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A pig's brain has been frozen with its cellular activity locked in place

newscientist.com

31–40 of 186 posts

Re: A pig's brain has been frozen with its cellular activity locked in place

#31

Would people want this? Imagine waking up to a world where 200 years has passed, everyone you knew is dead, everything you knew is history.

I'm infinitely curious, so it's almost a perk that everything I knew would be history, implying there's a ton of stuff to learn/catch up on.

I've dealt with loss. It sucks, but it's part of being alive (I say with just a hint of irony).

I do recognize that not everyone feels this way about this topic though. That's ok.

Re: A pig's brain has been frozen with its cellular activity locked in place

#32

Here's a thought experiment. I offer you the chance to be put in a medically induced coma and shipped around the world to strangers you know nothing about. You don't know what economic, political, or moral system you'll awaken to. The only thing you know for sure is they, for some reason we're interested in receiving an unconscious person, no questions asked. Do you take the deal? Do you sign your family up for it?

In this scenario, the alternative is “you die”. Let’s make sure we’re including that in the question.

Re: A pig's brain has been frozen with its cellular activity locked in place

#34
post #27
post #13

One step closer to the Bobiverse.

I'm just finishing the last one published. It would be interesting to wake up as a Von Neumann probe. Still, did these people completely solve the ice crystalization problem? https://www.amazon.com/Are-Legion-Bob-Bobiverse-Book-ebook/d...

It is absolutely one of my favourite series and made Dennis E Taylor an absolute goto author for me. I also love his Outland series. I quite enjoy listening to the Bobiverse audio books especially. Anything Ray Porter narrates is usually magnificent.

Re: A pig's brain has been frozen with its cellular activity locked in place

#35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do you assume that everyone you know will be dead? Won't some of them also be preserved. As for "everything you knew is history", who wouldn't want to witness and be a part of a new world?

I can recommend the comic “Transmetropolitan” by Warren Ellis, which deals with this and many other questions. You have to imagine what it would be like for someone who lived in 1826 too wake up today, in a world where nothing they know is relevant, they have no connections, no idea what to do with any of it. Historians might want to interview you, or the first couple of people like you, but then what? You will be an…

If a large number of people get reanimated, I don't think this will be their fate.

I can imagine "educators" who can get them up speed. In a future where people get reanimated, I would think this shouldn't be a problem long term.

Any existence may be better than non existence.

Re: A pig's brain has been frozen with its cellular activity locked in place

#36

Here's a thought experiment. I offer you the chance to be put in a medically induced coma and shipped around the world to strangers you know nothing about. You don't know what economic, political, or moral system you'll awaken to. The only thing you know for sure is they, for some reason we're interested in receiving an unconscious person, no questions asked. Do you take the deal? Do you sign your family up for it?

Would the dynamical strange attractor system that is brain start in the same basin as it died in? Something to think about.

Re: A pig's brain has been frozen with its cellular activity locked in place

#38

Here's a thought experiment. I offer you the chance to be put in a medically induced coma and shipped around the world to strangers you know nothing about. You don't know what economic, political, or moral system you'll awaken to. The only thing you know for sure is they, for some reason we're interested in receiving an unconscious person, no questions asked. Do you take the deal? Do you sign your family up for it?

By that logic I wouldn’t sign up for blood transfusions, organ transplants, or take any medicine I didn’t compound myself.

What’s the downside of skipping all that potential torture?… oh

Re: A pig's brain has been frozen with its cellular activity locked in place

#39
post #14

More of a digital copy scenario. The article says the process involves toxic chemicals that lock everything in place so the connectome can be examined. There's no known way to reverse the chemical process in the biological brain. https://archive.is/SMcX5

Not that I think this is anywhere close in actuality, but It's reminding me of MMAcevedo. ( https://qntm.org/mmacevedo ) What server will I wake up on? Who is running the infrastructure? What will be asked of me to be allowed to continue to exist on that server? Given our current societal trends, I can't imagine I would enjoy any existence where a copy of me is spun back up. And of course, my original thread of consc…

You will not wake up on any server. At best possible theoretical far future scenario better or worse copy of yours will. If you would survive such process, you yourself, the human instance that wrote that will be just looking at somebody else living their now-fully-digital (prison) life.

I don't understand why people don't get this simple fact. We are all gonna die, make inner peace with that (it isn't that hard, depends mostly on your ego) and enjoy rest of that short time here. If you seek immortality, do it either via exceptional deeds or via well-raised children, that's the best we have.

No force in the world is going to move both your mortal neurons with all synapses and electric charge between them that together form your personality into anything else, digital or not. Its like asking to transfer this cup of tea I hold right now into digital form. No, it can be copied to certain precision and that's it.

Re: A pig's brain has been frozen with its cellular activity locked in place

#40

Here's a thought experiment. I offer you the chance to be put in a medically induced coma and shipped around the world to strangers you know nothing about. You don't know what economic, political, or moral system you'll awaken to. The only thing you know for sure is they, for some reason we're interested in receiving an unconscious person, no questions asked. Do you take the deal? Do you sign your family up for it?

In this scenario, the alternative is “you die”. Let’s make sure we’re including that in the question.

That doesn't change things as much as you might think. Sufficiently advanced technology can create many fates worse than death.
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