16 ms·

Is Death Reversible?

154 points by LinuxBender 7y ago

generalpass 7y ago
Betteridge says: no. More accurate question: Can the defined point of death be moved just a little bit further out? Yes.
- neaden 7y ago
  Agreed, it's a tautology I'll admit but if they can bring you back, you're not dead. Just like we used to be able to say no heard beat meant you were dead, and now we don't.
  - LinuxBender 7y ago
    Paramedics still classify a person with no heartbeat as "dead". This is also part of the reason consent to restore life to someone at this stage is not required. At least that is the training I get a couple times a year from paramedics.
    - generalpass 7y ago
      Well, they obviously don't have the training or technology to resuscitate someone who is mostly dead - for this, you need a miracle wizard.
      - J5892 7y ago
        Or a maester.
        generalpass 7y ago
        Or perhaps a red priestess?
    - papito 7y ago
      Seems challenging to give your consent when your heart has stopped.
      - LinuxBender 7y ago
        Exactly. It is implied (legally for this use case), at least in the United States of America. I don't know about outside the USA. If I detect breathing or a heart beat, I am required to tap you a couple times and ask if it's ok for me to assist you. If you can't respond, consent is still implied. If you respond with anything suggesting "no", then I am to leave you alone and notify emergency personnel that you declined help. If I am permitted to help, (you give consent or can not respond), then I must only do things that are within my training. If I step outside the line, such as administering a miracle pill (from Miracle Max), then I am liable for resulting damages. If I stay within my training, then I am protected legally.
- buboard 7y ago
  sounds like it could be moved indefinitely further out
  - generalpass 7y ago
    This is speculation.
    - buboard 7y ago
      that doesnt make it false
      - generalpass 7y ago
        And it doesn't make it true.
sudhirj 7y ago
Whether or not death is reversible, this lends a lot of credence to cryo-suspension when near death. This proves clearly that an inactive brain reboot is possible, though to what extent memories or identity will be retained is unclear. Even if the brain is restorable with about as much damage as stroke victim (which is a lot) this is still interesting.
- lisper 7y ago
  > an inactive brain reboot is possible You don't need to die to demonstrate that. General anesthesia suffices. (FYI, for the benefit of those who have never experienced it, GA is a very different subjective experience from sleep. Even in dream-free sleep you wake up with a subjective sensation of time having passed. Not so with GA. The time you spend in GA is just completely gone. It feels like you went through a time warp.)
  - look_lookatme 7y ago
    The really strange thing about GA for me was how... enjoyable... the sensation of time loss was. I'd do it again for fun.
    - lisper 7y ago
      I'd call it "interesting" but not "fun." Also, there's some evidence that it can cause long-term cognitive impairment, but I guess that's probably true for any mind-altering drug.
  - Andrew_nenakhov 7y ago
    Exactly, I was under GA once. If felt like sugary vapor, and I started to feel funny. Then I blinked, just for a second, and when I opened they eyes, I suddenly felt that I can't focus my eyes and everything is blurry. They told I was out for 6 hours, but to me it was just a blink.
    - AnIdiotOnTheNet 7y ago
pnutjam 7y ago
So we're finally finding out where the zombies are going to come from.
- HenryKissinger 7y ago
  Unfortunately (chuckle), not really. The brain sustains permanent damage after a few minutes without oxygenated blood.
  - jagged-chisel 7y ago
    Most zombies appear to have much less than a fully functional brain.
  - chess_buster 7y ago
    Actually it doesn't. It receives the damage when oxygen returns and cells have to switch rom anaerobic to aerobic metabolism again, don't they?
  - merlincorey 7y ago
    Why do you think zombies exhibit poor motor control generally?
Razengan 7y ago
Is copying your brain into another body == bringing you back to life? The game SOMA explores a lot of the topics being brought up in this discussion: https://www.gog.com/game/soma https://www.gog.com/game/soma
- ericb 7y ago
  100% no in my book. I mean, if you made the copy, and I could go on existing, or not, how could that copy be "me." I'm an instance of an object, not a class.
  - kevin_thibedeau 7y ago
    You are not immutable. Your body is already a ship of Theseus.
    - ericb 7y ago
      That's true, but that doesn't mean if you build an identical ship next to mine that your ship is "the same ship." Further, I'll be pissed if the one I'm on sinks. The identical one sailing off into the distance is cold comfort to me.
    - J5892 7y ago
      But the system of continuous electrical processes that make up your consciousness is immutable, from your perspective. If it is perfectly transferred to another vessel, as a series of direct connections (maybe some kind of neuron-based "wire"), then maybe it could be considered the same continuous consciousness. The body around it, from the perspective of the system, doesn't matter. It can be replaced forever as long as the system remains continuous.
