7 ms·

Heslington Brain

114 points by Hooke 3y ago

trfzx 3y ago
"Jim cleaned it up and recorded it but had a dentist's appointment that afternoon (for a filling) [...]" Sometimes Wikipedia really tries to relay all of the most important information.
- notahacker 3y ago
  I enjoyed "The precise mechanism by which the Heslington brain was preserved is unclear, however; in a bid to shed light on this question, researchers buried a number of pigs' heads in and around the campus to see what happened to them[needs update].[7]" ...and am looking forward to an update in which we learn the name and then age of the undergraduates that dug them up and what pranks they played with them.
  - tetris11 3y ago
    Jeremy Bentham's Head comes to mind: https://web.archive.org/web/20101112065654/http://www.ucl.ac.uk/Bentham-Project/who/autoicon https://web.archive.org/web/20101112065654/http://www.ucl.ac...
  - nerdponx 3y ago
    The writing style is surprisingly enjoyable in several history-related articles. I really appreciate the effort some contributors seem to put into not only the research but also the actual writing. I've definitely found myself reading a big article top-to-bottom like it's a magazine article.
- speed_spread 3y ago
  And I'm interested in understanding the subtle difference between "human sacrifice" and "ritual murder".
  - v7n 3y ago
    I would guess that a sacrifice is made to please some Other with powers mere mortals don't possess, like a deity or a spirit, and a ritual would be a more general term for a spiritual tradition without necessarily pleading to a higher power. But what do I know.
  - defrost 3y ago
    I'm pretty sure in a Venn diagram the "ritual killing" circle would include human sacrifices. Ritual killings have elements not related to the act of killing, serial ritual killings demonstrate a repeated pattern of ritual .. it's killing with obsessive complusive and|or psycho sexual flourishes.
  - thih9 3y ago
    It's like rectangles and squares. Ritual murder = we kill because it's our custom; e.g. captured warriors could get killed to celebrate victory. Human sacrifice (a form of ritual murder) = we make an offering and we expect certain rewards. E.g. we sacrifice 100 citizens because we believe we need to meet a quota and otherwise the sun won't go up.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
Vt71fcAqt7 3y ago
As long as we are sharing brains: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boltzmann_brain https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boltzmann_brain
- throwuxiytayq 3y ago
  That's a good one. Sadly, I have nothing to share.
- 2devnull 3y ago
  https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spock%27s_Brain https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spock%27s_Brain
  - freilanzer 3y ago
    > Widely regarded as the worst episode of the series
    - hotnfresh 3y ago
      It might be the worst in all of Trek, not just the original series. Which is really saying something. Yes, even worse than the series finale of Enterprise. It's Star Wars Holiday Special levels of torture to watch—but, mercifully, much shorter. Cat's Paw (another TOS episode) is also in the running.
- T-A 3y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broca%27s_Brain https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broca%27s_Brain
xwdv 3y ago
I have fantasies about extracting data out of this brain and recreating this man as a simulation. Could it somehow be possible?
- chankstein38 3y ago
  That would be incredible. My intuition is that at this point it's probably so degraded that's not possible since the neurons would have shrunk along with the rest of the brain and are likely so thin and brittle they aren't reliable anymore. That said, I'm just a developer sitting here at my desk not a brain scientist so that's probably not a very useful guess lol
  - yreg 3y ago
    We would already need Clarketech to revive any dead brain. If we are entertaining theoretically possible future tech: Provided there are enough neurons and it would be possible to reconstruct their connections, we could scan them, create a custom built model for the rest of the brain (the part that is missing/unrecoverable), plug it in and simulate it. Consciousness debate aside, we might be able to recover some memories from it and talk to it. But my guess is that all the data is lost already.
- PaulHoule 3y ago
  It would make a good story. I imagine if someone did pull that one off they'd have to blend in data from other people and maybe even what they knew historically about the time to make up for information that is degraded and lost. Some of the better sci-fi books that have ressurection as a theme are https://www.amazon.com/gods-foxcroft-David-Levy/dp/B000GR593U https://www.amazon.com/gods-foxcroft-David-Levy/dp/B000GR593... and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accelerando https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accelerando
  - jbaber 3y ago
    I second Accelerando, especially for its weirdness. As the blurb on the front cover says, it's "a bit flawed and a lot of fun".
Mistletoe 3y ago
Why does every find like this always seem to imply human sacrifice and ritual killings? Isn’t it more likely it was just some person that was executed and his head was thrown in a pit? I don’t consider the presence of a deer’s body and some antlers in another pit that compelling.
- sgt101 3y ago
  If it's an execution why hang and decapitate? Also, why the careful removal of the head from the body? Executed folks don't tend to get treated carefully, whereas sacrifice and ritual needs to be done just right - or how can you expect it to work? In particular if it doesn't work (when?) then who is going to get the blame - best do it really carefully !
  - bonton89 3y ago
    Maybe they thought he was a vampire.
  - retrac 3y ago
    > Also, why the careful removal of the head from the body? Both public display of an executed person, and mutilation of the corpse, have a history in several cultures. For example, in the case of the Ancient Egyptians, integrity of the body was important even after death. Destroying the remains of a person was highly symbolic, a kind of erasing them in the afterlife as well. Much more recently, the early modern English often performed executions in public, with disfigurement either during or after the execution. In the most important cases - traitors and such - they carefully removed the heads, gave them a preservative treatment, and put them on a spike for public display. They actually dug up Oliver Cromwell after he had been buried, just so they could mutilate his corpse. The early modern Chinese also did things like that. Probably other cultures too. I guess my point is that a great deal of care might have gone into the spectacle of a public execution.
    - natechols 3y ago
      A public execution is ritual human sacrifice, the only difference is the label that Western cultures apply to it.
Whooping7116 3y ago
s
Whooping7116 3y ago
I hope they can revive it somehow and we can get a glimpse of what the history might look like from the eyes of someone who experienced it first hand. Interesting stuff.
jefurii 3y ago
Can we please add to the title that the linked page has a large picture of a human brain? I made the mistake of clicking on this thinking it was about a psychological or neurological phenomenon but nope.
- 0xfedbee 3y ago
  LOL how do you survive internet in general?
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]

