Could You Survive as a Head on a Roller Skate?

An exploration of human modularity.

Let’s be honest about what we’re asking here.

Not “could you live without your appendix” or “do you really need that gallbladder?” Those questions have been answered. The medical establishment has moved on. You can find fourteen listicles and three YouTube videos confirming that yes, you’ll survive an appendectomy just fine.

We’re asking something more fundamental.

How much of you can be removed before you stop being you?

Or, to put it in terms that might get us banned from medical journals: Could a human head, properly supported and maintained, survive on a mobility device? Say, a roller skate?

This sounds absurd. It should sound absurd. But if you think about it for more than thirty seconds—and I have, for considerably longer—it starts to seem less like a punchline and more like a legitimate philosophical and medical inquiry into the nature of human survival.

So let’s treat it seriously, I beg ye.

What We Know About Living Without Things

The human body is shockingly modular.

This isn’t speculation. This is documented medical fact, confirmed by thousands of people currently walking around with significantly fewer organs than they were born with.

You can lose:

Your appendix (obviously)
Your gallbladder (12% of Americans have)
Your spleen (trauma patients, cancer survivors)
One kidney (you’ve got a spare)
One lung (the other one expands)
Your stomach (gastrectomy—connect esophagus directly to small intestine)
Most of your liver (it regenerates like a science fiction creature)
Your entire colon (ileostomy bag replaces its function)
Your bladder (urostomy bag)
Your reproductive organs (common surgical procedures)
Your thyroid (hormone replacement therapy)

You can even lose half your brain.

Hemispherectomy—the surgical removal of one entire hemisphere of the brain—is a real procedure performed on patients with severe epilepsy. The remaining hemisphere takes over most functions. These patients go on to live relatively normal lives.

So the question isn’t whether humans can survive with less.

The question is: how much less?

The Thought Experiment: Defining the Minimum

Let’s work backwards.

What do you absolutely need to be alive?

From a purely biological standpoint:

A functioning brain (consciousness, autonomic functions)
Oxygenation (breathing, or mechanical ventilation)
Circulation (heart, or mechanical pump)
Nutrition (digestive system, or IV nutrition)
Waste removal (kidneys/liver, or dialysis)

Notice what’s not on this list: limbs, eyes, ears, skin (beyond a certain minimum), digestive organs, most of your skeleton.

Which brings us to the roller skate.

The Head: What’s Actually Required

A human head contains:

Brain (obviously essential)
Brain stem (controls breathing, heart rate, consciousness)
Major arteries (carotid, vertebral)
Spinal cord connection (at least the upper portion)
Eyes, ears, nose, mouth (sensory input, not strictly vital)

What a head does NOT need from the body:

Legs (mobility is external)
Arms (manipulation is optional for survival)
Torso (contains organs we can replace mechanically)
Digestive system beyond the throat (we have IV nutrition)

The real question is whether the head has enough neck and upper spinal cord to maintain the brain’s connection to life support systems.

And here’s where it gets interesting.

Medical Precedent: People Who Are Mostly Just Heads

This isn’t hypothetical. There are real cases of people living with catastrophic body loss.

Stephen Hawking lived for decades with ALS, which progressively paralyzed nearly every muscle in his body. By the end, he had functional control over almost nothing except his mind. He communicated via cheek muscle twitches detected by a computer. He was, functionally, a mind in a non-responsive body, kept alive by mechanical support.

Christopher Reeve (Superman actor) was paralyzed from the neck down after a horse-riding accident. He required a ventilator to breathe. His body below the neck was essentially non-functional. Yet he lived for nine more years, advocating, creating, thinking.

Locked-in syndrome patients are conscious, aware, and mentally intact but completely paralyzed except for eye movement. They are, effectively, minds trapped in bodies that no longer respond. Some live for years, even decades.

The point: The body can be shockingly peripheral to survival.

The essential part is the brain. Everything else is infrastructure.

The Engineering Problem: Life Support Systems

Okay, so we’ve established that you don’t need limbs or organs if you have mechanical replacements. Now let’s get practical.

What would a head on a roller skate actually require?

1. Circulatory Support

The heart pumps blood to the brain. Without a body, you’d need:

An artificial heart (LVAD – left ventricular assist device, already exists)
Or: External circulatory pump (ECMO – extracorporeal membrane oxygenation, keeps people alive for months during lung transplants)

Both of these exist. Both are currently used in living patients.

2. Oxygenation

Lungs oxygenate blood. Without lungs:

Mechanical ventilator (already standard in ICUs)
Or: Oxygenated blood via ECMO (bypasses lungs entirely)

Again, not science fiction. Standard medical technology.

3. Nutrition

No stomach, no intestines. How do you eat?

Total Parenteral Nutrition (TPN): IV feeding directly into bloodstream
Provides all calories, vitamins, minerals
People live on TPN for years (short bowel syndrome patients)

4. Waste Removal

No kidneys, no liver (or just the minimum necessary).

Dialysis (kidney function replacement, thousands of people use this)
Liver function is trickier, but you can survive with as little as 25% of your liver, and it regenerates

5. Temperature Regulation

The body regulates temperature through skin, blood flow, sweating. A head alone would struggle with this.

Solution: Climate-controlled environment or wrap
Medical cooling blankets already exist for fever patients

6. Immune System

Without a spleen, thymus, or much bone marrow, immune function would be compromised.

Solution: Antibiotics, immune-suppressing or -enhancing drugs
Transplant patients already live this way

The Roller Skate: A Question of Dignity

Here’s where we need to pause and be honest.

Technically, yes. A human head could be kept alive with current medical technology.

It would require:

ECMO or artificial heart (circulation)
Mechanical ventilator (breathing)
TPN (nutrition)
Dialysis (waste removal)
Climate control (temperature)
Sterile environment (infection prevention)

All of this exists. All of this is used, right now, in hospitals around the world.

But the roller skate?

The roller skate is about mobility. It’s about whether this head can move independently, interact with the world, maintain some semblance of autonomy.

And here’s the uncomfortable truth: it probably can’t.

Not because the engineering is impossible. You could mount a head (with its life support systems) on a motorized platform. Voice-controlled, even. Eye-tracking navigation. It’s doable.

But at that point, what are we preserving?

The Philosophical Problem: Identity and Dignity

In 1848, a railroad worker named Phineas Gage survived a three-foot iron rod shooting through his skull, destroying most of his frontal lobe. He lived. But his personality changed completely. He became impulsive, crude, unrecognizable to his friends.

The question his case raises: Was he still Phineas Gage?

The question the roller skate raises: If you remove everything except the brain and its immediate support systems, are you still you?

Not medically. Philosophically.

The Ship of Theseus asks: If you replace every plank of a ship, is it still the same ship?

The roller skate asks: If you remove every part of a person except their mind, are they still a person?

What We’re Really Asking

This isn’t really about roller skates.

It’s about where personhood lives.

We know, medically, that you can lose:

Both legs (amputees)
Both arms (thalidomide survivors)
Your face (face transplant recipients)
Your voice (laryngectomy patients)
Your sight, hearing, mobility (Helen Keller)
Half your brain (hemispherectomy patients)
Most of your organs (transplant recipients)

And you’re still you.

So the question becomes: At what point does reduction become obliteration?

Is it when you lose autonomy? (Christopher Reeve would argue no.)

Is it when you lose the ability to interact? (Locked-in syndrome patients would argue no.)

Is it when you lose your body? (That’s what we’re testing with the roller skate.)