    - AstralStorm 7y ago
      Yes, but it's a massive and complex feedback system. So every replaced piece is tuned back to be a good to perfect replacement - including thought. When that does not happen you get hallucinations or cancers, for example. You could build an empirically accurate copy of the ship in this way - not perfect but very close.
mirimir 7y ago
> “All right. He’s dead. Go ahead and talk to him.” https://www.gregegan.net/DISTRESS/DISTRESS.html https://www.gregegan.net/DISTRESS/DISTRESS.html
- alanfalcon 7y ago
  Good ol' Greg Egan. Thanks for sharing.
RcouF1uZ4gsC 7y ago
Neurosurgeons have been using hypothermia (cooling down the body) and circulatory arrest (stopping the heart) to treat complicated brain aneurysms since the 1980's. Some of the outcomes have been very good. http://ether.stanford.edu/library/neuroanesthesia/SNACC%20Reading%20List%20articles/Spetzler_Aneurysms%20of%20the%20basilar%20artery%20treated.pdf http://ether.stanford.edu/library/neuroanesthesia/SNACC%20Re... When a person is in that state, they have no signs of life - no heartbeat and no blood to the brain, yet a significant portion of the time, they do well. From the article, it looks like they have done this for up to 50 minutes. " The median duration of complete arrest in our series was 11 minutes; the range was 7 to 53 minutes. This is consistent with reports from other neurological surgeons who have employed extracorporeal circulation for intracranial vascular surgery "
- nefitty 7y ago
  I wonder how different the experience of waking up from induced hypothermia is from, say, a coma. From my understanding, in a coma there is sometimes brain activity, up to the point that some people end up with Locked-in syndrome(LIS). An example is Martin Pistorius, who has vivid memories of his time in his pseudocoma. That means his sense of self was intact throughout that experience. That colors what it feels like to "escape" from the coma. In dreams, we usually have a sense of self, i.e. we "come back" to reality. There are also people who experience the subjective Near-death experience (NDE) which sometimes involves bodily detachment, etc. but presumably this NDE feels like it's occurring to that person's self. When under anaesthesia, waking up from it is more like waking up from a really deep nap, and from my experience, is easy to integrate. Now, when waking up from induced hypothermia, does the brain slowly kick on different modules? Does the brain snap back to the last thought the person was having? To use a programming analogy, does the brain save state in a physical way? Or is it like restarting a computer fresh? This is such a cool technique. Thank you for sharing info on it.
  - pmoriarty 7y ago
    "An example is Martin Pistorius, who has vivid memories of his time in his pseudocoma. That means his sense of self was intact throughout that experience." Or they could just be false memories.
primroot 7y ago
"Evolution equipped our species with powerful defense mechanisms to deal with this foreknowledge—in particular, psychological suppression and religion." Religion is a result of evolution?
- katmannthree 7y ago
  On some level you can think of it as a consequence of over sensitive pattern matching, which is something that I believe we can attribute to evolution. It's also quite convenient for increasing local societal cohesion (though generally to the detriment of inclusiveness) which could conceivably provide a group advantage.
- damontal 7y ago
  Dan Dennet argues this in his book Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon
- vermilingua 7y ago
  Isn't, arguably, all of society a result of evolution?
  - buboard 7y ago
    cultures are created and die at a rate much higher than evolutionary timescales
    - vermilingua 7y ago
      But the structures that give rise to cultures are a direct result of the evolutionary process.
      - buboard 7y ago
        yeah but culture doesn't need to wait for natural selection in order to evolve. Incidentally this phrase " cultures are a direct result of the evolutionary process" is a apparently taboo for anthropologists today. I tried to ask such a question on reddit's askanthropology, about which aspects of genetic differences contribute to cultural artifacts, like alcoholism differences, lactose intolerance differences etc. the question was apparently racist and removed
dTal 7y ago
Definitionally, no. If you can come back, you're just ill. It's like asking, "can erased data be recovered?" If it can, it's not erased.
- mongol 7y ago
  That is a good metafor. Someone might say, it is not really erased, is it is just the pointer that is deleted. Someone else says, there are still traces of magnetic field left, just much weaker. But if the disk is put in a shredder we can be sure it will never be read again - it is truly dead.
- felipemnoa 7y ago
  If we ever invent time travel that will mean that, relatively speaking, we all live forever. That would also mean that the universe is continually recording every single instance of time. If I were a sci-fi author I would write that the reason the universe is expanding and accelerating is to record all of the new data being created. Just like a needle writing on a record. To record more data it needs to move the needle farther away from the center. And the farther away from the center it moves the faster the needle, relative to the disc, moves.
