9 ms·

Scientists Are Giving Dead Brains New Life

104 points by milsorgen 7y ago

orblivion 7y ago
Where did the truism "you can't stop the progress of science" come from in the first place? I think we're going to have to reexamine it pretty soon.
- qwdqpowdkop 7y ago
  Unfortunately, the opportunity to reexamine it has already passed. Even without brain-in-jar sci-fi devices, technology is already sufficiently advanced to create artificial nightmares. Consider the case of state-sponsored torture, which now has at its disposal near-perfect surveillance, VR, genetic modification, a litany drugs, remotely controlled robotics, etc. It's a tragedy that scientific progress itself is a control system that is capable of overshooting its target.
  - thestartup 7y ago
    There is nothing scarier to me than primates discovering ways for a sentient brain to be effectively immortal. There is still time to re-examine the implications of this, as such technology is quite a ways off still.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
flavius29663 7y ago
Al I can think about is Metallica - One Now that the war is through with me I'm waking up, I cannot see That there is not much left of me Nothing is real but pain now Hold my breath as I wish for death Oh please God, wake me Back in the womb it's much too real In pumps life that I must feel But can't look forward to reveal Look to the time when I'll live Fed through the tube that sticks in me Just like a wartime novelty Tied to machines that make me be Cut this life off from me Hold my breath as I wish for death Oh please God, wake me
- spraak 7y ago
  If the lyrics aren't clear to anyone, check out the music video to understand.
  - komodo 7y ago
    or even watch the movie the song was influenced by https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johnny_Got_His_Gun_(film) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johnny_Got_His_Gun_(film), or even the book that movie is based on https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johnny_Got_His_Gun https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johnny_Got_His_Gun
- elliotec 7y ago
  Or "I have no mouth, and I must scream" http://www.mikedidonato.com/images/2009/04/harlan-ellison-i-hav-no-mouth-and-i-must-scream.pdf http://www.mikedidonato.com/images/2009/04/harlan-ellison-i-...
  - the_af 7y ago
    A wonderful classic. Though I must point out -- and I've absolutely no qualms that you shared this, mind you! -- that Harlan Ellison used to be furious and very vocal about it when people shared his stuff online. I don't mind; I'd rather more people read these good old classics of the New Wave of scifi.
- hinkley 7y ago
  Or World of Tomorrow: > Our grandfather's digital consciousness currently resides in this cube, where I upload the latest films and books for him to enjoy every week. > We're also able to download correspondence from him. Over one thousand letters were received during his first hour in storage, as this was approximately four years time inside the cube. I will read one of his letters to you now: "Oh, oh God. Oh God. Oh God. Oh my God. Holy mother of God. Oh, oh, oh, oh God."
firethief 7y ago
> Perhaps the most innovative modification involved fluid mechanics, one of Vrselja’s specialties in graduate school. As the British mathematician John Womersley managed to quantify more than half a century ago, blood does not circulate through our arteries at a uniform rhythm — it circulates in pulses, in concert with the shudder of our hearts. To account for that dynamic, the BMI unit had shipped with an automated “pulse generator,” a device that replicates the heartbeat’s pulsatility in the organs. > But the pulse generator’s settings proved unsuitable for brains, which have a different flow pattern than the rest of the body. Before Sestan’s team adjusted the settings, the fluid might not completely permeate the vasculature of the organ, leaving parts of the brain essentially untreated. In such tissue, Daniele told me, “you’d end up with this sludgy, white yogurt-ish substance. It was a mess.” Conversely, if the pressure was too high, “the brain could just physically not stand it.” The organ fell apart. > By that summer, Vrselja and Daniele had fine-tuned the pulse generator and attached a number of custom sensors[...] It sounds like it was a lot of work getting the pulsation right. If they actually needed pulsation at all that seems like an interesting finding unto itself, since humans and cattle do fine with continuous-flow hearts: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3423277 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3423277
no1youknowz 7y ago
> Sestan did acknowledge that, yes, theoretically there is nothing stopping a scientist from immediately building a perfusion machine that could support a human brain. The BrainEx technology is open-source, and pig and homo sapiens brains have a fair amount in common. And there are plenty of conceivable applications for a human-optimized BrainEx. Imagine that you are a billionaire. Money is absolutely no object at all. And yet, you are in an accident. A car crash for example, your body was gravely injured but your head intact. You are flown to a facility but die on route. This technology is a get out of jail card. What's interesting to me, is where is the cut off point. Right now I assume its within minutes? But one day it could be a week? Your head in a jar until they either create a new body for you or find a donor body? Then there is this: > Consider, Greely suggested, the case of the Italian neurosurgeon Sergio Canavero and his associate, the Chinese scientist Xiaoping Ren, who claim to have transplanted a head from one cadaver to another. Undoubtedly, a scientist with fewer scruples than Sestan, fewer moral qualms about human experimentation, will emerge. “Somebody will perfuse a dead human brain, and I think it will be in an unconventional setting, not necessarily in a pure research manner,” Greely told me. “It will be somebody with a lot of money, and he’ll find a scientist willing to do it.” Putting the current ethical concerns aside. I find this absolutely fascinating. How long until the technology is perfected and some form of immortality is reached? How would it work. Do you get to 90 years old and they pull out your brain and put it into a newer body? Just so happens that in 50 years I'll be 90 myself. I a more ethical version of this tech is around in some form or another. I'd love another 90 years! Oh and for over population concerns, don't worry. I'll be happy to be part of the new expedition on Titan or Ganymede or further out. :)
