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

newscientist.com

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

#51

Post by BobbyJo »

kakacik wrote: post #39
birdsongs wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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, dep…

Anesthesia impairs the electrons transport in your brain, effectively ending that thread of consciousness, and, depending on the procedure, your brain can be altered by chemical/oxygen saturation changes. You wake up very subtly different, but most people are ok with that.

People have strokes or accidents and wake up missing memories and with changed bodies, but their families still call them by name.

You still being you is a matter of degree, not a binary, and different people are comfortable with different degrees of change.

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

#52

Post by kxrm »

thesmtsolver2 wrote: post #7
ozlikethewizard wrote: post #3

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.

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?

> who wouldn't want to witness and be a part of a new world?

Me?

This view is grounded in the assumption that the future will be better than today. There is no guarantee of that. This is, in my opinion, the same flaw in the thought process of wanting to live forever. The assumption being that, this "new world" is a better place than where you are now. That it is compatible with you as you are. That you will never grow tired of existing.

I know for a fact that I will grow tired of existence. Why would I want to continue it? The bar is very high for me to want to continue to exist in a "new world". I would need guarantees that the world will be a better place where I can thrive in ways I can not in this one. That I will be accepted in this "new world".

Can anyone guarantee those things?

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

#53

Post by roarcher »

vercaemert wrote: post #42
kingkawn wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The depth of complexity and innumerable interacting variables of biology make attempts to map brain function always seem like an absurdity

I worked on the Human Connectome Project. If they freeze the vesicles that deliver transmitters and make them analyzable, you've got all the information you need. In terms of a modern ANN, it's the connections (axons) and the weights (transmitters/receptors in tandem). That said, this article doesn't get to the point in the free section. How are they collecting the information? Slicing is inherently destructive. Some…

> If they freeze the vesicles that deliver transmitters and make them analyzable, you've got all the information you need.

How can we possibly know that the non-connectome details of the brain don't influence computation or conscious experience?

It seems we ignore these only because they don't fit neatly into our piles of linear algebra that we call ANNs.

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

#55

Post by apothegm »

cjbgkagh wrote: post #25
DennisP wrote: 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

While the connections are important I think the individual cell behavior is also very important and that is driven by DNA. Brain cells last a lifetime and can modify their own DNA so each one ends up being unique. I do wonder how much of behavior/consciousness is encoded in the cells DNA versus the connections between the cells.

Do you have a citation for the notion they can modify their own DNA? I would fairly easily believe they can modify its expression, but I’m skeptical of the idea they can modify the sequence.

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

#56

Post by surgical_fire »

Procrastes wrote: post #26

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?

What for?

Even in the best case scenario I would wake up in a world that barely makes any sense to me, where the things I cared about are long gone and nearly forgotten.

Imagine everyday waking up in a world that forgot the grammar you dream on. That's a curse.

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

#57

Post by vercaemert »

roarcher wrote: post #53
vercaemert wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I worked on the Human Connectome Project. If they freeze the vesicles that deliver transmitters and make them analyzable, you've got all the information you need. In terms of a modern ANN, it's the connections (axons) and the weights (transmitters/receptors in tandem). That said, this article doesn't get to the point in the free section. How are they collecting the information? Slicing is inherently destructive. Some…

> If they freeze the vesicles that deliver transmitters and make them analyzable, you've got all the information you need. How can we possibly know that the non-connectome details of the brain don't influence computation or conscious experience? It seems we ignore these only because they don't fit neatly into our piles of linear algebra that we call ANNs.

Take a gander at the OpenWorm project. It's a great example of how simple neuronal activity is (given details like the connections, number of receptors, and transmitter infrastructure). SOTA models of neuronal activity are simple enough for problem sets in undergraduate biomedical engineering programs.

Sure, to your point, we don't know. But the worm above (nematode) swims and seeks food when dropped into a physics engine.

My main point is that the scale of the human brain is well beyond the capabilities of modern imaging modalities, and it will likely remain so indefinitely. Fascicles we can image, individual axons we cannot. I guess, theoretically, we'll eventually be able to (but it's not relevant to us or any of our remote descendants).

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

#58

Post by vercaemert »

cjbgkagh wrote: post #46
vercaemert wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I worked on the Human Connectome Project. If they freeze the vesicles that deliver transmitters and make them analyzable, you've got all the information you need. In terms of a modern ANN, it's the connections (axons) and the weights (transmitters/receptors in tandem). That said, this article doesn't get to the point in the free section. How are they collecting the information? Slicing is inherently destructive. Some…

> If they freeze the vesicles that deliver transmitters and make them analyzable, you've got all the information you need. In terms of a modern ANN, it's the connections (axons) and the weights (transmitters/receptors in tandem). This is exactly what I’m doubting, how can you be so sure?

Same question answered under other comment.

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

#59

Post by anarticle »

Those 50y mortgages won't pay for themselves!

Probably a good first step in life extension, I know a lot of first peeks at this came from hypothermic people. Those lessons are now used in heart surgeries to slow metabolism and limit cell deaths.

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8297075/

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