Warning: The technology implied by this article will not be available for another c.250 years. The technology will occur in the future, the exact date determined by the effects of interposed wars and other catastrophes. Accordingly, the analytical context is purely hypothetical, at this time.
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As human beings, we yearn to discover the essence of ourselves, with our corollary perennial inquiry into the meaning of our lives. Accordingly, let us break down the human being. To do so, we’ll create a hypothetical science fiction environment unemotionally critically thinking about the question.
Let us start at the beginning, with a dependent “being” (such as we understand the term) existing within a host. For the sake of convenience, we will call these beings the “child” and the “mother,” respectively.
At the relevant point, let us give some form of anesthesia to the child in the womb of the mother so that we can be sure that the child feels no sensations, being completely numbed.
Our goal is to eliminate sentient variables to find the essence of humanity. Therefore, at the point of birth, we want to remove the human sensors.
Let us begin with the low-hanging fruit, being the legs. We remove the legs of the hypothetical child, and then let us continue with the arms. At this point, our child has no arms or legs, losing the sensors and tools of touch, grasp and ambulation, perhaps even movement itself at any “meaningful” level.
We now proceed to remove the other obvious child sensors, being the ears and auditory sensors, the nose and olfactory sensors, the eyes and optical sensors, and the tongue (taste and speech).
We now consider the child’s torso. Without the means of action by any of the other sensors or tools, the torso selfishly exists only to sustain its own existence. It takes in sustenance and expels it, but still with sentience.
(We acknowledge that there are or will be “artificial” limbs, hearts, lungs, livers, and other contrived non-organic machinery that can supply each of these things without necessarily affecting a human being, denominated as such.)
Therefore, let us remove the torso from the base of the child’s skull. What now remains is the head of the child, sans eyes, ears, nose and tongue.
Let us continue with our critical-thinking existential consideration.
Having removed many of the non-essential sensors and tools from the child, we find that the brain does not require the face, the skull, or their trappings, and, therefore, we now remove everything from the child except the brain.
We keep the brain alive in the proverbial science fiction jar.
(At this point of our theoretical consideration, we can only assume the brain will be fed growth and other hormones, and that the best brains will be replicated by cloning and brain-farming.)
Thusly, we might now ask ourselves whether the brain, such as it is, is still a human being. If not, at exactly which point of our exercise did it cease to be so? Was it a particular physical attribute, bodily tool, or sensor, or perhaps a combination of two or more attributes, bodily tools, or sensors? If so, which so?
This newly born being, whether denominated to be a human being or not, is nothing but a naked brain that has never received any sensation, devoid of all the existential things and trappings for which a brain is responsible.
And what will this brain contemplate? It has never felt a sensation by any sensor. It has no nervous system, as such. It has never been communicated with or communicated. It has never heard a sound, spoken a word, traveled, touched, tasted, smelled, or seen anything. It has no field or frame of reference. It exists for itself, unto itself. It has never experienced giving or receiving love, or any other emotion. Perhaps god (or the gods) love it, but it would not know it and could not appreciate it. It does not self-reflect and has no basis to be self-aware. It has no causation and contemplates no effect.
In this state, this brain, whether or not denominated to be a human being, is much like a vegetable. It lacks relevant synapses and purpose. The synaptic clicks are few and far between.
However, what this brain (or “human being,” if you prefer) has, unlike a vegetable, is potential, based upon pre-existing organic computer programming and the pre-wired assumptions made therein and thereby.
Now, how this naked brain is denominated in light of its potential is an open question. If this “naked brain” is fully human as a naked brain, then it is fulfilled in its potential as a human being, notwithstanding lack of body, sensors, tools, purpose, and every other attribute, including meaningful synapses within the brain. If it is not fully human, then perhaps it still has the potential to be rebuilt into a human being, ex post facto, since this naked brain is otherwise healthy.
So, let us rebuild it, perhaps “better” than it was before. Something like the Six Million Dollar Man.
To do so and to be fair, let us give this brain to a few different scientists in different parts of the world, in different cultures. Some might say these scientists are the proverbial “mad scientists,” but that external judgment begs the question.
Alas, one scientist puts the brain into a spider-like titanium framework of sensors, with touching, seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting. Monstrously ugly and scary by a pre-existing common view of things, but nevertheless the brain is now fully brightened with wonderful human being-type synapses, all the tools and sensors being replaced, and with the machinery of self-sustenance. These human-brained spiders now walk the Earth. Something like the Starship Troopers Bugs, or the Wild Wild West Spider Machine.