- heymijo 7y ago
  > Your head in a jar until they either create a new body for you or find a donor body Could you imagine the horror of waking up and being just a head?
  - no1youknowz 7y ago
    Yes, it truly sounds horrific! Straight out of a nightmare movie! However I would like to think that ethical concerns would not allow this and also this research doesn't actually have this course of action in mind. When I mean head in a jar. I meant disconnected from any machinery and placed in fluids so that no more decomposition of the brain takes place. In effect, the person is still dead. No brain activity, nothing. However, when a "new body" is ready. This process is then performed and the person is given a chance at life again.
sideshowb 7y ago
Didn't CS Lewis cover this in his highly prophetic sci-fi "That hideous strength" /s ;-)
- jacobush 7y ago
  Pretty much. And more. Why the sarcasm tag? :) That book is fantastic.
  - sideshowb 7y ago
    From what I remember the transplanted head quite literally became a conduit for Satan and was worshipped by the evil scientists.
    - jacobush 7y ago
      Yep - read it as allegory or literally, it's still helluva book.
      - sideshowb 7y ago
        I guess on reflection the blatancy of the Christian dogma destroyed my willing suspension of disbelief. This was never an issue for me in the Narnia series, which I enjoyed. Nor even in the Screwtape letters which are pretty much a collection of sermons! Maybe it's the way it breaks genre rules, starts out as straight sci-fi then busts out the dogma part way through. Whereas Screwtape starts with a premise that Satan is personified so I accepted that from the beginning. Still interesting to see another side of Lewis's mind though. Maybe I'll give it another go one day.
        jacobush 7y ago
        I know what you mean. I'm a confessing but as an adult I even had a hard time reading Narnia. I didn't want it to be a thin veneer or allegory but it can be read as such, but as a child I never made the connection. I mean, I understood it was about God and stuff, but I took it more at face value. Lewis even says in the preface it's not an allegory but I have a hunch he just preemptively defended against that accusation from his friend Tolkien, who apparently hated allegories. :-D I have to re-read Hideous Strength too, I don't know what I'd make of it nowadays... I do remember I very much enjoyed the Arthurian legends come alive, it spooked me out.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
0815test 7y ago
"What could possibly go wrong?" Because clearly we have never, ever seen this before and its consequences, I guess. Braaaaiiiinnsssss
- ajuc 7y ago
  Zombies make no sense. They would starve to death quickly without farming and modern supply chains or eat each other to extinction. And the zombies that can go on without any source of energy for years break thermodynamics.
  - darkpuma 7y ago
    The premise of this technology is however startlingly close to the cult-classic zombie horror movie Re-Animator.
    - Dylan16807 7y ago
      There are hundreds of ways to make a zombie in fiction. Pretty much any experiment involving death or near-death or hibernation is going to resemble one of them. I have to disagree on 'startling'.
      - darkpuma 7y ago
        Most zombie fiction is premised on a contagious pathogen or a botched scientific response to such a pathogen (28 Days Later, The Last of Us, I am Legend, Shaun of the Dead etc.) Some use accidental exposure to radiation or extraterrestrial contamination, with unclear mechanisms (Night of the Living Dead) Zombie movies outside of the contagious pathogen paradigm are more uncommon. Some zombie movies, particularly the older ones predating Night of the Living Dead, are premised on religious supernatural voodoo stuff (White Zombie [1932!]). In others, the condition is not strictly contagious, but exposure to a chemical substance causes a reversal of death (Re-Animator, and Return of the Living Dead (my personal favorite and the origin of zombies who desire 'Braaaaiiiiiins')) In only a few, the creature[s] are created by a mad scientist deliberately trying to reverse death using something other than a contagious pathogen (Frankenstein (should that count?), and Re-Animator.) Mad scientist in an academic setting attempting to reverse death and accidentally creating an outbreak of non-contagious zombies is a pretty narrow list of zombie movies. Re-Animator is the only one that comes to mind. Anyway, a zombie outbreak obviously isn't going to happen, but if the public becomes generally aware of this research, now might be a good time for Hollywood to reboot Re-Animator. Gods know they hate making original movies these days. I'm aware that a zombie movie fan complaining about a lack of originality may seem ironic.
slg 7y ago
It is nice to see that whoever wrote that headline acknowledges that this is a story you see being discussed on a TV in the background of the first 10 minutes of a zombie movie as the protagonist prepares for their day.
