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Not alive, but not dead: disembodied human brains used for drug testing

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Re: Not alive, but not dead: disembodied human brains used for drug testing

#161

Post by palmotea »

applfanboysbgon wrote: post #106
openasocket wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That article was written 16 years ago and misses a lot as a result. it doesn’t mention the new allegations, including those documented in Leaving Neverland. It also glosses over the accusations in the 1990s. It’s papered over that those allegations were lies, but he settled the lawsuit with them for over $23M.

Settling isn't an admission of guilt. It's plausible that he wanted to avoid the media circus that would inevitably result, and given that fighting it out in court was significantly more damaging to his reputation than settling the 90s case was despite being exonerated, he was probably right to settle. The article does also touch on the indications that those allegations were also not credible, although it doesn't do…

This seems pretty damning:

https://www.wsj.com/arts-culture/film/michael-jacksons-biopi...:

> Over the years, Jackson and the estate have paid out millions to settle various claims, with some lawsuits still pending without ever admitting wrongdoing. A significant reason for the large settlement totaling about $25 million made by Jackson in 1994 to the Chandler family and their lawyer was the drawing of specific markings Jackson had on his penis caused by the skin condition vitiligo.

> Jordie Chandler drew the markings and the drawing was put into a sealed envelope. During the criminal investigation, Jackson was so resistant to having his genitals photographed that he slapped one of his doctors. It didn’t matter for the civil suit. My reporting showed that when Jordie’s drawing was unsealed, it matched the photos.

Re: Not alive, but not dead: disembodied human brains used for drug testing

#162

Post by wanoir »

DontBreakAlex wrote: post #140
wanoir wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is an interesting point I think for direct comparison, the way of re-animating the brain described in the article would need to be attempted on the cardiac arrest patient as well so as to be sure it isn’t a “revival”-capable method Might already be an obvious answer to practitioners in the field

My understanding is that after a few minutes without oxygen, the chemistry inside your brain is "fucked up" and even if you get oxygen back it's gone, you're already a vegetable. I like to think that "the state of the machine is gone" but I'm not a doctor

> even if you get oxygen back it's gone, you're already a vegetable

I think that's the part that might get people though. Since a comatose brain is not necessarily fully gone

So I guess the question is what differentiates a comatose brain from one that is no longer capable of consciousness?

Re: Not alive, but not dead: disembodied human brains used for drug testing

#163

Post by rendx »

hackingonempty wrote: post #160
rendx wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're free to stop there. We can also turn it around, and I can ask you for any paper that details the theory of why the brain should be the location of consciousness. I only gave one example and Wikipedia to start with. There's a lot of material out there if you're (rightfully) skeptical of that one paper. I don't even know what you're refering to as "their theory", as the way I read it, they're basically documenti…

We understand the fundamental laws of physics well enough to say there is not some mysterious soul influencing the brain. Just like we can say that the moon is not made from cheese. > Modern physics, in other words, provides evidence for what philosophers call “causal closure of the physical”: physical events have purely physical causes (Loewer 1995, Papineau 1995), at least in the regime relevant to human life. With…

> We understand the fundamental laws of physics well enough to say there is not some mysterious soul influencing the brain. Just like we can say that the moon is not made from cheese.

I don't see how this relates to the "seat of consciousness" (with)in a human body, or how the biological system works together to "form it". Or where thinking or memory storage or retrieval takes place. At least that was what I was talking about. You're talking about something else.

It is a theory that we think in the brain. As far as I understand it, and please prove me wrong, there are other, valid theories? It's unscientific to discard theories purely based on belief. You seem to be arguing from a certain belief, not from science.

The modern term for "soul" is "psyche".

Remember that the OP was asking: "How do you ensure that you aren’t torturing a brain that can’t see, hear or scream?" -- clearly refering to something... conscious?

Re: Not alive, but not dead: disembodied human brains used for drug testing

#164

Post by WithinReason »

dhosek wrote: post #60
aetherspawn wrote: post #6

Live dissection and experimentation on “alive but drugged” human brains is mental. How do you ensure that you aren’t torturing a brain that can’t see, hear or scream? How are you held accountable?

When I had my ear surgery about 20 years ago, the doctor explained to me that I would be awake for part of the procedure, but the anesthesia meant that I would have no memory of it.¹ It’s a weird thing to think about whether that lack of memory would obviate the pain or discomfort of the moment. ⸻ 1. As it turned out, I was so frightened in the lead-up to the surgery that they had to do general anesthesia on me becau…

...or that's what they told you afterward 0_0

Re: Not alive, but not dead: disembodied human brains used for drug testing

#165

Post by rendx »

cogman10 wrote: post #120
rendx wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's still an open debate whether the seat of consciousness (or even simpler, perception) is the brain. see e.g. Wahbeh, H., Radin, D., Cannard, C., & Delorme, A. (2022). What if consciousness is not an emergent property of the brain? Observational and empirical challenges to materialistic models. Frontiers in psychology, 13, 955594. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.955594 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hard_problem…

> It's still an open debate No it's not, not by anyone serious. We know the brain is the seat of consciousness because damage to the brain damages consciousness. There is no other organ in the body where that's true. You can completely replace all other organs without changing consciousness. You can always find a paper by a quack that posits the earth is flat, that doesn't mean there's serious debate.