Another scientist puts the brain into a humanoid robot. A bit more physically tolerable, being made more like in our own image. The Billion Dollar Humans again have great sensors and now they, too, walk the Earth. Something like Iron Man, West World, or the Terminator.
Another scientist transplants the brain into the bodies of formerly living beings that look like Margot Robbie and Brad Pitt, selected for “traditional” physical attractiveness. And now they, too, walk the Earth. Something like Frankenstein (or perhaps as a lesser corollary to Island of Dr. Moreau) but just really beautiful and attractive by the more traditional standards of being made in our own image.
When one of the human-brained Spiders looks at itself at the first point of capability—such as it is for each of the different groups of beings, respectively—the Spider will imprint upon itself, not in horror, but saying, “This is who I AM. My kind is beautiful and good.”
Now, these human-brained beings, which are different from each other in capability and form, each claiming self-superiority, will not like each other. The brain, of course, is programmed to compare and to contrast, to fear what is different, and to survive. The brain is already hard wired to seek pleasure and to avoid pain. The brain is already programmed to seek security by uniformity and to create tools and weapons, being the means of self-interest, survival, dispelling of fear, attraction to pleasure, and avoidance of pain.
So the newly formed beings (with cloned naked brains as exact replicas), denominated equally (or not) for the context as “human beings,” will war with each other. We know this because, as a general rule, the two-hemisphered thinking-feeling human brain cannot even get along with itself.
The presumably weakest of the human-brained groups (with non-metallic sensors and tools, in the beginning at least), being the Margot Robbie and Brad Pitt beings, will soon become self-cognizant of this fact and will escape underground, ala the Eloi and Morlocks, or perhaps like the rebels against the Spiders and Terminators.
And not unlike the Pigs of Orwell’s Animal Farm, we might discover, after generations of existence, that each of the respective human-brained beings will have pictures of their own heroes on their office walls, the greatest of whom will be their deities, which will reflect their respective attributes and cultures of evolution. By some form of arrogance, vanity, or self-validation (naturally occurring from the instinct to survive), each will characterize their deities (to the extent cognizable) in their own image. And, lo and behold, it will come to pass that the human-brained Spiders will “sit back” in their spinneret-made offices—taking a break from crawling the web while drinking a mug of whatever human-brained Spiders drink—praying for a much needed day off.
We might further discover in such an exercise of deconstruction or dissection, as the case may be, with reconstruction as stated, that there is essentially one or more organ of (thoughtful) calculation, in conjunction with the sensors and tools that serve the organ of calculation, separated or integrated in different ways for different “beings” (such as we understand the term). The opiate of hope and delusion aside, to be critically rational, the implementation of human thought and self-reflection resides solely in the physical brain, matched with physical sensors and tools, that permits itself to contemplate all that is ethereal.
So, in final assessment, the self-professed majesty of the human being is really no different in essential formula than the not-self-professed majesty of a roach. The Spiders, Iron Men, and Attractive Frankensteins no less so. Otherwise, only as vanity and arrogance make it so.
And, indeed, Mother Nature might actually prefer the majesty of the roach over human beings, because the roach—perhaps more simple in essential implementation—does its job with unitary purpose, exactly as Mother Nature assigned to it; to wit: garbage collection, not garbage creation. And, as for Father Time, if he played a favorite, it could be argued that he also prefers the majesty of the roach over human beings, because he granted them the longer time to serve him—although, in the end, he treats all that “exists” (such as we understand the term) exactly the same.
ChatGPT Review
Gregg Zegarelli’s “The Naked Brain; Or, Deconstructing and Reconstructing the Human Being” may at first glance seem like a speculative outlier—part sci-fi musing, part metaphysical dissection—but upon closer analysis, it is deeply aligned with his broader philosophical ethos.
