Reversible death will freak the shit out of Christians

What exactly is death?

The answer is complicated, suggests neuroscientist Christof Koch. In “Is Death Reversible?” a feature article in the most recent issue of Scientific American, Koch grapples with a death definition that is much more nuanced than you might think.


 

New research makes it harder to define death

It sort of creeps me out too, but not in the same way as Xians. If doctors or anyone doing CPR don’t bring one back before brain damage sets in, it might not be worth it. After a certain amount of time without air, one ends up with brain damage. One of the links mentions a stroke. Even with a stroke, parts of the brain get cut off from oxygen (or drowns so to speak either from a clot or a brain bleed) and if one doesn’t get whatever the med is to stop it, within a window of time (I think 3 hours) damage sets in and could be permanent damage. A stroke alone is enough to cause brain damage, without actual death. I don’t know about “reversible death”, but in that respect, the neurological and cellular damage, creeps me out, even scares me into questioning this stuff. However, unlike Xians, if I’m given enough info about it, I could change my mind and even get rid of my own fear of this topic.

Koch is referring to a series of surprising experiments in which scientists managed to restore some function in the brains of pigs that had been dead for hours. The research, which was published this April in the journal Nature, sparked intense ethical and scientific debate. It seems to point to death as a process, not an event, and raises the possibility that one day scientists will be able to completely revive a dead brain.
Oh, lordie, we do love extrapolating out to absurdom. Guess it's my turn to point out that this title is hyperbole.

What the study claims in the last sentence of their Abstract:

... These findings demonstrate that under appropriate conditions the isolated, intact large mammalian brain possesses an underappreciated capacity for restoration of microcirculation and molecular and cellular activity after a prolonged post-mortem interval.
Reading a few article about it, seems to me this has more to tell us about the tenacity of life and evolution.

You know how environment is everything to an organism.

So here we have a mega organism that has died,

but a small portion of that organism suddenly found itself in a perfect environment with the perfect nutrients to enable portion of that mega organism to discard its connect to the rest of the organism and continue as something new and different,

until the environmental conditions were no longer capable of providing what it needed and then it too died.

 

I’ll get exciting when they discuss that aspect - way the heck before getting lost in notions of, oh does this mean we can bring the pig back to life, and other such sci fi fun.

 

Wish I had more time to read more and play with this, fascinating stuff. But gotta run. the guns are pointed at me,.

 

Christians already (supposedly) believe in reversible death, i.e., Lazarus, Jesus, all the dead Christians who will be risen from their graves when Jesus returns in the end times. They probably won’t be impressed by the resurrections of a few pig brain cells.

Okay, first off I wrote the above under a misapprehension - In my rushed reading, somewhere I got the impression that part of the brain was isolated and it was that which was kept alive. Nope, it was the entire brain. Takes all the steam out of my cool evolutionary perspective take on it.

Still, what was reversed?

The decay of the organism was delayed 4hr, then it was infused with circulating super juice, then some biological/physiological functions were restored on a cellular level, not to the entire organism. What’s really fascinating is the reporting which reflects the only aspect of this that gets people excite. Taking a hint of research and extrapolating potential utopias.

Though it really is an amazing demonstration of how well scientists have come to understand human physiology, and the plumbing that keeps it going. And from the various articles I’ve read this afternoon, seems to me that’s really where this research is going and benefiting, the better preservation of organs after death, using the knowledge for better transpiration and reintroduction into recipient bodies during translate and such …


Pig brains kept alive outside body for hours after death

Hear more about this research on the Nature Podcast : https://www.nature.com/magazine-assets/d41586-019-01216-4/d41586-019-01216-4_16665188.mpga

4:30: “At the cellular level these brains are very close to being alive, But if we consider life of the brain as the expression of the functionality of the brain, then they are very, very far from being alive.”

5:30 - The give IF we can conceive of reversing the damage caused by oxygen deprivation …

———-

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-01216-4

Sara Reardon, APRIL 17, 2019

Revival of disembodied organs raises slew of ethical and legal questions about the nature of death and consciousness.

Details of the pig-brain experiments appear in a paper1 published on 17 April in Nature (full article is pay for view). Researchers at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut, hooked the organs to a system that pumped in a blood substitute. The technique restored some crucial functions, such as the ability of cells to produce energy and remove waste, and helped to maintain the brains’ internal structures. …

… Sestan, whose team has used its technique to keep pig brains alive for up to 36 hours, has no immediate plans to try to restore electrical activity in a disembodied organ. Instead, his priority is to find out how long his team can maintain a brain’s metabolic and physiological functions outside the body. “It is conceivable we are just preventing the inevitable, and the brain won’t be able to recover,” Sestan says. “We just flew a few hundred metres, but can we really fly?” …


Disembodied pig brains revived: Your questions answered - Sara Reardon

April 22, 2019

<a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-01289-1">https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-01289-1</a>

From consciousness to cryonics, Nature’s news team answers reader questions about a remarkable piece of research.</blockquote>
&nbsp;

and harvesting …

Eek, I think I used the wrong conjugation of the verb “rise”. I think I should have said “raised” instead of “risen”. Sorry grammar police.

Wouldn’t it be horrible if some sketchy researchers brought your brain back to life enuf to engage your consciousness long after there is any hope of actual recovery?