  - xvector 7y ago
    Or rather, it's not that time is "recorded", but it just exists, all at once, just like that, and we're simply experiencing a lower-dimensional slice of the universe, so we feel like we are "moving" through time when we really aren't.
  - irrational 7y ago
    I'd actually like to read that sci-fi story. Its a fun premise.
    - TheOtherHobbes 7y ago
      You are - for limited values of "read".
  - 7y ago
amriksohata 7y ago
There have been studies that shows the mind is working after death https://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/mind-works-after-death-consciousness-sam-parnia-nyu-langone-a8007101.html https://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/mind-works-after-... In Hinduism, the Garuda Purana details this as not the physical mind, but the detached soul can see the body as it floats above it and watches its relatives weep. But it can reattach it self in some cases. Some Yogis also talk of being able to detach their body from their soul using breath alone.
- buboard 7y ago
  that was only because "Death is defined as the point at which the heart no longer beats, and blood flow to the brain is cut off." Superstitious beliefs about mind-brain duality are not relevant
rafaelvasco 7y ago
Well. I believe it's totally possible to animate the body to an extent after death. But the totality of the individual, the consciousness, is gone. No going back; Either it merges back with the Universe, or goes to heaven, or fades away to nothing. Whatever you believe, it's gone. As someone famous (Lavoisier) said though: "Nothing is lost, nothing is created, everything is transformed." I guess the "fades away to nothing" is the only impossible option;
- uryga 7y ago
  > the totality of the individual, the consciousness, is gone why is it gone? not necessarily disgreeing, but i'm curious
  - kpU8efre7r 7y ago
    I think they mean gone as in not returning to that individual. It has gone somewhere.
- izzydata 7y ago
  As in the neural pathways of the brain degrade to the point that no longer resembles human intelligence? I don't think most people here are going to believe in a spark of consciousness that breaths life into the brain.
  - TaupeRanger 7y ago
    Neural pathways are just pathways. The electrical patterns that reside in the interactions between neurons are necessary for conscious experience. Once the patterns are gone, information is lost. It is like taking a snapshot of a table of moving billiard balls. You only have the position of the balls, but not the velocity, acceleration, etc. And those are necessary to recreate the motion. The "motion" in the case of the brain is what creates the person (as far as anyone currently knows). Having the dead neurons and their dead connections is not enough.
    - UnFleshedOne 7y ago
JohnClark1337 7y ago
There has to be a Dr. Frankenstein somewhere on this planet who is attempting this.
equalunique 7y ago
I chose to celebrate Halloween by binging on an HP Lovecraft audiobook, the Necronomicon. Of the short stories contained within, the second one, Reanimator, is my recommendation for anyone in search of spooky entertainment on this topic. I have to warn however that it's set in the 1920s, back when the N word and eugenics were both considered hip.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
YeGoblynQueenne 7y ago
>> In my case, it was only as a mature man that I became fully mortal. I had wasted an entire evening playing an addictive, first-person shooter video game—running through subterranean halls, flooded corridors, nightmarishly turning tunnels, and empty plazas under a foreign sun, firing my weapons at hordes of aliens relentlessly pursuing me. Strange how the definition of "mature man" has also changed over the ages.
RickJWagner 7y ago
It is reversible, if the decedent is only mostly dead. I've seen it in film.
tulunsutao 7y ago
A sci-fi tale in which a man is resurrected using technology: https://knowingless.com/2016/08/20/you-wake-up-on-a-table/ https://knowingless.com/2016/08/20/you-wake-up-on-a-table/
xaedes 7y ago
The Last Answer - Isaac Asimov https://highexistence.com/the-last-answer-short-story/ https://highexistence.com/the-last-answer-short-story/ Murray Templeton was forty-five years old, in the prime of life, and with all parts of his body in perfect working order except for certain key portions of his coronary arteries, but that was enough. The pain had come suddenly, had mounted to an unbearable peak, and had then ebbed steadily. He could feel his breath slowing and a kind of gathering peace washing over him. There is no pleasure like the absence of pain – immediately after pain. Murray felt an almost giddy lightness as though he were lifting in the air and hovering. He opened his eyes and noted with distant amusement that the others in the room were still agitated. He had been in the laboratory when the pain had struck, quite without warning, and when he had staggered, he had heard surprised outcries from the others before everything vanished into overwhelming agony. Now, with the pain gone, the