Can you point me to a paper or other source that proves that the brain is the seat of consciousness? Or that disproves other theories?

I am familiar with the works of Oliver Sacks, Paul Broks, and others, who have spent their lives researching damage to brains and the potential consequences for the psyche. I agree that it sounds like damage to the brain can have big impact, but none of that research, as far as I am aware, proves or even tries to argue that the brain is the only component necessary for consciousness to exist.

I am not interested in beliefs in one theory over another. I am not even asking for probabilities. I am asking for a scientific approach, which is to detail all possible (potentially fringe) theories until they're proven wrong. Anything else is the business of religion.

    Singer, J., & Damasio, A. (2025). The physiology of interoception and its adaptive role in consciousness. Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences, 380(1939), 20240305. https://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2024.0305
We think that organs can be replaced with little apparent change in consciousness (- this is an active research area, too, by the way). There is also research into how body tissues may form a part of what other theories place exclusively in the brain.

    Aderinto, N., Olatunji, G., Kokori, E., Ogieuhi, I. J., Moradeyo, A., Woldehana, N. A., Lawal, Z. D., Adetunji, B., Assi, G., Nazar, M. W., & Adebayo, Y. A. (2025). A narrative review on the psychosocial domains of the impact of organ transplantation. Discover mental health, 5(1), 20. https://doi.org/10.1007/s44192-025-00148-y
> "Having its own enteric nervous system, sometimes referred to as the “second brain,” the gut is also an immune organ and has a large surface area interacting with gut microbiota. The gut has been shown to play an important role in many physiological processes, and may arguably do so as well in perception and cognition."

    Boem F, Greslehner GP, Konsman JP and Chiu L (2024) Minding the gut: extending embodied cognition and perception to the gut complex. Front. Neurosci. 17:1172783. https://doi.org/10.3389/fnins.2023.1172783

Re: Not alive, but not dead: disembodied human brains used for drug testing

#166

Post by trallnag »

adi_kurian wrote: post #79
throwaway613746 wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So did Nazi eugenics.

How so?

Eugenics under the national socialists was extreme and twisted. But it still was about eugenics at its core. Even today we apply practices of eugenics, for example with prenatal screening for down syndrome followed by abortion. Gambling sets a very low bar when it comes to upsides.

Re: Not alive, but not dead: disembodied human brains used for drug testing

#167

Post by Barbing »

palmotea wrote: post #161
applfanboysbgon wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Settling isn't an admission of guilt. It's plausible that he wanted to avoid the media circus that would inevitably result, and given that fighting it out in court was significantly more damaging to his reputation than settling the 90s case was despite being exonerated, he was probably right to settle. The article does also touch on the indications that those allegations were also not credible, although it doesn't do…

This seems pretty damning: https://www.wsj.com/arts-culture/film/michael-jacksons-biopi... : > Over the years, Jackson and the estate have paid out millions to settle various claims, with some lawsuits still pending without ever admitting wrongdoing. A significant reason for the large settlement totaling about $25 million made by Jackson in 1994 to the Chandler family and their lawyer was the drawing of specific mark…

That poor kid

Re: Not alive, but not dead: disembodied human brains used for drug testing

#168

Post by Gooblebrai »

Filligree wrote: post #124
Gooblebrai wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the doctor explained to me that I would be awake for part of the procedure, but the anesthesia meant that I would have no memory of it The short story "Transition Dreams" by Greg Egan touches on this concept

I can strongly recommend reading... anything else by Egan, just not that one. It's not that it's bad. The problem's the opposite: He poses an existentially dreadful question which I can't definitively answer with 'no'.

That's what I love about this short in particular. Existential Sci-Fi!

Re: Not alive, but not dead: disembodied human brains used for drug testing

#169

Post by rcxdude »

rendx wrote: post #165
cogman10 wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's still an open debate No it's not, not by anyone serious. We know the brain is the seat of consciousness because damage to the brain damages consciousness. There is no other organ in the body where that's true. You can completely replace all other organs without changing consciousness. You can always find a paper by a quack that posits the earth is flat, that doesn't mean there's serious debate.

Can you point me to a paper or other source that proves that the brain is the seat of consciousness? Or that disproves other theories? I am familiar with the works of Oliver Sacks, Paul Broks, and others, who have spent their lives researching damage to brains and the potential consequences for the psyche. I agree that it sounds like damage to the brain can have big impact, but none of that research, as far as I am a…

If you're going full philosophy of science, are these alternative theories falsifiable in the first place? Much of this kind of argument turns into philosophy and metaphysics instead of empirical science.
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