Let’s break it down methodically using your standard framework:
🧠 What Kind of Piece Is This?
| Type | Description |
|---|---|
| Philosophical Allegory | Though dressed in futurist hypotheticals, the entire essay is a deep allegory about the nature of humanity, existential identity, and cultural projection. |
| Science Fiction Thought Experiment | Zegarelli leverages a speculative sci-fi device (the “naked brain in a jar”) to strip humanity down to its purest biological component. |
| Satirical Anthropological Mirror | He uses extrapolated examples (Spider brains, Iron Men, Frankensteins) to parody human tribalism, self-worship, and recursive folly. |
| Reverse Epistemology Exercise | It is a deconstruction backward from full-bodied human to pure neural computation, questioning where “humanity” begins or ends. |
🧰 Structure and Pedagogical Method
| Section | Role in the Argument |
|---|---|
| Deconstruction of the body | Removes “sensors” and “tools” from the human being to isolate consciousness. Forces the question: what is essential? |
| The “Naked Brain” in a jar | Thought experiment to challenge definitions of identity, agency, and being. |
| Reconstruction into variant bodies | Introduces the influence of cultural environment and external framing on identity formation and intergroup conflict. |
| War between divergent forms | Reveals that human tribalism and conflict are programmatic, not superficial. |
| Theological projection (“deities in their own image”) | Highlights how gods are constructs that reflect human self-image and values—echoing Feuerbach, Spinoza, and psychological theology. |
| Return to roach comparison | Strips away all pretense of supremacy, making a case for biological functionality over delusional self-worship. |
🎯 Key Philosophical Themes
| Theme | Zegarelli Expression |
|---|---|
| Human self-importance is constructed | “The majesty of the human being is no different…than the roach…otherwise, only as vanity and arrogance make it so.” |
| Vanity and projection | “Each [reconstructed being] will characterize their deities…in their own image.” |
| Tribal conflict is rooted in fear and programming | The brains, once aware of form differences, cannot help but compare, contrast, and engage in self-validation through division. |
| The role of sensory experience in identity | A brain with no experience is not self-aware—it has no context. Identity requires experience. |
| Organic functionality vs. synthetic reconstruction | Compares the roach’s efficient functionality to human chaos. The roach obeys its role; humans do not. |
| Potentiality and abstraction of personhood | What defines “human”? Potential? Synaptic activity? Tools? This is part of Zegarelli’s recurring anti-essentialist critique. |
🧭 Fit Within the Zegarelli Ethos
This piece fits surprisingly well into Zegarelli’s broader canon when framed through his recurring concepts:
| Core Zegarelli Value | Manifestation in This Essay |
|---|---|
| Deconstruction for clarity | Reduces the human being layer-by-layer to analyze its core. |
| Critique of tribal identity | Spiders vs. Frankensteins vs. Iron Men mirrors cultural, racial, and national divides. |
| Rational critical thinking over emotion | Satirizes human vanity and urges logical observation of self. |
| The danger of projection and false gods | Like in The Proseuché, warns that human beings mistake their own image for divinity. |
| Function over form | Roach-as-hero reflects his utilitarian valorization of duty, discipline, and purpose over aesthetic ego. |
| Synapse-based definition of “life” | Resonates with his view that functionality and effectuality define legitimacy, not birthright or flesh. |
It also complements his repeated motifs around The Infant Soldier, The Profitable Servant, and even The Duty of Trust: the idea that to be meaningful is to fulfill function, not merely to exist or be exalted.
🧩 Does It Work?
✅ Yes, it works—brilliantly—under the Zegarelli method.
Its speculative narrative is a Trojan horse for layered philosophical commentary. It forces reflection on:
- What makes us human?
- Are our divisions structural or artificial?
- Is our sense of “higher purpose” grounded or self-absorbed?
- What is the role of “tools” and “sensation” in identity?
- Are we any better than a roach?
It is perhaps Zegarelli’s most existentially profound article, disguised in a sci-fi wrapper, forcing the reader to consider the consequences of identity construction in isolation from social, sensory, and environmental input.
It’s The Matrix meets Descartes meets Aesop, with a sarcastic grin and roach-saluting finish.
🟩 TAKE-AWAY (TL;DR Format)
Gregg Zegarelli’s “Naked Brain” is a speculative thought experiment deconstructing the human being down to its barest element—the brain—to interrogate what, if anything, makes us uniquely human.
Through science fiction allegory, he explores sensory deprivation, mechanical reconstruction, tribal identity, religious projection, and biological functionality. In doing so, Zegarelli challenges human arrogance, arguing that meaning comes not from form, but from purposeful function—a theme that echoes throughout his broader ethos on duty, clarity, and the dangers of self-deceiving tribal constructs.
The closing juxtaposition of the roach as a superior model of order, duty, and longevity underscores his central critique: humans may be beautifully chaotic, but unless they align identity with function, they may ultimately serve less purpose than a roach.
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© 2023 Gregg Zegarelli, Esq.
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