others were still hovering, still anxious, still gathered about his fallen body –– Which, he suddenly realised, he was looking down on. He was down there, sprawled, face contorted. He was up here, at peace and watching. He thought: Miracle of miracles! The life-after-life nuts were right. And although that was a humiliating way for an atheistic physicist to die, he felt only the mildest surprise, and no alteration of the peace in which he was immersed. He thought: There should be some angel – or something – coming for me. The Earthly scene was fading. Darkness was invading his consciousness and off in a distance, as a last glimmer of sight, there was a figure of light, vaguely human in form, and radiating warmth. Murray thought: What a joke on me. I’m going to Heaven. Even as he thought that, the light faded, but the warmth remained. There was no lessening of the peace even though in all the Universe only he remained – and the Voice. The Voice said, “I have done this so often and yet I still have the capacity to be pleased at success.” It was in Murray’s mind to say something, but he was not conscious of possessing a mouth, tongue, or vocal chords. Nevertheless, tried to make a sound. He tried, mouthlessly, to hum words or breathe them or just push them out by a contraction of – something. And they came out. He heard his own voice, quite recognisable, and his own words, infinitely clear. Murray said, “Is this Heaven?” The Voice said, “This is no place as you understand place.” Murray was embarrassed, but the next question had to be asked. “Pardon me if I sound like a jackass. Are you God?” Without changing intonation or in any way marring the perfection of the sound, the Voice managed to sound amused. “It is strange that I am always asked that in, of course, an infinite number of ways. There is no answer I can give that you would comprehend. I am – which is all that I can say significantly and you may cover that with any word or concept you please.” Murray said, “And what am I? A soul? Or am I only personified existence too?” He tried not to sound sarcastic, but it seemed to him that he had failed. He thought then, fleetingly, of adding a ‘Your Grace’ or ‘Holy One’ or something to counteract the sarcasm, and could not bring himself to do so even though for the first time in his existence he speculated on the possibility of being punished for his insolence – or sin? – with Hell, and what that might be like. The Voice did not sound offended. “You are easy to explain – even to you. You may call yourself a soul if that pleases you, but what you are is a nexus of electromagnetic forces, so arranged that all the interconnections and interrelationships are exactly imitative of those of your brain in your Universe-existence – down to the smallest detail. Therefore you have your capacity for thought, your memories, your personality. It still seems to you that you are you.” Murray found himself incredulous. “You mean the essence of my brain was permanent?” “Not at all. There is nothing about you that is permanent except what I choose to make so. I formed the nexus. I constructed it while you had physical existence and adjusted it to the moment when the existence failed.” The Voice seemed distinctly pleased with itself, and went on after a moment’s pause. “An intricate but entirely precise construction. I could, of course, do it for every human being on your world but I am pleased that I do not. There is pleasure in the selection.” “You choose very few then?” “Very few.” “And what happens to the rest?” “Oblivion! – Oh, of course, you imagine a Hell.” Murray would have flushed if he had the capacity to do so. He said, “I do not. It is spoken of. Still, I would scarcely have thought I was virtuous enough to have attracted your attention as one of the Elect.” “Virtuous? – Ah, I see what you mean. It is troublesome to have to force my thinking small enough to permeate yours. No, I have chosen you for your capacity for thought, as I choose others, in quadrillions, from all the intelligent species of the Universe.” Murray found himself suddenly curious, the habit of a lifetime. He said, “Do you choose them all yourself or are there others like you?” For a fleeting moment, Murray thought there was an impatient reaction to that, but when the Voice came, it was unmoved. “Whether or not there are others is irrelevant to you. This Universe is mine, and mine alone. It is my invention, my construction, intended for my purpose alone.” “And yet with quadrillions of nexi you have formed, you spend time with me? Am I that important?” The Voice said, “You are not important at all. I am also with others in a way which, to your perception, would seem simultaneous.” “And yet you are one?” Again amusement. The Voice said, “You seek to trap me into an inconsistency. If you were an amoeba who could consider individuality only in connection with single cells and if you were to ask a sperm whale, made up of thirty quadrillion cells, whether it was one or many, how could the sperm whale answer in a way that would be comprehensible to the amoeba?” Murray said dryly, “I’ll think about it. It may become comprehensible.” “Exactly. That is your function. You will think.” “To what end? You already know everything, I suppose.”
WC3w6pXxgGd 7y ago
tl;dr?