erik_landerholm 7y ago
Zombies
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
CodexArcanum 7y ago
I find this sort of thing fascinating both for what it means about our own consciousness, but also what it means for emergent consciousnesses. We're not sure when a dying brain stops being conscious; and we're not sure when a once-dead brain that's revived starts being conscious again. Why do we think we'd have any idea when an artificial brain awakens to consciousness? I feel like the same ethical concerns raised in the article about accidentally reviving a person into a sensory-deprivation nightmare could also apply to accidentally generating a thinking being that can only express itself though shopping recommendations. We're a long ways off yet from a comprehensive ethics of universal consciousness.
djohnston 7y ago
This rings familiar to Yun Tianming's voyage in Deaths End (Three Body).
sverige 7y ago
"Nam Sibyllam quidem Cumis ego ipse oculis meis vidi in ampulla pendere, et cum illi pueri dicerent: Σιβυλλα τι θελεις; respondebat illa: αποθανειν θελω." ‘I saw with my own eyes the Sibyl of Cumae hanging in a jar, and when the boys said to her, ‘Sibyl, what do you want?’ she replied, ‘I want to die’.’
macawfish 7y ago
Next thing you know they'll be offering chakra transplants.
j2d3 7y ago
This reminds me of the lifetime movie classic starring Mare Winningham, "Who is Julia?"
danilocesar 7y ago
Please someone tell me that he is considering using viruses to bring those dead brain cells alive!
dang 7y ago
This has been discussed a fair bit: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19684386 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19684386 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18766920 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18766920 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19753418 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19753418
emilfihlman 7y ago
Again it seems "ethics" is holding us back. This is absolutely something we need to put lots of research and experimentation into.
- wdqwodjkqwpo 7y ago
  Without relying on "ethics" then, what is your justification that more resources should be allocated for this?
  - emilfihlman 7y ago
    Research? Understanding? Reaching dominion over death? The usual? Nothing really matters, you can only strive to achieve.
    - wdqwodjkqwpo 7y ago
      Why do any of _those_ matter? Ultimately, for something to be "worth" anything, it requires a system of values, which is exactly what ethics is. My point is not that research is worthless. My point is that relying on ethics to assign positive value to research in one hand whilst denying the existence of valid ethics when convenient is hypocritical.
d1zzy 7y ago
I see many comments on this article on people's choice to do anything to avoid dying. One argument I haven't seen covered is the fairness of it. Is it fair to younger generations that we keep on living? If we don't die there will be fewer opportunities for the younger generations, the resources we have all have access to are after all rather limited. Population growth is already too high, immortality can only make it worse. We can see how millennials are struggling with a tight job market and housing market, all because previous generations who now have longer life spans than their parents are holding on these resources. There are aspects to immortality that go beyond selfishness, such as the experience and knowledge that is lost of the people dying, being a negative to the society. I'm in support of pursuing technology to allow all or most of that knowledge to be preserved and passed on to younger generations but at some point I think we have to accept our role in this world and that role includes having to stop existing and let others have their chance at a full life.
- UnFleshedOne 7y ago
  This brings up a question of how you value people who don't exist yet. Technically (not saying anything about politically) the problem you describe can be solved by population control -- "just" don't make more people than can be comfortably supported. We already do that with birth control or by simply not having sex. But that means people who would have been otherwise born would not be. If that is not an issue, perfect, you have your technical solution. If that _is_ an issue, then you have more problems than immortals hoarding resources (one of them is Repugnant Conclusion [0]). Another way to look at it -- would you want current lifespan artificially shortened if you knew for sure that it would make things fairer for new generations? [0] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mere_addition_paradox https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mere_addition_paradox
Trilkhai 7y ago
Reminds me a little too strongly of Infocom's interactive-fiction game Suspended: A Cryogenic Nightmare http://gallery.guetech.org/suspended/suspended.html http://gallery.guetech.org/suspended/suspended.html They said you would sleep for half a millennium — not an unreasonable length of time, considering you'd be in limited cryogenic suspension. Your body would rest frozen at the planet's nerve center, an underground complex 20 miles beneath the surface. Your brain, they told you, would be wired to a network of computers; your mind would continue to operate at a minimal level, overseeing maintenance of surface-side equilibrium. And you would not awake, so they promised, until your 500 years had elapsed — barring, of course, the most dire emergency. Then, and only then, you would be awakened to save your planet by strategically manipulating six robots, each of whom perceives the world differently. But such a catastrophe, you have been assured, could not possibly occur. Good morning.
zazzlez 7y ago
Omg so many letters why can't they just summarize in a few paragraphs

