Neuroscientists have recorded the activity of a dying human brain • Hacker News Board

Re: Neuroscientists have recorded the activity of a dying human brain

#151

Post by nefitty » Tue, Feb 22, 2022, 11:08 PM UTC

ASalazarMX wrote: post #145

nefitty wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a big factor in my insomnia. Not necessarily the fear that I'll die in my sleep (God willing, that's my preference in old age) but the realization that every night, I'm getting a little more and more acquainted with oblivion. Knowing that you and everyone else here is in the same boat helps a lot. Maybe it's trite, and silly, but the phrase "We're all in this together" brings me a little bit of comfort, a tin…

As an ex-catholic, all I can say is: if your kids grow up with enough common sense and pragmatism, they might resent the early indoctrination. Their brains have not matured enough to develop common sense until their teens, and everything the adults say will be taken as absolute truth. The humane thing would be raising them atheist, explain about agnosticism and religion, and accept their choice. All the rituals can b…

Hey that's an amazing point. Thank you for mentioning it.

I definitely value freedom of thought above ritual. That's an aspect of the decision I had set aside as a conceit in order to allow myself to entertain it at all. I too was raised (loosely) Catholic, and a lot of my initial pain around morality and life stemmed from my literal interpretation of those teachings.

I hope that some sort of ongoing comparative discussion of religion and the purpose it can serve would help a child make their own best conclusions. The way I've been thinking of it at the moment is, the tension at the heart of this, is "Would 'depriving' someone of those rituals be more harmful than helpful?" I'm leaning toward it being negligible, but exposing them to ritual might bring an individual closer to a healthy path of spirituality on their own terms. I would definitely keep the aspect of autonomy front and center if I did introduce my child to religion. "They talked about Jesus today. Do you want to sit with me and find out what other people think of him?"

Re: Neuroscientists have recorded the activity of a dying human brain

#152

Post by progman32 » Tue, Feb 22, 2022, 11:12 PM UTC

mLuby wrote: post #77

progman32 wrote: post #62

> “Through generating oscillations involved in memory retrieval, the brain may be playing a last recall of important life events just before we die, similar to the ones reported in near-death experiences,” Zemmar speculated. I wonder what the adaptive benefits of near-death flashbacks are. Perhaps as a way to give last-ditch motivation. We have plenty of accounts of what it's like to have a heart stop. Thank defibril…

It doesn't have to have adaptive benefits. The critical path is molded by natural selection but the rest grows wild, mutating as it pleases until it either helps or hinders gene replication. For example, if humans exploded like a bomb when we died the way some insects do to protect their colony, that might be selected for or against by evolution. Or if somehow eating the deceased's heart or brain actually transferred…

True! That was my initial thought too. I'm trying to find a possible adaptive benefit to flashbacks in near death (not actual death, but how would the body know the difference, really), but there may be none. Hard to say. I've certainly heard stories of people "cleaning up" and improving their lives in some way post-flashback, but who's to say the flashback was part of the cause.

Re: Neuroscientists have recorded the activity of a dying human brain

#153

Post by nefitty » Tue, Feb 22, 2022, 11:13 PM UTC

progman32 wrote: post #150

nefitty wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll dare to be presumptuous and share what has helped me the most, above Buddhist studies, psychoactives, meditation, yoga, journaling: just removing the idea of mortality from my brain. "Thanks I'm cured", right? I didn't believe it would help when I first learned the technique. I heard it from a researcher who studied death anxiety in Tibetan Buddhists. He found that their culture makes it an overwhelming priority…

I'll have to try that. Today I get a lot of positive motivation from reminding myself I have limited time and to get on with achieving what I want to achieve, but life's to short to get stuck in cycles (I'm aware of the irony).

It's super hard. I am so empathetic to what you're telling me. From the bits I've learned of you through this convo, you seem self-aware and intelligent. With those tools, I am confident you will always have equanimity near.