154 points by LinuxBender 7y ago

Betteridge says: no. More accurate question: Can the defined point of death be moved just a little bit further out? Yes.

neaden 7y ago
Agreed, it's a tautology I'll admit but if they can bring you back, you're not dead. Just like we used to be able to say no heard beat meant you were dead, and now we don't.
- LinuxBender 7y ago
  Paramedics still classify a person with no heartbeat as "dead". This is also part of the reason consent to restore life to someone at this stage is not required. At least that is the training I get a couple times a year from paramedics.
  - generalpass 7y ago
    Well, they obviously don't have the training or technology to resuscitate someone who is mostly dead - for this, you need a miracle wizard.
    - J5892 7y ago
      Or a maester.
      - generalpass 7y ago
        Or perhaps a red priestess?
  - papito 7y ago
    Seems challenging to give your consent when your heart has stopped.
    - LinuxBender 7y ago
      Exactly. It is implied (legally for this use case), at least in the United States of America. I don't know about outside the USA. If I detect breathing or a heart beat, I am required to tap you a couple times and ask if it's ok for me to assist you. If you can't respond, consent is still implied. If you respond with anything suggesting "no", then I am to leave you alone and notify emergency personnel that you declined help. If I am permitted to help, (you give consent or can not respond), then I must only do things that are within my training. If I step outside the line, such as administering a miracle pill (from Miracle Max), then I am liable for resulting damages. If I stay within my training, then I am protected legally.
buboard 7y ago
sounds like it could be moved indefinitely further out
- generalpass 7y ago
  This is speculation.
  - buboard 7y ago
    that doesnt make it false
    - generalpass 7y ago
      And it doesn't make it true.

sudhirj 7y ago

Whether or not death is reversible, this lends a lot of credence to cryo-suspension when near death. This proves clearly that an inactive brain reboot is possible, though to what extent memories or identity will be retained is unclear. Even if the brain is restorable with about as much damage as stroke victim (which is a lot) this is still interesting.

lisper 7y ago
> an inactive brain reboot is possible You don't need to die to demonstrate that. General anesthesia suffices. (FYI, for the benefit of those who have never experienced it, GA is a very different subjective experience from sleep. Even in dream-free sleep you wake up with a subjective sensation of time having passed. Not so with GA. The time you spend in GA is just completely gone. It feels like you went through a time warp.)
- look_lookatme 7y ago
  The really strange thing about GA for me was how... enjoyable... the sensation of time loss was. I'd do it again for fun.
  - lisper 7y ago
    I'd call it "interesting" but not "fun." Also, there's some evidence that it can cause long-term cognitive impairment, but I guess that's probably true for any mind-altering drug.
- Andrew_nenakhov 7y ago
  Exactly, I was under GA once. If felt like sugary vapor, and I started to feel funny. Then I blinked, just for a second, and when I opened they eyes, I suddenly felt that I can't focus my eyes and everything is blurry. They told I was out for 6 hours, but to me it was just a blink.
  - AnIdiotOnTheNet 7y ago

pnutjam 7y ago

So we're finally finding out where the zombies are going to come from.

HenryKissinger 7y ago
Unfortunately (chuckle), not really. The brain sustains permanent damage after a few minutes without oxygenated blood.
- jagged-chisel 7y ago
  Most zombies appear to have much less than a fully functional brain.
- chess_buster 7y ago
  Actually it doesn't. It receives the damage when oxygen returns and cells have to switch rom anaerobic to aerobic metabolism again, don't they?
- merlincorey 7y ago
  Why do you think zombies exhibit poor motor control generally?

Razengan 7y ago

Is copying your brain into another body == bringing you back to life? The game SOMA explores a lot of the topics being brought up in this discussion: https://www.gog.com/game/soma https://www.gog.com/game/soma

ericb 7y ago
100% no in my book. I mean, if you made the copy, and I could go on existing, or not, how could that copy be "me." I'm an instance of an object, not a class.
- kevin_thibedeau 7y ago
  You are not immutable. Your body is already a ship of Theseus.
  - ericb 7y ago
    That's true, but that doesn't mean if you build an identical ship next to mine that your ship is "the same ship." Further, I'll be pissed if the one I'm on sinks. The identical one sailing off into the distance is cold comfort to me.
  - J5892 7y ago
    But the system of continuous electrical processes that make up your consciousness is immutable, from your perspective. If it is perfectly transferred to another vessel, as a series of direct connections (maybe some kind of neuron-based "wire"), then maybe it could be considered the same continuous consciousness. The body around it, from the perspective of the system, doesn't matter. It can be replaced forever as long as the system remains continuous.
  - AstralStorm 7y ago
    Yes, but it's a massive and complex feedback system. So every replaced piece is tuned back to be a good to perfect replacement - including thought. When that does not happen you get hallucinations or cancers, for example. You could build an empirically accurate copy of the ship in this way - not perfect but very close.

