Researchers are keeping pig brains alive outside the body • Hacker News Board

Re: Researchers are keeping pig brains alive outside the body

#31

Post by dahdum » Thu, Dec 27, 2018, 6:32 AM UTC

khazhoux wrote: post #28

_8j50 wrote: post #17

This is too much. Uncrossable lines must be drawn immediately. Humanity cannot afford to "wing it" when it comes to ethics and morality at this scale. There needs to be clear lines where crossing means the highest criminal consequence to the researcher. And people funding it. And it needs to be a global effort. Everything needs a balance.

Why is this an uncrossable line, though? Clearly this research is meant to be a first/early step towards preserving brains in the event of traumatic bodily injury. Is that not a worthwhile goal? Is it outweighed by some possible nefarious abuse of this technique? There are obviously major issues to work out still, but I don't see how else this research can advance but with animal experiments.

I don’t see major issues either. If they can make this work it reasons maintaining the eyes may be possible, and perhaps some auditory nerve capability too.

I’d probably take the chance if faced with early death otherwise.

Re: Researchers are keeping pig brains alive outside the body

#32

Post by Santosh83 » Thu, Dec 27, 2018, 6:53 AM UTC

Experiments like these were done even decades back. Every time, there is some temporary indignation/outrage from some limited quarters and then the news dies down while such experiments continue behind closed doors. Only the much derided "animals rights" group keep up sustained focus but they're effectively isolated and ignored.

Perhaps society will do well to keep in mind that what we do to animals we will eventually do to each other too, when the circumstances and motives align just right. Such things have happened in the past and will happen again, unless we can find ways and means to elevate our collective ethics, checks and balances as a global species. Yet daily we shrink from confronting the really tough questions.

Re: Researchers are keeping pig brains alive outside the body

#33

Post by torgian » Thu, Dec 27, 2018, 7:05 AM UTC

Spoiler warning: I didn’t read the article (can’t access now due to vpn not working)

So from reading others comments and such: yeah, I understand the idea that the pigs could be comatose and not experiencing anything. From the science behind brains as we know it, that seems to be the case.

Personally, I don’t see anything wrong with this because, in the end, it will benefit humans. And we are more important than pigs.

Personally, I’d be all for human experiments as long as it was done correctly. This is why we do everything on animals first before human trials are even approved.

Give me, or my family enough money, and I’d be happen to be a brain in a bucket for a fixed period of time. Who knows what could happen. Maybe I’d be dead, maybe I’ll be in a waking dream, or maybe nothing at all. We don’t know.

Pig experiments may give us some insight to it. I hope so. Consciousness is one of those elusive things that we haven’t been able to pin down.

Who knows, we might even be able to Altered Carbon ourselves in the future, all thanks to pigs.

Re: Researchers are keeping pig brains alive outside the body

#34

Post by aerique » Thu, Dec 27, 2018, 7:29 AM UTC

khazhoux wrote: post #28

_8j50 wrote: post #17

This is too much. Uncrossable lines must be drawn immediately. Humanity cannot afford to "wing it" when it comes to ethics and morality at this scale. There needs to be clear lines where crossing means the highest criminal consequence to the researcher. And people funding it. And it needs to be a global effort. Everything needs a balance.

Why is this an uncrossable line, though? Clearly this research is meant to be a first/early step towards preserving brains in the event of traumatic bodily injury. Is that not a worthwhile goal? Is it outweighed by some possible nefarious abuse of this technique? There are obviously major issues to work out still, but I don't see how else this research can advance but with animal experiments.

This is all fun and games until Peter Thiel needs a new host for his brain.

disclaimer: I am not Peter Thiel

Re: Researchers are keeping pig brains alive outside the body

#35

Post by starbeast » Thu, Dec 27, 2018, 7:36 AM UTC

berbec wrote: post #8

The terrifying implications of this tech makes me shudder. Science fiction has beaten me to considering the potential for abuse. I'm picturing Hyperion meets Brainship with some Altered Carbon thrown in. It hurts my brain even to contemplate.