114 points by Hooke 3y ago

"Jim cleaned it up and recorded it but had a dentist's appointment that afternoon (for a filling) [...]" Sometimes Wikipedia really tries to relay all of the most important information.

notahacker 3y ago
I enjoyed "The precise mechanism by which the Heslington brain was preserved is unclear, however; in a bid to shed light on this question, researchers buried a number of pigs' heads in and around the campus to see what happened to them[needs update].[7]" ...and am looking forward to an update in which we learn the name and then age of the undergraduates that dug them up and what pranks they played with them.
- tetris11 3y ago
  Jeremy Bentham's Head comes to mind: https://web.archive.org/web/20101112065654/http://www.ucl.ac.uk/Bentham-Project/who/autoicon https://web.archive.org/web/20101112065654/http://www.ucl.ac...
- nerdponx 3y ago
  The writing style is surprisingly enjoyable in several history-related articles. I really appreciate the effort some contributors seem to put into not only the research but also the actual writing. I've definitely found myself reading a big article top-to-bottom like it's a magazine article.
speed_spread 3y ago
And I'm interested in understanding the subtle difference between "human sacrifice" and "ritual murder".
- v7n 3y ago
  I would guess that a sacrifice is made to please some Other with powers mere mortals don't possess, like a deity or a spirit, and a ritual would be a more general term for a spiritual tradition without necessarily pleading to a higher power. But what do I know.
- defrost 3y ago
  I'm pretty sure in a Venn diagram the "ritual killing" circle would include human sacrifices. Ritual killings have elements not related to the act of killing, serial ritual killings demonstrate a repeated pattern of ritual .. it's killing with obsessive complusive and|or psycho sexual flourishes.
- thih9 3y ago
  It's like rectangles and squares. Ritual murder = we kill because it's our custom; e.g. captured warriors could get killed to celebrate victory. Human sacrifice (a form of ritual murder) = we make an offering and we expect certain rewards. E.g. we sacrifice 100 citizens because we believe we need to meet a quota and otherwise the sun won't go up.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]