mirimir 7y ago

> “All right. He’s dead. Go ahead and talk to him.” https://www.gregegan.net/DISTRESS/DISTRESS.html https://www.gregegan.net/DISTRESS/DISTRESS.html

alanfalcon 7y ago
Good ol' Greg Egan. Thanks for sharing.

RcouF1uZ4gsC 7y ago

Neurosurgeons have been using hypothermia (cooling down the body) and circulatory arrest (stopping the heart) to treat complicated brain aneurysms since the 1980's. Some of the outcomes have been very good. http://ether.stanford.edu/library/neuroanesthesia/SNACC%20Reading%20List%20articles/Spetzler_Aneurysms%20of%20the%20basilar%20artery%20treated.pdf http://ether.stanford.edu/library/neuroanesthesia/SNACC%20Re... When a person is in that state, they have no signs of life - no heartbeat and no blood to the brain, yet a significant portion of the time, they do well. From the article, it looks like they have done this for up to 50 minutes. " The median duration of complete arrest in our series was 11 minutes; the range was 7 to 53 minutes. This is consistent with reports from other neurological surgeons who have employed extracorporeal circulation for intracranial vascular surgery "

nefitty 7y ago
I wonder how different the experience of waking up from induced hypothermia is from, say, a coma. From my understanding, in a coma there is sometimes brain activity, up to the point that some people end up with Locked-in syndrome(LIS). An example is Martin Pistorius, who has vivid memories of his time in his pseudocoma. That means his sense of self was intact throughout that experience. That colors what it feels like to "escape" from the coma. In dreams, we usually have a sense of self, i.e. we "come back" to reality. There are also people who experience the subjective Near-death experience (NDE) which sometimes involves bodily detachment, etc. but presumably this NDE feels like it's occurring to that person's self. When under anaesthesia, waking up from it is more like waking up from a really deep nap, and from my experience, is easy to integrate. Now, when waking up from induced hypothermia, does the brain slowly kick on different modules? Does the brain snap back to the last thought the person was having? To use a programming analogy, does the brain save state in a physical way? Or is it like restarting a computer fresh? This is such a cool technique. Thank you for sharing info on it.
- pmoriarty 7y ago
  "An example is Martin Pistorius, who has vivid memories of his time in his pseudocoma. That means his sense of self was intact throughout that experience." Or they could just be false memories.

primroot 7y ago

"Evolution equipped our species with powerful defense mechanisms to deal with this foreknowledge—in particular, psychological suppression and religion." Religion is a result of evolution?

katmannthree 7y ago
On some level you can think of it as a consequence of over sensitive pattern matching, which is something that I believe we can attribute to evolution. It's also quite convenient for increasing local societal cohesion (though generally to the detriment of inclusiveness) which could conceivably provide a group advantage.
damontal 7y ago
Dan Dennet argues this in his book Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon
vermilingua 7y ago
Isn't, arguably, all of society a result of evolution?
- buboard 7y ago
  cultures are created and die at a rate much higher than evolutionary timescales
  - vermilingua 7y ago
    But the structures that give rise to cultures are a direct result of the evolutionary process.
    - buboard 7y ago
      yeah but culture doesn't need to wait for natural selection in order to evolve. Incidentally this phrase " cultures are a direct result of the evolutionary process" is a apparently taboo for anthropologists today. I tried to ask such a question on reddit's askanthropology, about which aspects of genetic differences contribute to cultural artifacts, like alcoholism differences, lactose intolerance differences etc. the question was apparently racist and removed

dTal 7y ago

Definitionally, no. If you can come back, you're just ill. It's like asking, "can erased data be recovered?" If it can, it's not erased.