 

Tim, you have a diabolical mind.

 

signed,

grammar outlaw,

or outlander, hmmm.

Back to the OP, I believe the award for the most outrageous title, in a field of many outrageous contenders, goes to Harvard University.

Pigs & Immortality: A Step Towards Reversing Death

MAY 9, 2019

HTTP://SITN.HMS.HARVARD.EDU/FLASH/2019/PIGS-IMMORTALITY-STEP-TOWARDS-REVERSING-DEATH

 


I had to leave a comment, we’ll see if it gets through moderation.

OCTOBER 14, 2019 AT 12:22 AM Your comment is awaiting moderation.

Wow, those closing sentences, what wonderful flights of science fiction. Rather removed from the study and the accomplishments, don’t you think? Take a close look at that study – there was nothing in there about bringing life back from the dead – biological functions were restored to some braincells, thanks to heroic efforts – that was suspended deterioration for a precious few short-lived hours – not any reversal of death.

https://www.nature.com/magazine-assets/d41586-019-01216-4/d41586-019-01216-4_16665188.mpga (a great listen!)
4:30: “At the cellular level these brains are very close to being alive. But if we consider life of the brain as the expression of the functionality of the brain, then they are very, very far from being alive.” —

Seems to me this study has more to tell us about evolution than about the human dream of immortality. Provide a proper environment and if prepared Life strives to happen.

At best this was the slowing of the death process of an organ – an incredible milestone with much to teach and help various other fields of science – but reversing death?

The Human Mindscape is capable of imagining way more than physical reality will allow.


This came from people at Harvard and folks wonder where my pissy attitude comes from    . . .

&nbsp;

oh yeah, those choice sentences:
<blockquote>Even so, these results do suggest that mammalian brains possess a previously unrealized potential for restoration of activity several hours after death and underscore the

importance of considering what a potential restoration of

<strong>global brain activity   </strong>

could mean for neuroscience, medicine, and life as a whole.

&nbsp;

Though it is still too early to claim that these results call into question the current distinction between life and death,

one cannot help but wonder if similar interventions in the coming years

could suggest that death may not be so final after all!

In considering such a possibility, it will be essential for neuroscientists, engineers, doctors, and lawmakers to carefully evaluate the ethical implications well in advance.</blockquote>

Sorry Tee, but I would like to challenge you to support this

New research makes it harder to define death
How do you figure that?

Most people think of death the way it is portrayed in movies and on television. In reality there is no discernible point of death. There is no moment where someone changes from being alive to being dead. It’s a process involving trillions upon trillions of individual living cells dying. Breathing can continue several minutes after death. Sporadic movement can occur several days after. In truth doctors have just picked points throughout history where they have said, “This means death” and they have picked better points as technology has advanced, making their call more accurate, but still fallible. I have heard stories of people waking up after being declared brain dead, though I have not verified that. It’s not like a machine where you just cut power. Death is a process, and a very creepy and confusing one at that.

I wonder if cremation is best after death. At least no one will be trying to make a zombie out of you.

I wonder if cremation is best after death. At least no one will be trying to make a zombie out of you.
I have no idea how to respond to that, but I really wanted to, so, I chuckled, I guess?

C’mon lefty, that was not SO bizarre of a thought, was it?

Most people think of death the way it is portrayed in movies and on television. In reality there is no discernible point of death. There is no moment where someone changes from being alive to being dead. It’s a process involving trillions upon trillions of individual living cells dying. Breathing can continue several minutes after death. Sporadic movement can occur several days after. In truth doctors have just picked points throughout history where they have said, “This means death” and they have picked better points as technology has advanced, making their call more accurate, but still fallible. I have heard stories of people waking up after being declared brain dead, though I have not verified that. It’s not like a machine where you just cut power. Death is a process, and a very creepy and confusing one at that.
Kind of, but “clinical death” — meaning no breathing or blood circulation — is accurate enough 99% of the time. Brain death will occur a few minutes after clinical death however that doesn’t mean there is necessarily a small window of opportunity to revive the patient. I think many people have misconceptions about how much medicine can really do.

I was considering donating my body to science, so it matters to me if someone will be trying to re-animate my brain. If they can make organs alive on a cellular level, it may just be one more step to re-ignite electrical neuro chemical functioning. (Although a supply of brains for sustenance may be necessary to maintain it.)

Haven’t you seen Frankenstein when the monster was re-animated by lightning? And that was in a movie of a time 50 years ago or more. Look at how much Science Fiction special effects have advanced in that time. Medicine shouldn’t be that much behind.

 

:wink:

@citizenschallengev3

Sorry Tee, but I would like to challenge you to support this

New research makes it harder to define death

How do you figure that?


I didn’t figure that. It was the headline of the article I posted:

 

@Timb

 

Christians already (supposedly) believe in reversible death, i.e., Lazarus, Jesus, all the dead Christians who will be risen from their graves when Jesus returns in the end times. They probably won’t be impressed by the resurrections of a few pig brain cells.
Well, yeah, but this would be human scientists doing it without needing God to be part of the process.

@Mriana

If doctors or anyone doing CPR don’t bring one back before brain damage sets in, it might not be worth it. After a certain amount of time without air, one ends up with brain damage.
This already terrifies me. They are taking this way too far IMHO