104 points by milsorgen 7y ago

Where did the truism "you can't stop the progress of science" come from in the first place? I think we're going to have to reexamine it pretty soon.

qwdqpowdkop 7y ago
Unfortunately, the opportunity to reexamine it has already passed. Even without brain-in-jar sci-fi devices, technology is already sufficiently advanced to create artificial nightmares. Consider the case of state-sponsored torture, which now has at its disposal near-perfect surveillance, VR, genetic modification, a litany drugs, remotely controlled robotics, etc. It's a tragedy that scientific progress itself is a control system that is capable of overshooting its target.
- thestartup 7y ago
  There is nothing scarier to me than primates discovering ways for a sentient brain to be effectively immortal. There is still time to re-examine the implications of this, as such technology is quite a ways off still.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

flavius29663 7y ago

Al I can think about is Metallica - One Now that the war is through with me I'm waking up, I cannot see That there is not much left of me Nothing is real but pain now Hold my breath as I wish for death Oh please God, wake me Back in the womb it's much too real In pumps life that I must feel But can't look forward to reveal Look to the time when I'll live Fed through the tube that sticks in me Just like a wartime novelty Tied to machines that make me be Cut this life off from me Hold my breath as I wish for death Oh please God, wake me

spraak 7y ago
If the lyrics aren't clear to anyone, check out the music video to understand.
- komodo 7y ago
  or even watch the movie the song was influenced by https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johnny_Got_His_Gun_(film) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johnny_Got_His_Gun_(film), or even the book that movie is based on https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johnny_Got_His_Gun https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johnny_Got_His_Gun
elliotec 7y ago
Or "I have no mouth, and I must scream" http://www.mikedidonato.com/images/2009/04/harlan-ellison-i-hav-no-mouth-and-i-must-scream.pdf http://www.mikedidonato.com/images/2009/04/harlan-ellison-i-...
- the_af 7y ago
  A wonderful classic. Though I must point out -- and I've absolutely no qualms that you shared this, mind you! -- that Harlan Ellison used to be furious and very vocal about it when people shared his stuff online. I don't mind; I'd rather more people read these good old classics of the New Wave of scifi.
hinkley 7y ago
Or World of Tomorrow: > Our grandfather's digital consciousness currently resides in this cube, where I upload the latest films and books for him to enjoy every week. > We're also able to download correspondence from him. Over one thousand letters were received during his first hour in storage, as this was approximately four years time inside the cube. I will read one of his letters to you now: "Oh, oh God. Oh God. Oh God. Oh my God. Holy mother of God. Oh, oh, oh, oh God."