My mind went straight to Cold Lazarus, the sequel to Karaoke, by Dennis Potter. Reality Or Nothing! Poor fucking pig. I hope it stayed comatose and didn't dream. You can still feel pain from injuries in your dreams sometimes.

Re: Researchers are keeping pig brains alive outside the body

#36

Post by starbeast » Thu, Dec 27, 2018, 7:37 AM UTC

aerique wrote: post #34

khazhoux wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is this an uncrossable line, though? Clearly this research is meant to be a first/early step towards preserving brains in the event of traumatic bodily injury. Is that not a worthwhile goal? Is it outweighed by some possible nefarious abuse of this technique? There are obviously major issues to work out still, but I don't see how else this research can advance but with animal experiments.

This is all fun and games until Peter Thiel needs a new host for his brain. disclaimer: I am not Peter Thiel

Not yet you aren't.

Re: Researchers are keeping pig brains alive outside the body

#37

Post by logicallee » Thu, Dec 27, 2018, 7:51 AM UTC

__blockcipher__ wrote: post #6

That is genuinely horrifying. I seems people can stomach anything when you’re not experimenting on humans... A brain still a brain. If you don’t believe in a soul it seems logical to operate with the idea that as long as the brain has electrical waves propagating through it , it’s experiencing consciousness. waves resembling normal consciousness specifically

I don't get something. When modelled in software instead, I don't see why a simulating function couldn't use pseudorandom functions and inputs only (nothing truly random, no source of input), and, therefore, be deterministic. I don't see how it makes its results worse. But if it's deterministic, I'm having a hard time seeing how actually running it can have a moral side effect, or how that effect is worse depending on how many times you run it. Especially since there are further levels of silent optimizations (such as by the compiler, or in the CPU) based on the abstraction that the result is all we really care about. Would the calculation involved have a moral side effect at one level of abstraction, but not another? What if you cache intermediate results? Final results?

It is really hard to give pure deterministic calculation itself a moral component, yet it seems a simulation could in the end be just that.

Any solution to this problem?

Re: Researchers are keeping pig brains alive outside the body

#38

Post by trevyn » Thu, Dec 27, 2018, 7:56 AM UTC

yunyu wrote: post #7

leoh wrote: post #4

And what do we suppose they are experiencing? It may well be absolutely terrifying. Beyond the normal torture of factory farming.

Presumably nothing: "The EEG brain activity is a flat line, but a lot of other things keep on ticking"

If the EEG is flat, then presumably these brains aren’t doing anything useful where we would start deliberately keeping them in vats at scale.

Re: Researchers are keeping pig brains alive outside the body

#39

Post by trevyn » Thu, Dec 27, 2018, 8:01 AM UTC

decapitator wrote: post #24

jobigoud wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And yet is done everyday for food production.

Hey, can I keep your mind alive and disconnect it from your body, and just, you know, try stuff out, while you endure some kind of surreal waking nightmare, forever looking out from a terrarium with lidless eyes?

Maybe, tell me more. I’m running out of interesting experiences.

Re: Researchers are keeping pig brains alive outside the body

#40

Post by trevyn » Thu, Dec 27, 2018, 8:03 AM UTC

aerique wrote: post #34

khazhoux wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is this an uncrossable line, though? Clearly this research is meant to be a first/early step towards preserving brains in the event of traumatic bodily injury. Is that not a worthwhile goal? Is it outweighed by some possible nefarious abuse of this technique? There are obviously major issues to work out still, but I don't see how else this research can advance but with animal experiments.

This is all fun and games until Peter Thiel needs a new host for his brain. disclaimer: I am not Peter Thiel

I would be seriously disappointed if some of these people don’t have research projects running for this. You can get away with some crazy stuff once you leave US soil.