mongol 7y ago
That is a good metafor. Someone might say, it is not really erased, is it is just the pointer that is deleted. Someone else says, there are still traces of magnetic field left, just much weaker. But if the disk is put in a shredder we can be sure it will never be read again - it is truly dead.
felipemnoa 7y ago
If we ever invent time travel that will mean that, relatively speaking, we all live forever. That would also mean that the universe is continually recording every single instance of time. If I were a sci-fi author I would write that the reason the universe is expanding and accelerating is to record all of the new data being created. Just like a needle writing on a record. To record more data it needs to move the needle farther away from the center. And the farther away from the center it moves the faster the needle, relative to the disc, moves.
- xvector 7y ago
  Or rather, it's not that time is "recorded", but it just exists, all at once, just like that, and we're simply experiencing a lower-dimensional slice of the universe, so we feel like we are "moving" through time when we really aren't.
- irrational 7y ago
  I'd actually like to read that sci-fi story. Its a fun premise.
  - TheOtherHobbes 7y ago
    You are - for limited values of "read".
- 7y ago

amriksohata 7y ago

There have been studies that shows the mind is working after death https://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/mind-works-after-death-consciousness-sam-parnia-nyu-langone-a8007101.html https://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/mind-works-after-... In Hinduism, the Garuda Purana details this as not the physical mind, but the detached soul can see the body as it floats above it and watches its relatives weep. But it can reattach it self in some cases. Some Yogis also talk of being able to detach their body from their soul using breath alone.

buboard 7y ago
that was only because "Death is defined as the point at which the heart no longer beats, and blood flow to the brain is cut off." Superstitious beliefs about mind-brain duality are not relevant

rafaelvasco 7y ago

Well. I believe it's totally possible to animate the body to an extent after death. But the totality of the individual, the consciousness, is gone. No going back; Either it merges back with the Universe, or goes to heaven, or fades away to nothing. Whatever you believe, it's gone. As someone famous (Lavoisier) said though: "Nothing is lost, nothing is created, everything is transformed." I guess the "fades away to nothing" is the only impossible option;

uryga 7y ago
> the totality of the individual, the consciousness, is gone why is it gone? not necessarily disgreeing, but i'm curious
- kpU8efre7r 7y ago
  I think they mean gone as in not returning to that individual. It has gone somewhere.
izzydata 7y ago
As in the neural pathways of the brain degrade to the point that no longer resembles human intelligence? I don't think most people here are going to believe in a spark of consciousness that breaths life into the brain.
- TaupeRanger 7y ago
  Neural pathways are just pathways. The electrical patterns that reside in the interactions between neurons are necessary for conscious experience. Once the patterns are gone, information is lost. It is like taking a snapshot of a table of moving billiard balls. You only have the position of the balls, but not the velocity, acceleration, etc. And those are necessary to recreate the motion. The "motion" in the case of the brain is what creates the person (as far as anyone currently knows). Having the dead neurons and their dead connections is not enough.
  - UnFleshedOne 7y ago

JohnClark1337 7y ago

There has to be a Dr. Frankenstein somewhere on this planet who is attempting this.

equalunique 7y ago

I chose to celebrate Halloween by binging on an HP Lovecraft audiobook, the Necronomicon. Of the short stories contained within, the second one, Reanimator, is my recommendation for anyone in search of spooky entertainment on this topic. I have to warn however that it's set in the 1920s, back when the N word and eugenics were both considered hip.

deleted 7y ago
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YeGoblynQueenne 7y ago

>> In my case, it was only as a mature man that I became fully mortal. I had wasted an entire evening playing an addictive, first-person shooter video game—running through subterranean halls, flooded corridors, nightmarishly turning tunnels, and empty plazas under a foreign sun, firing my weapons at hordes of aliens relentlessly pursuing me. Strange how the definition of "mature man" has also changed over the ages.

RickJWagner 7y ago

It is reversible, if the decedent is only mostly dead. I've seen it in film.

tulunsutao 7y ago

A sci-fi tale in which a man is resurrected using technology: https://knowingless.com/2016/08/20/you-wake-up-on-a-table/ https://knowingless.com/2016/08/20/you-wake-up-on-a-table/