firethief 7y ago

> Perhaps the most innovative modification involved fluid mechanics, one of Vrselja’s specialties in graduate school. As the British mathematician John Womersley managed to quantify more than half a century ago, blood does not circulate through our arteries at a uniform rhythm — it circulates in pulses, in concert with the shudder of our hearts. To account for that dynamic, the BMI unit had shipped with an automated “pulse generator,” a device that replicates the heartbeat’s pulsatility in the organs. > But the pulse generator’s settings proved unsuitable for brains, which have a different flow pattern than the rest of the body. Before Sestan’s team adjusted the settings, the fluid might not completely permeate the vasculature of the organ, leaving parts of the brain essentially untreated. In such tissue, Daniele told me, “you’d end up with this sludgy, white yogurt-ish substance. It was a mess.” Conversely, if the pressure was too high, “the brain could just physically not stand it.” The organ fell apart. > By that summer, Vrselja and Daniele had fine-tuned the pulse generator and attached a number of custom sensors[...] It sounds like it was a lot of work getting the pulsation right. If they actually needed pulsation at all that seems like an interesting finding unto itself, since humans and cattle do fine with continuous-flow hearts: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3423277 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3423277

no1youknowz 7y ago

> Sestan did acknowledge that, yes, theoretically there is nothing stopping a scientist from immediately building a perfusion machine that could support a human brain. The BrainEx technology is open-source, and pig and homo sapiens brains have a fair amount in common. And there are plenty of conceivable applications for a human-optimized BrainEx. Imagine that you are a billionaire. Money is absolutely no object at all. And yet, you are in an accident. A car crash for example, your body was gravely injured but your head intact. You are flown to a facility but die on route. This technology is a get out of jail card. What's interesting to me, is where is the cut off point. Right now I assume its within minutes? But one day it could be a week? Your head in a jar until they either create a new body for you or find a donor body? Then there is this: > Consider, Greely suggested, the case of the Italian neurosurgeon Sergio Canavero and his associate, the Chinese scientist Xiaoping Ren, who claim to have transplanted a head from one cadaver to another. Undoubtedly, a scientist with fewer scruples than Sestan, fewer moral qualms about human experimentation, will emerge. “Somebody will perfuse a dead human brain, and I think it will be in an unconventional setting, not necessarily in a pure research manner,” Greely told me. “It will be somebody with a lot of money, and he’ll find a scientist willing to do it.” Putting the current ethical concerns aside. I find this absolutely fascinating. How long until the technology is perfected and some form of immortality is reached? How would it work. Do you get to 90 years old and they pull out your brain and put it into a newer body? Just so happens that in 50 years I'll be 90 myself. I a more ethical version of this tech is around in some form or another. I'd love another 90 years! Oh and for over population concerns, don't worry. I'll be happy to be part of the new expedition on Titan or Ganymede or further out. :)

heymijo 7y ago
> Your head in a jar until they either create a new body for you or find a donor body Could you imagine the horror of waking up and being just a head?
- no1youknowz 7y ago
  Yes, it truly sounds horrific! Straight out of a nightmare movie! However I would like to think that ethical concerns would not allow this and also this research doesn't actually have this course of action in mind. When I mean head in a jar. I meant disconnected from any machinery and placed in fluids so that no more decomposition of the brain takes place. In effect, the person is still dead. No brain activity, nothing. However, when a "new body" is ready. This process is then performed and the person is given a chance at life again.

