. It could be that we like to idealize the outcomes of close-up brushes with death (my dad) or NDE’s as always being positive.
Cold, vacant. That’s a cold possiblity.
But you could be right.
I am no longer ever surprised by the radical transformations of which men are capable. I would bet on states of chracter tending to repeat those actions by which they were formed. A snake tends to behave like a snake. But men are quite capable of choosing alternative behaviors. It useally takes trauma of some sort to trigger such a change. So I would keep a close eye on any trauma victim for behavior changes.
As to the coldness of the behavior, men have always been capable of cold-blooded, selfish, calculating behavior. It is common place for Parents to betray the trust of their children. In the words of Three Dog Night, t is easy to be hard.
But yes, I know I take a cold, hard attitude toward a selfish parent who betrays the trust of his children. It is inexcusable to me, and I do not look for urban myths such as cellular memory to explain or justify a selfish bastard.
To what end, Caveman? Ostensibly you can not change them no matter how badly you might want to. So what’s the use?
Actually, in my opinion, you just nailed skitzophrenia, except that I believe that it’s not only things from other people’s minds, but things from other dimensions normally imperceptable to human beings.
Yes, recently they did a study about “gut feelings” and found that the stomach can actually somehow process information in a way that the brain cannot. Quite interesting. I think the soul fluctuates through the whole body, and can use different parts in different ways…
I think that perhaps an organ from the body could be infused with a person’s spiritual essence. Therefore, it is quite possible for a person to inherit another person’s idiosyncrasies from an organ transplant. Perhaps it has to do with the potency of the spirit of the person from whom the organ was inherited.
Ummmmmm nope… You should do some research on near death experiences. They usually have quite the opposite effect.
Source? 
The “quintuple bypass procedure” of which I spoke is simply heart bypass surgery–veins are harvested from the patient’s own leg to bypass unhealthy vessels going to the heart. It is not an organ transplant.
I saw it on the science channel, so I don’t have an e-link, but I will try to dig one up later tonite.
Hmmmm I was thinking about that, and I don’t know what to make of that, but the type of near death experiences I am referring to are the kind when the doctor actually pronounces you clinically dead. I’ll research the subject of bypass surgeries altering behavior some more and come up with a theory.
Nah don’t sweat it - you say it; your word’s good enough. If i wish to know more, i’ll do the Googling. 
Well if you do, then don’t focus on the bypass aspect. Remember the phraseology, “open-heart psychosis.” An odd term for it to be sure–and you won’t find it on Google either! (much to my surprise!)–but that’s how the docs term it. So if you wish to research it for causation theory and speculation, then look for the main defining aspect:
• Patient goes in for cardio-thoracic surgery, one that requires a thoracotomy, or literal opening of the chest. The pericardium is breached, the heart exposed.
• Patient comes out of it behaving in a completely different manner. (Though very small percentage.)
Those are your search criteria. Good luck. …lol