Re: Neuroscientists have recorded the activity of a dying human brain

#154

Post by User23 » Tue, Feb 22, 2022, 11:13 PM UTC

hutzlibu wrote: post #136

DanHulton wrote: post #51

There's an awful lot of uncritical supposition in this article. Sure, the brain MAY be recalling all the best moments of your life before you die, but there's zero evidence that that's what those recordings mean, aside from whimsy and hopefulness. It could just as easily be near-random memory access, similar to when we dream, and that, to me, sounds a lot more likely. I know I'm the big grumpy curmudgeon here, but I…

"It could just as easily be near-random memory access, similar to when we dream" Is it established that dreaming is near-random memory access? I thought the whole process of dreaming is quite far from being understood, so wouldn't it be a stretch to call it near-random, when in reality there might be pattern, but just one we do not understand yet?

Dreams are deeply weird and interesting. I was really disappointed when I took psychology that the dogma was they’re just synaptic static that maybe has something to do with long term memory formation.

I’ve had deeply odd dreams, where I’ve been told things I have no way of knowing. I’ve also had dreams where I’m near certain I was communicating with a being that was not merely a figment of my imagination. I’ve had many lucid dreams. Once I had a dream that was so lucid it felt more real than being awake. Either there is something unknown going on or I have perfect recall and am factorially more creative when asleep than awake.

I’m well aware of the standard explanation for these phenomena and its sometimes only barely plausible.

Re: Neuroscientists have recorded the activity of a dying human brain

#155

Post by qwertywert_ » Tue, Feb 22, 2022, 11:14 PM UTC

DonCarlitos wrote: post #8

This corresponds with what I've read previously about brain activity following clinical death. What appears to be the case is that the brain continues to work for a period after the heart stops and a last breath is taken. So what that might mean is that if one is with a person who has just died, a relative or friend, there is still a moment, just a moment, to say good bye and I love you. And it is comforting to know…

I though everyone knew this? The brain wouldn't just immediately stop working because a heart stopped pumping, there would be some sort of delay effect there.

Re: Neuroscientists have recorded the activity of a dying human brain

#156

Post by kowlo » Tue, Feb 22, 2022, 11:20 PM UTC

ASalazarMX wrote: post #144

kowlo wrote: post #31

I dread that it might be like my usual (nightly) sleep paralysis, except it will be the one time I don't wake up...

I've had sleep paralysis a few times in my life. The last time was 15 years ago, and it felt like something I could get used to now that I know what it is. It was a really interesting sensory hallucination. Am I crazy, or is it something you can get used to, like practicing lucid dreams?

I'm sure everyone has their own experience... for me, it means I rarely get a good night's sleep. A typical night for me is falling into sleep paralysis 4 times before finally dozing off. A typical morning for me is waking into sleep paralysis and being exhausted and stressed, ready to tackle a new day... I also have issues with my nose, I can't breathe through it... so sleep paralysis is a little extra suffocating for me. If I could breath properly it might not be so bad...

The hallucinations were only terrifying as a kid, worse as I didn't know what sleep paralysis was for the first 10 years of having it, and no one would believe it wasn't "just a dream". The hallucinations are terrifying again now that I have a kid of my own, only when they are part of it...

Worse than the hallucinations are when my ears start buzzing... it's so loud - it hurts.

I used to say, in jest, that it will kill me in my sleep (except I'll be awake and suffering) when I'm elderly. As I'm getting older, it seems like a likely outcome.

"Goodnight"

Re: Neuroscientists have recorded the activity of a dying human brain

#157

Post by q845712 » Tue, Feb 22, 2022, 11:20 PM UTC

jvanderbot wrote: post #128

KineticLensman wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the brain continues to work for a period after the heart stops I had a sudden cardiac arrest (Ventricular Fibrillation). I felt dizzy and oriented for a few seconds (5?) after my heart stopped pumping blood and then I passed out. There was no life-flashing-before-my-eyes, no tunnels of light, just sudden dizziness and disorientation and then nothing. The next thing I remember was coming round in hospital.

