Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Neuroscientists have recorded the activity of a dying human brain

blog.frontiersin.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

101–110 of 197 posts

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

#101

Post by agumonkey »

schodi wrote: post #22

I have that inner emotion, when thinking about death. It makes me very uneasy. When We die, if there is nothing coming, how is it to not exist? I mean, what is it like? Pure black and emptyness? I then comfort myself into thinking, in the end it comes down to energy. Like being part of that endless stream of energy that became matter and probably will return to energy somewhere in infinty. Or do we maybe just restart…

To me that feeling is both our survival instinct projecting, and our social/bonding self that anticipates the pain of others, something most people dread dearly.

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

#102

Post by Koshkin »

wrycoder wrote: post #50
ipnon wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everyone has been dead before: Do you have any trepidations about the times before you were born? It's trite to say this, yes, but it gives some comfort to know we are born with the experience of not being alive. Of course Your Metaphysics may apply.

Can I ask you something? How come the Russians never smile? I’ve never seen them smiling.” “They’re at work. They're Russians.” "Is it normal for them to eat without talking to one another?” “This is their job. They get 20 minutes to eat.” “Yeah, but they never smile. Are they happy?” Are the Russians happy? Is anyone happy? Can one ever truly be said to be happy? I am tempted to go full Slav on Conor, to explain to…

> to eat without talking to one another

In Russian culture eating is a process not to be distracted from. Historically, this could be seen as a sign of respect on the part of a poor peasant for the food and all the hard labor that went into producing it.

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

#103

Post by agumonkey »

amatecha wrote: post #86
ipnon wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everyone has been dead before: Do you have any trepidations about the times before you were born? It's trite to say this, yes, but it gives some comfort to know we are born with the experience of not being alive. Of course Your Metaphysics may apply.

Yeah, personally, I feel tons of anxiety about the effectively-infinite void of time before my existence, and that which will come after it. They are the same to me. Even though physically we are "born", I find it really upsetting that our experience and sense of selves is just an emergent organic process, a millisecond of a dream padded by infinite nothingness.

I think some culture deep sense of tradition is a way to cope. You inherit the past, you give it to your kids. It's no more a void on both ends if you carry the past along. Does it make sense?

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

#104

Post by nefitty »

jamcohen wrote: post #55
nefitty wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm rewatching Midnight Mass on Netflix with my wife. They have some very powerful monologues on death. This is one that occurred to me just now, when two characters are discussing what they believe happens after death: "When I die, my body stops functioning. Five minutes later, my brain cells start dying. But in the meantime, in between, maybe my brain releases a flood of DMT – the psychedelic drug released when we…

I also find comfort in the idea of becoming food after we die. I remember reading somewhere how a beached whale in the arctic can be a life-saving windfall for the scavengers there. Helped me see the positive in something I’d always seen as purely tragic.

Same here. It's helpful insofar as any story can be helpful in the face of what we have to go through.

Interestingly enough, although my wife shares the same beliefs as me in terms of religion and God, the stories that resonate most with her from that show were the evocative ones about God and heaven. She told me that the science-based ones barely register to her at all, and almost not at all on an emotional level. As I heard the other character describe her idea of heaven, I too feel the pull of those descriptions. There's a part of me that agrees with the character when he says, after listening to her speech, wiping away tears, "I really hope you're right."

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

#105

Post by bumby »

root_axis wrote: post #87
bumby wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think maybe the OP was referring to Chalmers hard question about consciousness. What you are talking about is closer to the "easy" question regarding understanding the of the neurological mechanisms but that's distinct from the "what is it like" subjective mechanisms. The hard question is hard, in part, because we don't (yet, at least) have a way to measure the way subjective experience emerges, so we don't have a…

imo it still doesn't seem coherent even with the "hard question" framing, the very foundation of the hard question begs us to ask why it is that subjective experience is rather than not, lacking subjective experience means we're discussing something outside the scope of the hard question, it's akin to asking "what happened before time"?

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 or energy moving across neuron synapses. The fact that it is reducible means it may be explained objectively by science, which make it the "easier" problem

[1] Conversations on Consciousness by Susan Blackmore

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

#106

Post by mathattack »

nefitty wrote: post #48
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...

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…

I came to appreciate the rituals around religion when my father passed. It’s worth asking “Is there value to the activities, even if you don’t believe the literal divinity of the stories?”

The answer may vary by religion.

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

#107

Post by h0l0cube »

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…

People describe a variety of near death experiences, including out of body experiences. A cursory Google led me to this study:

https://www.southampton.ac.uk/news/2014/10/07-worlds-largest...

"Among those who reported a perception of awareness and completed further interviews, 46 per cent experienced a broad range of mental recollections in relation to death that were not compatible with the commonly used term of NDE’s. These included fearful and persecutory experiences. Only 9 per cent had experiences compatible with NDEs and 2 per cent exhibited full awareness compatible with OBE’s with explicit recall of ‘seeing’ and ‘hearing’ events. "

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

#108

Post by damontal »

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 wonder if there’s truth to the reports of people after being Guillotined still being able to blink and make facial expressions even though their head has just been severed.

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

#109

Post by giantg2 »

Lyapunov_Lover wrote: post #94
giantg2 wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't be snarky. It's a real question. And apparently the article has incorrect information. https://www.sciencealert.com/brain-activity-recorded-as-much...

There's a difference between 'after' and 'during'.

Yes, and you can see in the graphs in my link that they were measures before, during, and after. The "0" in the x axis is the time of death.

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

#110

Post by nefitty »

amatecha wrote: post #76
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…

Yes, seriously, most nights I am kept awake by that same existential dread. since I was too young to even know how to speak, actually. it's haunted me my entire life. I am of the fundamental belief that consciousness is nothing more than the functioning of our biological brain. I've never seen even the tiniest shred of evidence to suggest otherwise (in fact I have become more and more certain as I live more years on…

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 to be constantly conscious of one's mortality. He found that this imperative was inculcated from the very earliest age, and he found an unusually high correspondence in those beliefs to symptoms of anxiety. It was startling to him, as to me, because he thought the whole idea of Buddhism was "go with the flow dude, everything is gonna be alright", but in the teachings emphasized in the culture, it morphs into some sort of spiritual specter always haunting the waking lives of these people. It resonated with me, because Western existential philosophy also makes death-awareness an ideal to strive for, with the concomitant devil's deal of constant anxiety.

He concluded that extinguishing or minimizing the idea of one's mortality ends up freeing one from the existential terror it can cause. I remember being in my living room cleaning as I listened to the report, and I stopped in my tracks and put the vacuum down. "There's no fucking way that works."

It WORKS. It started working almost right away. If the thought of dying came up I just would grab the thread and shake it and say to myself, "Ok, so what? You have to wash the dishes man." I don't think I've lost any of my cynicism or me-ness or critical faculties in the ensuing years. That constant death anxiety is almost completely gone now, except for the most inopportune lulls before sleep or in idleness. I keep coming back to it. "Oh my God. I'm going to die one day. No. No. No. Please no... Hey! Who fucking cares?! Think about your puppy, look how cute she is laying there so innocent. Think about renewing your car registration. Literally everything is more important than that insignificantly tiny moment in the future. You're ok right now."

I hope that helps.

Post reply on HN