sideshowb 7y ago

Didn't CS Lewis cover this in his highly prophetic sci-fi "That hideous strength" /s ;-)

jacobush 7y ago
Pretty much. And more. Why the sarcasm tag? :) That book is fantastic.
- sideshowb 7y ago
  From what I remember the transplanted head quite literally became a conduit for Satan and was worshipped by the evil scientists.
  - jacobush 7y ago
    Yep - read it as allegory or literally, it's still helluva book.
    - sideshowb 7y ago
      I guess on reflection the blatancy of the Christian dogma destroyed my willing suspension of disbelief. This was never an issue for me in the Narnia series, which I enjoyed. Nor even in the Screwtape letters which are pretty much a collection of sermons! Maybe it's the way it breaks genre rules, starts out as straight sci-fi then busts out the dogma part way through. Whereas Screwtape starts with a premise that Satan is personified so I accepted that from the beginning. Still interesting to see another side of Lewis's mind though. Maybe I'll give it another go one day.
      - jacobush 7y ago
        I know what you mean. I'm a confessing but as an adult I even had a hard time reading Narnia. I didn't want it to be a thin veneer or allegory but it can be read as such, but as a child I never made the connection. I mean, I understood it was about God and stuff, but I took it more at face value. Lewis even says in the preface it's not an allegory but I have a hunch he just preemptively defended against that accusation from his friend Tolkien, who apparently hated allegories. :-D I have to re-read Hideous Strength too, I don't know what I'd make of it nowadays... I do remember I very much enjoyed the Arthurian legends come alive, it spooked me out.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

0815test 7y ago

"What could possibly go wrong?" Because clearly we have never, ever seen this before and its consequences, I guess. Braaaaiiiinnsssss

ajuc 7y ago
Zombies make no sense. They would starve to death quickly without farming and modern supply chains or eat each other to extinction. And the zombies that can go on without any source of energy for years break thermodynamics.
- darkpuma 7y ago
  The premise of this technology is however startlingly close to the cult-classic zombie horror movie Re-Animator.
  - Dylan16807 7y ago
    There are hundreds of ways to make a zombie in fiction. Pretty much any experiment involving death or near-death or hibernation is going to resemble one of them. I have to disagree on 'startling'.
    - darkpuma 7y ago
      Most zombie fiction is premised on a contagious pathogen or a botched scientific response to such a pathogen (28 Days Later, The Last of Us, I am Legend, Shaun of the Dead etc.) Some use accidental exposure to radiation or extraterrestrial contamination, with unclear mechanisms (Night of the Living Dead) Zombie movies outside of the contagious pathogen paradigm are more uncommon. Some zombie movies, particularly the older ones predating Night of the Living Dead, are premised on religious supernatural voodoo stuff (White Zombie [1932!]). In others, the condition is not strictly contagious, but exposure to a chemical substance causes a reversal of death (Re-Animator, and Return of the Living Dead (my personal favorite and the origin of zombies who desire 'Braaaaiiiiiins')) In only a few, the creature[s] are created by a mad scientist deliberately trying to reverse death using something other than a contagious pathogen (Frankenstein (should that count?), and Re-Animator.) Mad scientist in an academic setting attempting to reverse death and accidentally creating an outbreak of non-contagious zombies is a pretty narrow list of zombie movies. Re-Animator is the only one that comes to mind. Anyway, a zombie outbreak obviously isn't going to happen, but if the public becomes generally aware of this research, now might be a good time for Hollywood to reboot Re-Animator. Gods know they hate making original movies these days. I'm aware that a zombie movie fan complaining about a lack of originality may seem ironic.

slg 7y ago

It is nice to see that whoever wrote that headline acknowledges that this is a story you see being discussed on a TV in the background of the first 10 minutes of a zombie movie as the protagonist prepares for their day.

erik_landerholm 7y ago

Zombies

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

CodexArcanum 7y ago

I find this sort of thing fascinating both for what it means about our own consciousness, but also what it means for emergent consciousnesses. We're not sure when a dying brain stops being conscious; and we're not sure when a once-dead brain that's revived starts being conscious again. Why do we think we'd have any idea when an artificial brain awakens to consciousness? I feel like the same ethical concerns raised in the article about accidentally reviving a person into a sensory-deprivation nightmare could also apply to accidentally generating a thinking being that can only express itself though shopping recommendations. We're a long ways off yet from a comprehensive ethics of universal consciousness.