Right. I used to box and I'm now painfully aware of the fragility of consciousness. If you get hit right, the ~0.25-0.5 seconds prior and after to that hit do not exist for you. They are gone. You'll never know how you were hit or what you were doing, your eyes will just change instantly from "looking ahead" to "looking to the side/up" and you'll have to adjust very quickly to this new reality, despite the fact that…

small memory gaps after head trauma are relatively well documented - I'm recalling from ~15 years ago, but iirc the belief is that while the person is conscious at the time (before the head trauma) there's a disruption of the storage processes and those moments are forgotten. And then similarly, following a head trauma it takes a while for normal processing & storage to return. However, there's still some kind of conscious experience happening during those times. So there's a more philosophical question of like, "if you comfort someone and they forget it, was there any value in the comfort you provided?" but i felt like the paper was trying to argue, "yes" -- per the gp

> there is still a moment, just a moment, to say good bye and I love you

and why not? Maybe sometimes there is. and maybe the value of that is more for the living than the dead, but imo the point was that there's an argument they can still hear you. Will they remember it later? That's kind of a non-sequitor question if they're in the midst of dying.

Re: Neuroscientists have recorded the activity of a dying human brain

#158

Post by bumby » Tue, Feb 22, 2022, 11:38 PM UTC

ASalazarMX wrote: post #139

bumby wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe Chalmers perspective is that consciousness is fundamental and irreducible. To relate it to your example, he says "Nobody tries to explain, say space or time in terms of something more basic than space or time. It's the same as mass or charge. They end up taking something as fundamental"[1] In contrast, the easy problem IS trying to explain consciousness in terms of something more fundamental, like charges o…

They suggest consciousness is fundamental and irreducible? This is like saying "where the car goes when you take all its pieces away?". Occam's razor suggests that the material (easier) explanation is much more likely to be the answer than any complex one. It's not even a good question unless they first prove consciousness can exist outside its physical support, AKA the immortal soul.

>the immortal soul.

This is a different argument. It's not necessarily saying consciousness is distinct from matter. The panpsychist view (not sure if Chalmers is in this camp) is that consciousness is a fundamental property to all matter, from photons to the human brain. (This isn't to say a photon has experiences as a human does, but rather the complex human consciousness is derived from a much simpler forms of consciousness).

This is different from saying ""where the car goes when you take all its pieces away?". This assumes consciousness is an emergent property, rather than a fundamental one. The "car" is emergent from the right arrangement of "car parts". Rather, the question "where is the mass/charge of the car when you take away all its pieces" is a better analogy, because the car mass/charge is derived from the mass of the car part's mass/charge.

Re: Neuroscientists have recorded the activity of a dying human brain

#159

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Feb 22, 2022, 11:39 PM UTC

DanHulton wrote: post #51

There's an awful lot of uncritical supposition in this article. Sure, the brain MAY be recalling all the best moments of your life before you die, but there's zero evidence that that's what those recordings mean, aside from whimsy and hopefulness. It could just as easily be near-random memory access, similar to when we dream, and that, to me, sounds a lot more likely. I know I'm the big grumpy curmudgeon here, but I…

[deleted]

Re: Neuroscientists have recorded the activity of a dying human brain

#160

Post by Andrew_nenakhov » Tue, Feb 22, 2022, 11:46 PM UTC

bumby wrote: post #69

Andrew_nenakhov wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not too likely. Did you ever experience a moment subjectivity stretched a thousand years? If no, why do you think there is a special mechanics for the event of system shutdown? If anything, any sensation or thought requires energy. Experiencing 1000x or 100000x more sensations in the same space of time takes 1000x/100000x amount of energy, and it's not like your dying organism has hidden last reservoir of energy to p…

I think the distinction is the subjective perception that time has stretched out a thousand years. It's not that time has literally dilated, just that our "normal" perception of time has changed. Perceived time dilation occurs under certain drugs (to include those endogenous to the human body) and the OP thought has been something that has occurred to me (and others) as well. IIRC, the movie American Beauty suggests…

Subjective perception still requires energy to percept. Thus, to perceive time dilation your brain needs more energy to process it, but there is no a source of such energy.