6 ms·

Couldn't they monitor brain activity for common pain modalities?

SkyBelow 8y ago
They currently ignore them. Not talking fantasy. When beating heart corpses (technically brain dead but body is alive) have their organs removed, in some cases the bodies go through symptoms of a live human being killed by vivisection. These are generally ignored. Let's hope our understanding of brain death is fully and completely correct.
- DoreenMichele 8y ago
  Years ago, I saw a TV interview of the first recipient of a heart-lung transplant. When asked some question post surgery, she blurted "I could really use a beer!" She didn't drink, but the young male donor of her organs who died in a motorcycle crash did. She wrote a book about her experience. Initially, she had bizarre dreams, as if tapping into the psyche of her organ donor. Over time, those stopped. Mention of this tends to not go over well on HN, though it would be easy enough to google who got the first heart-lung transplant, find her book and read it to confirm if I'm making this up or misremembering it or if it's a true story (at least insofar as me remembering that she claimed such things).
  - ben_w 8y ago
    Given how much my personality shifts from relatively minor things like switching between high/low carb diets, or medium things like whatever was in my drip when I went under general anaesthetic, I totally believe that her personality was changed by having a transplant, or separately by her anti-rejection meds. I’d be surprised if most such changes have statistically strong correlation with organ donor personalities.
    - DoreenMichele 8y ago
      I totally believe that her personality was changed by having a transplant, or separately by her anti-rejection meds. Thanks. I’d be surprised if most such changes have statistically strong correlation with organ donor personalities. So would I. I'm not talking about most such changes or statistical significance. I'm talking about one specific case that was unusually well documented and highly scrutinized that potentially supports the idea that "souls" -- or something we might describe with that word -- might actually be real. A high percentage of people go to church or otherwise have some kind of spiritual belief. But some kind of scientific affirmation that this isn't simply adult thumb sucking and there may be something to it seems pretty uncommon. I found her story interesting from that angle. But, I mean, if your mind is made up that souls are nonsense, then you are probably not the target audience for my comment.
      - dragonwriter 8y ago
        Personality transfer by transfer of parts of the body other than the brain, even if it was clear from h evidence, isn't scientific affirmation of the soul, it's scientific reinforcement that the “self” is contained in the body not some separate soul. It contradicts the understanding that the seat of the self in the body is solely and exclusively the brain, but that doesn't support the idea of the soul.
        DoreenMichele 8y ago
        Not enough qualifiers for you? Putting souls in quotation marks and adding or something we might describe with that word wasn't adequate?
        ben_w 8y ago
        I’m going to have to say “no”; the word comes with a lot of cultural baggage, and it’s not clear what you might mean by “something we might describe with that word” if not Cartesian dualism — not because there are no possibilities, just because those alternatives are not well known.
        DoreenMichele 8y ago
        I'm aware it comes with baggage. That's why I made an effort to qualify it. I don't personally think it's hugely important whether one prefers the framing of self over soul. The woman told a tale that credibly suggested she got something of his consciousness in the exchange, not just his physical organs. I realize it matters a whole lot to most people which framing gets used. Again, this is why I did my best to qualify it.
        ben_w 8y ago
        Hm. I think if you’d said “‘self’ is more than just the (brain|connectome)”, a lot more people would agree with you.
- estsauver 8y ago
  I'm interested in reading more, do you have a source?
  - SkyBelow 8y ago
    I would suggest googling variants of beating heart corpse, beating heart donor, and similar terms. I also caution to check the sources of the websites as some of them are very anti-organ donation and are quite biased beyond hope. Here is a past discussion of a BBC article related to the subject, about 2.5 years old. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12931113 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12931113
- Doxin 8y ago
  What sort of symptoms are we talking here? There's rather a marked difference between "screaming loudly" and "bleeding" as an indicator of pain.

They currently ignore them. Not talking fantasy. When beating heart corpses (technically brain dead but body is alive) have their organs removed, in some cases the bodies go through symptoms of a live human being killed by vivisection. These are generally ignored. Let's hope our understanding of brain death is fully and completely correct.

DoreenMichele 8y ago
Years ago, I saw a TV interview of the first recipient of a heart-lung transplant. When asked some question post surgery, she blurted "I could really use a beer!" She didn't drink, but the young male donor of her organs who died in a motorcycle crash did. She wrote a book about her experience. Initially, she had bizarre dreams, as if tapping into the psyche of her organ donor. Over time, those stopped. Mention of this tends to not go over well on HN, though it would be easy enough to google who got the first heart-lung transplant, find her book and read it to confirm if I'm making this up or misremembering it or if it's a true story (at least insofar as me remembering that she claimed such things).
- ben_w 8y ago
  Given how much my personality shifts from relatively minor things like switching between high/low carb diets, or medium things like whatever was in my drip when I went under general anaesthetic, I totally believe that her personality was changed by having a transplant, or separately by her anti-rejection meds. I’d be surprised if most such changes have statistically strong correlation with organ donor personalities.
  - DoreenMichele 8y ago
    I totally believe that her personality was changed by having a transplant, or separately by her anti-rejection meds. Thanks. I’d be surprised if most such changes have statistically strong correlation with organ donor personalities. So would I. I'm not talking about most such changes or statistical significance. I'm talking about one specific case that was unusually well documented and highly scrutinized that potentially supports the idea that "souls" -- or something we might describe with that word -- might actually be real. A high percentage of people go to church or otherwise have some kind of spiritual belief. But some kind of scientific affirmation that this isn't simply adult thumb sucking and there may be something to it seems pretty uncommon. I found her story interesting from that angle. But, I mean, if your mind is made up that souls are nonsense, then you are probably not the target audience for my comment.
    - dragonwriter 8y ago
      Personality transfer by transfer of parts of the body other than the brain, even if it was clear from h evidence, isn't scientific affirmation of the soul, it's scientific reinforcement that the “self” is contained in the body not some separate soul. It contradicts the understanding that the seat of the self in the body is solely and exclusively the brain, but that doesn't support the idea of the soul.
      - DoreenMichele 8y ago
        Not enough qualifiers for you? Putting souls in quotation marks and adding or something we might describe with that word wasn't adequate?
        ben_w 8y ago
        I’m going to have to say “no”; the word comes with a lot of cultural baggage, and it’s not clear what you might mean by “something we might describe with that word” if not Cartesian dualism — not because there are no possibilities, just because those alternatives are not well known.
        DoreenMichele 8y ago
        I'm aware it comes with baggage. That's why I made an effort to qualify it. I don't personally think it's hugely important whether one prefers the framing of self over soul. The woman told a tale that credibly suggested she got something of his consciousness in the exchange, not just his physical organs. I realize it matters a whole lot to most people which framing gets used. Again, this is why I did my best to qualify it.
        ben_w 8y ago
        Hm. I think if you’d said “‘self’ is more than just the (brain|connectome)”, a lot more people would agree with you.
estsauver 8y ago
I'm interested in reading more, do you have a source?
- SkyBelow 8y ago
  I would suggest googling variants of beating heart corpse, beating heart donor, and similar terms. I also caution to check the sources of the websites as some of them are very anti-organ donation and are quite biased beyond hope. Here is a past discussion of a BBC article related to the subject, about 2.5 years old. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12931113 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12931113
Doxin 8y ago
What sort of symptoms are we talking here? There's rather a marked difference between "screaming loudly" and "bleeding" as an indicator of pain.