xaedes 7y ago

The Last Answer - Isaac Asimov https://highexistence.com/the-last-answer-short-story/ https://highexistence.com/the-last-answer-short-story/ Murray Templeton was forty-five years old, in the prime of life, and with all parts of his body in perfect working order except for certain key portions of his coronary arteries, but that was enough. The pain had come suddenly, had mounted to an unbearable peak, and had then ebbed steadily. He could feel his breath slowing and a kind of gathering peace washing over him. There is no pleasure like the absence of pain – immediately after pain. Murray felt an almost giddy lightness as though he were lifting in the air and hovering. He opened his eyes and noted with distant amusement that the others in the room were still agitated. He had been in the laboratory when the pain had struck, quite without warning, and when he had staggered, he had heard surprised outcries from the others before everything vanished into overwhelming agony. Now, with the pain gone, the others were still hovering, still anxious, still gathered about his fallen body –– Which, he suddenly realised, he was looking down on. He was down there, sprawled, face contorted. He was up here, at peace and watching. He thought: Miracle of miracles! The life-after-life nuts were right. And although that was a humiliating way for an atheistic physicist to die, he felt only the mildest surprise, and no alteration of the peace in which he was immersed. He thought: There should be some angel – or something – coming for me. The Earthly scene was fading. Darkness was invading his consciousness and off in a distance, as a last glimmer of sight, there was a figure of light, vaguely human in form, and radiating warmth. Murray thought: What a joke on me. I’m going to Heaven. Even as he thought that, the light faded, but the warmth remained. There was no lessening of the peace even though in all the Universe only he remained – and the Voice. The Voice said, “I have done this so often and yet I still have the capacity to be pleased at success.” It was in Murray’s mind to say something, but he was not conscious of possessing a mouth, tongue, or vocal chords. Nevertheless, tried to make a sound. He tried, mouthlessly, to hum words or breathe them or just push them out by a contraction of – something. And they came out. He heard his own voice, quite recognisable, and his own words, infinitely clear. Murray said, “Is this Heaven?” The Voice said, “This is no place as you understand place.” Murray was embarrassed, but the next question had to be asked. “Pardon me if I sound like a jackass. Are you God?” Without changing intonation or in any way marring the perfection of the sound, the Voice managed to sound amused. “It is strange that I am always asked that in, of course, an infinite number of ways. There is no answer I can give that you would comprehend. I am – which is all that I can say significantly and you may cover that with any word or concept you please.” Murray said, “And what am I? A soul? Or am I only personified existence too?” He tried not to sound sarcastic, but it seemed to him that he had failed. He thought then, fleetingly, of adding a ‘Your Grace’ or ‘Holy One’ or something to counteract the sarcasm, and could not bring himself to do so even though for the first time in his existence he speculated on the possibility of being punished for his insolence – or sin? – with Hell, and what that might be like. The Voice did not sound offended. “You are easy to explain – even to you. You may call yourself a soul if that pleases you, but what you are is a nexus of electromagnetic forces, so arranged that all the interconnections and interrelationships are exactly imitative of those of your brain in your Universe-existence – down to the smallest detail. Therefore you have your capacity for thought, your memories, your personality. It still seems to you that you are you.” Murray found himself incredulous. “You mean the essence of my brain was permanent?” “Not at all. There is nothing about you that is permanent except what I choose to make so. I formed the nexus. I constructed it while you had physical existence and adjusted it to the moment when the existence failed.” The Voice seemed distinctly pleased with itself, and went on after a moment’s pause. “An intricate but entirely precise construction. I could, of course, do it for every human being on your world but I am pleased that I do not. There is pleasure in the selection.” “You choose very few then?” “Very few.” “And what happens to the rest?” “Oblivion! – Oh, of course, you imagine a Hell.” Murray would have flushed if he had the capacity to do so. He said, “I do not. It is spoken of. Still, I would scarcely have thought I was virtuous enough to have attracted your attention as one of the Elect.” “Virtuous? – Ah, I see what you mean. It is troublesome to have to force my thinking small enough to permeate yours. No, I have chosen you for your capacity for thought, as I choose others, in quadrillions, from all the intelligent species of the Universe.” Murray found himself suddenly curious, the habit of a lifetime. He said, “Do you choose them all yourself or are there others like you?” For a fleeting moment, Murray thought there was an impatient reaction to that, but when the Voice came, it was unmoved. “Whether or not there are others is irrelevant to you. This Universe is mine, and mine alone. It is my invention, my construction, intended for my purpose alone.” “And yet with quadrillions of nexi you have formed, you spend time with me? Am I that important?” The Voice said, “You are not important at all. I am also with others in a way which, to your perception, would seem simultaneous.” “And yet you are one?” Again amusement. The Voice said, “You seek to trap me into an inconsistency. If you were an amoeba who could consider individuality only in connection with single cells and if you were to ask a sperm whale, made up of thirty quadrillion cells, whether it was one or many, how could the sperm whale answer in a way that would be comprehensible to the amoeba?” Murray said dryly, “I’ll think about it. It may become comprehensible.” “Exactly. That is your function. You will think.” “To what end? You already know everything, I suppose.”

WC3w6pXxgGd 7y ago

tl;dr?