djohnston 7y ago

This rings familiar to Yun Tianming's voyage in Deaths End (Three Body).

sverige 7y ago

"Nam Sibyllam quidem Cumis ego ipse oculis meis vidi in ampulla pendere, et cum illi pueri dicerent: Σιβυλλα τι θελεις; respondebat illa: αποθανειν θελω." ‘I saw with my own eyes the Sibyl of Cumae hanging in a jar, and when the boys said to her, ‘Sibyl, what do you want?’ she replied, ‘I want to die’.’

macawfish 7y ago

Next thing you know they'll be offering chakra transplants.

j2d3 7y ago

This reminds me of the lifetime movie classic starring Mare Winningham, "Who is Julia?"

danilocesar 7y ago

Please someone tell me that he is considering using viruses to bring those dead brain cells alive!

dang 7y ago

This has been discussed a fair bit: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19684386 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19684386 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18766920 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18766920 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19753418 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19753418

emilfihlman 7y ago

Again it seems "ethics" is holding us back. This is absolutely something we need to put lots of research and experimentation into.

wdqwodjkqwpo 7y ago
Without relying on "ethics" then, what is your justification that more resources should be allocated for this?
- emilfihlman 7y ago
  Research? Understanding? Reaching dominion over death? The usual? Nothing really matters, you can only strive to achieve.
  - wdqwodjkqwpo 7y ago
    Why do any of _those_ matter? Ultimately, for something to be "worth" anything, it requires a system of values, which is exactly what ethics is. My point is not that research is worthless. My point is that relying on ethics to assign positive value to research in one hand whilst denying the existence of valid ethics when convenient is hypocritical.

d1zzy 7y ago

I see many comments on this article on people's choice to do anything to avoid dying. One argument I haven't seen covered is the fairness of it. Is it fair to younger generations that we keep on living? If we don't die there will be fewer opportunities for the younger generations, the resources we have all have access to are after all rather limited. Population growth is already too high, immortality can only make it worse. We can see how millennials are struggling with a tight job market and housing market, all because previous generations who now have longer life spans than their parents are holding on these resources. There are aspects to immortality that go beyond selfishness, such as the experience and knowledge that is lost of the people dying, being a negative to the society. I'm in support of pursuing technology to allow all or most of that knowledge to be preserved and passed on to younger generations but at some point I think we have to accept our role in this world and that role includes having to stop existing and let others have their chance at a full life.

UnFleshedOne 7y ago
This brings up a question of how you value people who don't exist yet. Technically (not saying anything about politically) the problem you describe can be solved by population control -- "just" don't make more people than can be comfortably supported. We already do that with birth control or by simply not having sex. But that means people who would have been otherwise born would not be. If that is not an issue, perfect, you have your technical solution. If that _is_ an issue, then you have more problems than immortals hoarding resources (one of them is Repugnant Conclusion [0]). Another way to look at it -- would you want current lifespan artificially shortened if you knew for sure that it would make things fairer for new generations? [0] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mere_addition_paradox https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mere_addition_paradox

Trilkhai 7y ago

Reminds me a little too strongly of Infocom's interactive-fiction game Suspended: A Cryogenic Nightmare http://gallery.guetech.org/suspended/suspended.html http://gallery.guetech.org/suspended/suspended.html They said you would sleep for half a millennium — not an unreasonable length of time, considering you'd be in limited cryogenic suspension. Your body would rest frozen at the planet's nerve center, an underground complex 20 miles beneath the surface. Your brain, they told you, would be wired to a network of computers; your mind would continue to operate at a minimal level, overseeing maintenance of surface-side equilibrium. And you would not awake, so they promised, until your 500 years had elapsed — barring, of course, the most dire emergency. Then, and only then, you would be awakened to save your planet by strategically manipulating six robots, each of whom perceives the world differently. But such a catastrophe, you have been assured, could not possibly occur. Good morning.

zazzlez 7y ago

Omg so many letters why can't they just summarize in a few paragraphs