Vt71fcAqt7 3y ago

As long as we are sharing brains: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boltzmann_brain https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boltzmann_brain

throwuxiytayq 3y ago
That's a good one. Sadly, I have nothing to share.
2devnull 3y ago
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spock%27s_Brain https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spock%27s_Brain
- freilanzer 3y ago
  > Widely regarded as the worst episode of the series
  - hotnfresh 3y ago
    It might be the worst in all of Trek, not just the original series. Which is really saying something. Yes, even worse than the series finale of Enterprise. It's Star Wars Holiday Special levels of torture to watch—but, mercifully, much shorter. Cat's Paw (another TOS episode) is also in the running.
T-A 3y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broca%27s_Brain https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broca%27s_Brain

xwdv 3y ago

I have fantasies about extracting data out of this brain and recreating this man as a simulation. Could it somehow be possible?

chankstein38 3y ago
That would be incredible. My intuition is that at this point it's probably so degraded that's not possible since the neurons would have shrunk along with the rest of the brain and are likely so thin and brittle they aren't reliable anymore. That said, I'm just a developer sitting here at my desk not a brain scientist so that's probably not a very useful guess lol
- yreg 3y ago
  We would already need Clarketech to revive any dead brain. If we are entertaining theoretically possible future tech: Provided there are enough neurons and it would be possible to reconstruct their connections, we could scan them, create a custom built model for the rest of the brain (the part that is missing/unrecoverable), plug it in and simulate it. Consciousness debate aside, we might be able to recover some memories from it and talk to it. But my guess is that all the data is lost already.
PaulHoule 3y ago
It would make a good story. I imagine if someone did pull that one off they'd have to blend in data from other people and maybe even what they knew historically about the time to make up for information that is degraded and lost. Some of the better sci-fi books that have ressurection as a theme are https://www.amazon.com/gods-foxcroft-David-Levy/dp/B000GR593U https://www.amazon.com/gods-foxcroft-David-Levy/dp/B000GR593... and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accelerando https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accelerando
- jbaber 3y ago
  I second Accelerando, especially for its weirdness. As the blurb on the front cover says, it's "a bit flawed and a lot of fun".

Mistletoe 3y ago

Why does every find like this always seem to imply human sacrifice and ritual killings? Isn’t it more likely it was just some person that was executed and his head was thrown in a pit? I don’t consider the presence of a deer’s body and some antlers in another pit that compelling.

sgt101 3y ago
If it's an execution why hang and decapitate? Also, why the careful removal of the head from the body? Executed folks don't tend to get treated carefully, whereas sacrifice and ritual needs to be done just right - or how can you expect it to work? In particular if it doesn't work (when?) then who is going to get the blame - best do it really carefully !
- bonton89 3y ago
  Maybe they thought he was a vampire.
- retrac 3y ago
  > Also, why the careful removal of the head from the body? Both public display of an executed person, and mutilation of the corpse, have a history in several cultures. For example, in the case of the Ancient Egyptians, integrity of the body was important even after death. Destroying the remains of a person was highly symbolic, a kind of erasing them in the afterlife as well. Much more recently, the early modern English often performed executions in public, with disfigurement either during or after the execution. In the most important cases - traitors and such - they carefully removed the heads, gave them a preservative treatment, and put them on a spike for public display. They actually dug up Oliver Cromwell after he had been buried, just so they could mutilate his corpse. The early modern Chinese also did things like that. Probably other cultures too. I guess my point is that a great deal of care might have gone into the spectacle of a public execution.
  - natechols 3y ago
    A public execution is ritual human sacrifice, the only difference is the label that Western cultures apply to it.

Whooping7116 3y ago

I hope they can revive it somehow and we can get a glimpse of what the history might look like from the eyes of someone who experienced it first hand. Interesting stuff.

jefurii 3y ago

Can we please add to the title that the linked page has a large picture of a human brain? I made the mistake of clicking on this thinking it was about a psychological or neurological phenomenon but nope.

0xfedbee 3y ago
LOL how do you survive internet in general?
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]