A most interesting idea - I've spent a goodly amount of time considering who and why! But I must be able to resume my own brain afterward.
Since you chose Picasso, I also get to choose people who aren’t alive.
Einstein – physics
Handel – music
Washington – leadership and strategy
Hamilton – economics in a country that had none
Jimmy Carter – ability to have integrity during and after his presidency
Hitler – to learn about evil
Da Vinci –painting, sculpture, inventions
Elizabeth I – being a powerful woman in a man’s world

1. Jane Addams and all she knew about social change and community activism
2. David Bonior for his political information
3. Stephen Dubner for his knowledge of economics

Good lists. Jane Addams -- I'll have to think about that. I considered Margaret Sanger for my list for many of the same reasons.

"Night of the Living Dead?"

This made me think of the jokes about people having past lives of rich and famous people (only). Obscure or famous, another brain's knowledge would just be such an experience.

1. Machiavelli - because, just, such an influential political mind and honestly, what an opportunity to know all he knew/developed without having to read it all.
2. Hildegard von Bingen - theology, music composition, getting along with others, medicinal values of plants (medieval knowledge).
3. Bill Gates. I mean, here might be a way for me to actually understand what goes on in this little machine's "brain" once and for all. As I wrote Bill's name, though, I thought, maybe not Bill, maybe the person who helped Bill make the product work for everyone else...the person who was key in creating Windows. hMmm

I seem to like the people in the background.

Cardiff's local beer is called Brains. So every bar has a giant red-and-black sign on it that just says "BRAINS" and there's a building you can see the Brains Brewery from the train station. I find the name so off-putting I've never really been able to appreciate the beers. Somehow I can't bring myself to order a pint of Brains.

As to the meme:

1) Stephen Hawking. I'm not actually that into science, but my feeling is that if we could decant Stephen Hawking's knowledge and understanding into an able body the returns would be earth-shattering (hopefully not literally).

2) Peter S. Beagle. The Inkeeper's Song is, in my opinion, the best novel ever written in the English language. I would put it six hands above To Kill A Mockingbird, and six rods above the likes of Beloved or The Shipping News or any of the other Pulitzer books I've read (not very many of them, considering I'm supposed to be an English major). If I could do what Beagle does with language, pacing and character for one book-- I'd never need to write another one again.

3)Muhammad Ali. Miyamoto Musashi believed that perfecting the art of swordplay was an exercise in perfecting one's spirit. I've never seen that belief more clearly illustrated than when watching Muhammad Ali box. Say what you will about his ego or his choice to back the NOI against the OAAU-- when Ali got in the ring, God spoke through him (and what he said was, "What's my name, fool? What's my name?")

Why have I never heard of The Innkeeper's Song? I'm off to the library.

I don't think Muhammad Ali works in this meme, Joshua. Unless you think his talent was all cerebral? If we're going to include superb physical talent, I'd have to think about adding somebody to my list like Navratalova.

His talent was cerebral. There's a commonly recognized thing that happens in martial arts, where people who are really good at Aikido tend to get fat. The popularly accepted reason for this-- and the sparring matches I've seen tend to support this --is that they're so good mentally that they tend to let themselves go physically. They can see their oponoents coming a mile away. They dodge, block or counterstrike with the bare minimum of effort. Ali was like that. Ali beat Spinks in 78 when Ali was 36 and Spinks was 25. That's not reflexes, that's chi.

Funny. John Scalzi has a post about brains too (sort of)

http://www.scalzi.com/whatever/004176.html

In it he mentions a song about a brainwanting zombie, along with a couple of cool links!

Braiiiiiins!