Pig brains partially revived four hours after death

It seemed pertinent to that line of thinking.

There's a fairly rich history of Western Christians who were serious scientists and also sincere believers in God who argued that belief is a matter of faith, God is not provable and there is zero contradiction between being both a Christian and a scientist.

I don't have some personal need to relitigate that point. I'm very aware that some people frame things in terms of religion and some don't.

I don't personally feel it is critically important to pick a camp in order to see the story this woman told as intriguing and potentially casting light upon or at least calling into question some of our current framing concerning brain death being the single most important detail.

I know it's a touchy subject for most people. Whether they believe in a soul and a religious/spiritual framing or not, they tend to feel strongly that the other camp is in the wrong and that this is a really big deal.

I generally agree with the conclusion that "being a believer" is a matter of faith. Some people believe. Some don't.

I believe in souls and reincarnation and so forth. My ex did not. Everyone swore that a marriage could not work if you didn't have the same belief system in that regard.

We both believed in the American Constitutional right of freedom to believe as you saw fit. It was the only thing we didn't fight about in two decades of non stop arguing.

Having different points of view in this matter had no bearing on the decision to divorce.

Death does. Pain and torture don't deprive you of your future. They are all about what you have to go through to get to that future, and possibly alter how you are physically and/or mentally in that future.

At an extreme end of the spectrum is complete brain death, but just before that might be extreme brain damage. Would you choose a reality in which you're so mentally diminished that your existence is comprised entirely of terror and confusion? Opting into that, even the possibility of that, especially since once you're in that state, you may no longer be capable of changing your mind?

Even for people that don't believe in the religious version of hell, some might consider this the closest equivalent. The question then becomes, would you subject yourself to the possibility of being in a hell equivalent for an indeterminate amount of time after your death to provide an indeterminate amount of benefit to science?

> If you are already dead, you do not have any future to lose

That assumption only works if you assume you can't be brought back, even as a brain in a jar. It doesn't make sense to use assumptions based on death being the ultimate end when reasoning about death not being the ultimate end.

> If you are already dead, you do not have any future to lose, and in that case if your torture can help others, the rational choice is to help.

By that reasoning, if there was a program where you could donate your body to science while you're still alive and they could do any tests they want, including live vivisection, would you do so? If not, why is that any different?

I think the same regarding the brain. My point is that we are discussing what if your donated brain is revived to the point of consciousness, but without a body, and perhaps without the experimenters realizing consciousness exists (or realizing it and not considering your consciousness worth the same consideration of a full person).

When reasoning about the possibility of that scenario, which is what this thread is about, I don't think it makes sense to use assumptions about death being the ultimate end, because this is specifically about the case where that is false, because you're a brain in jar with consciousness after death.

> No, because if i am still alive, i can do something more useful for me with my body

Not all live people have bodies that can be used. Not all people with useless bodies are useless. Also, this reasoning leads us to having no consideration for any living beings besides those that can communicate and be of use. Is it okay to torture animals for science, if there is a way to do so without causing pain? Should we not consider the case of a brain in a jar then, and whether it feels pain? It's your choice whether you want to subject yourself to the possibility of a tortured existence after death, but I would rather have some laws in place and information on what to expect (i.e. existing cases where we have reason to believe that the regarding the legal status of after death brain testing than going into the future blind.

There's a possibility of upsides (science advancement without torture, possibly life of a sort after death), but also the possibility of downsides (that life after death might be indefinite mental torture). It's not that I'm against donating my brain, it's that I'm against donating my brain given the minimal amount of information we have on outcomes, and how that relates to the extreme mngative worst case I can imagine.

The question is, if we map out a matrix of possibilities with outcomes of no science advancement, science advancement, second life on one axis, and no consciousness, consciousness but not you (amnesia), your consciousness but impaied, your consciousness close to your current capabilities on the other axis, some of those paired outcomes are what I would consider completely unacceptable, and others would be absolutely wonderful, and then there's various middling levels in between. The problem is there's no idea currently what the chances of any of those are, so am I willing to gamble a completely unacceptable outcome for the chance of a wonderful outcome given no odds?

That only follows if you think that about your life right now. If you think it's not a big deal right now, then it's not a big deal if you're a brain in a jar. If it is a big deal right now, then it is a big deal if you're a brain in a jar.

Pain is useful for living organisms as a variable to use in our fitness functions (minds) that allows us to avoid situations that decrease our survival rate. Ir may be mostly useless for a brain in a jar, but that doesn't necessarily mean it should be ignored.

One can make an argument that complete rationality should discard feelings and work only on whether something is useful or not. I think that argument is incorrect when taken to that extreme, as it looks at a shorter horizon than the evolutionary scale which has produced us, to good effect. I would argue that the social aspect of our species is what has allowed us to not only thrice, but completely dominate the environment we are in. To ignore our empathy is to ignore what has brought us to this point.

We can say that a brain in a jar in pain should not be catered to because it has nothing to provide (which also might be incorrect), but by that reasoning we should also say that the person in hospice with weeks or months left to life with no relatives should not be catered to. Should we cause pain to or end the existence of each of those without any regard to their own feelings? We could just as easily use the person in hospice for testing. Amazing scientific discoveries could be unearthed.

But if we agree that emotion has played a positive role in the development of the species, then "hellish" things and the avoidance of them is not pointless computation.

> But until that the choices we have here are nothingness and an experiment with unknown outcome. Given this choice i don't see any experiment that is worse than the nothingness.

Given the known outcome of coming back after death for an existence of even known time, say one week, where that time comprised of pain and suffering exclusively, I would opt to not have that time, thus opting for nothingness. Given an outcome I would not choose, and an outcome I would choose, it them becomes an equation of what is the likelihood of each, and how much to I want or want to avoid each.

Given that the possible negative outcome is as close to the biblical interpretation of hell as I can imagine, and one of the benefits of being an atheist is not having to worry about that, I'm not in a hurry to opt into something that then provides that possibility. That's what I was getting at before.