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Mitochondria and the Prevention of Death
H_Fisher writes "Research into mitochondria — small structures within a cell that have their own DNA — suggests that they may be a cause of cellular death, according to Newsweek. The article The Science of Death: Reviving the Dead reports on people who have recovered from sudden death due to cardiac arrest through the use of medically induced hypothermia. The cooling process may help stop the death of brain and heart cells initiated by the mitochondria once they are deprived of oxygen. The article goes on to probe delicately at the question of where a person's personality 'is' between death and later revival, and describes several ongoing scientific studies of near-death experiences."
A person's personality goes off to Digg when they are Mostly Dead.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
While I dont see this as a fountain of youth. This research could be very useful for long distant space travel. Especially as we are pondering going to Mars. I wonder how well this could be coupled with cryogenics.
I don't want to troll, but I prefer not to get my science from MSNBC and other mainstream media sources.
Palpatine: Did you ever hear the Tragedy of Darth Plagueis the Wise?
Anakin Skywalker: No.
Palpatine: I thought not. It's not a story the Jedi would tell you. It's a Sith legend. Darth Plagueis was a Dark Lord of the Sith, so powerful and so wise he could use the Force to influence the midi-chlorians to create life... He had such a knowledge of the dark side he could even keep the ones he cared about from dying.
Anakin Skywalker: He could actually save people from death?
Palpatine: The Dark Side of the Force is a pathway to many abilities some consider to be... unnatural.
Anakin Skywalker: What happened to him?
Palpatine: He became so powerful the only thing he was afraid of was...losing his power, which eventually, of course, he did. Unfortunately, he taught his apprentice everything he knew, then his apprentice killed him in his sleep. It's ironic; he could save others from death, but not himself.
Anakin Skywalker: Is it possible to learn this power?
Palpatine: Not from a Jedi.
So what they're saying is that the Mitochondria, the organelles that use oxygen to generate ATP (the primary source of chemical energy in your body), cause death when they no longer get oxygen? I hope the Nobel prize committee is listening.
Most importanly, as this article alludes to, this new approach valdiates some of the science surrounding cryonics. As far as I can tell, cryonics is the only possible way for any of us to get our selves and our memories to the distant future where we can live superlong lives, or maybe even forever.
Homo Sapiens Americanus--A documentary in p
Miracle Max: See, there's a big difference between mostly dead, and all dead. Now, mostly dead: he's slightly alive. All dead, well, with all dead, there's usually only one thing that you can do.
Inigo: What's that?
Miracle Max: Go through his clothes and look for loose change.
I used to carry a bottle of whiskey for snake bite. And two snakes. -Nefarious Wheel
'to probe delicately at the question of where a person's personality 'is' between death and later revival'
The same place your computer's conciousness goes when you turn it off.
Maybe im a Nerd but I read this as Midichlorians and the Prevention of Death.
I've known about this since elementary school!
A Wind in the Door (Madeleine L'Engle)
--
Looking to trade in for a newer girlfriend? Now there's a place!!
Qxe4
I was diagnosed with "sick sinus syndrome." Well, not until I had basically died a few times. The electrical impulses that cause the heart to fire, ceased. I flat-lined, and was essentially "dead." The first few times (twice at home, 2 or 3 times at the hospital) I came back on my own. There was no "where am I?" questions upon regaining consciousness; I knew where I was, and I knew _something_ had happened, but I didn't know what. It wasn't until the last "episode," after they had attached a heart monitor with the little sticky-pads that the doctors actually knew, for sure, that I was flat-lining. They immediately ran a catheter up my groin, into my heart, and attached to an external pace-maker. A day later they implanted a pace-maker. Now, almost three years later, the pace-maker's computer says it has never "paced." In other words, I haven't really needed it. :-/
My point is this: when I was "dead," I never "left my body," I never saw myself and the doctors in the hospital from "above," I never experienced anything. It was like a light-switch was simply flipped. I was just gone. No angels, no bright light, nothing. So. My advice, for what it's worth, is that you should do whatever you need to do. Whatever you need to accomplish. If my experience is any indication, there is no second chance. Do it now. Don't expect anything else after you're gone. When you're gone, you're gone. There appears to be nothing else. And while that may not be what you wanted to hear, that was my reality.
Don't live your life in fear of death, but don't take anything for granted, either. As Warren Zevon said, "enjoy every sandwich."
(Of course, Zevon also said, "I think I made a tactical error by not going to the doctor earlier." So don't do that.)
"I might have made a tactical error in not going to a physician for 20 years." -- Warren Zevon
Programmed cell death (apoptosis) is normally considered a good thing. Cell death is the front line against Viruses, toxins, and other pathogens. When a cell is hopelessly invaded it will immediately try to kill itself or be told to kill itself by it's neighbors? Why? Well first single cells by themselves don't have much defense against stuff so when the jig is up there's no point in trying to live on. An inveded cell is a danger to it's neighbors since the virus will use it's machinery to replicate. Thus it's a mutually assured destruction strategy. And the first thing most bugs do on entering a host is attack the signals for apoptosis. Indeed Cancer is dangerous because it's immortal.
Thus it's interesting to find a way to override perhaps the most important response shared by cells in the body.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
that the female of the species is evil.
You are being MICROattacked, from various angles, in a SOFT manner.
How about a Beowulf cluster of these?
.. no science will ever be able to revive that one.
Oh wait
Mitochondria are another form of life, that just keep the cell going for their own means. No, really. Maybe.
The bad news is that mitochondria initiate the process of cell death.
The good news is that they give you Force powers.
If a person's brain can still function well with half of it removed, is it that surprising that it can also survive what amounts to a temporary loss of power?
> The article goes on to probe delicately at the question of where a person's personality
> 'is' between death and later revival...
Do they also discuss the color of zero or how wide is up?
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
Starting with the hypothesis that consciousness is purely a physical thing (i.e. the atoms and electric signals firing in your brain, and there is no soul or wonky business like that)--a hypothesis that I happen to agree with. It is a *profoundly* mysterious question if it would, in fact, be the same "you" inside if your brain were switched off for a while and then turned back on. Suppose in the time you were shut off, it were possible to make an exact copy of yourself, down to the atomic level, and then both copies were turned back on. Which one is "you"? Obviously both of you would think you were the original since you share the exact same memories.
:)
It's one of those questions that seem unanswerable. Personally I feel it has something to do with the continuity of brain activity. You interrupt that, and whatever that "spark" is ceases to be, and if the brain is turned back on, it would be a different "you". Which is why I'd never take a transporter ride and think actual working cryonics would be pointless since I would never experience waking back up, it would be a different consciousness, albeit one that thinks everything went just fine. If ever underwent either, I would assume the "me" that woke back up would have some lingering doubts.
One of the many philosophical papers on this: http://www.benbest.com/philo/doubles.html
I believe George A. Romero might have made some films about this sort of thing.
Who else immediately thought of the book Vitals by Greg Bear? This book deals more with aging and is a fun conspiracy theory.
Ooooh! Learning how to stop cell death!?! Oooooh! Fancy-schmancy doctors! Thing they're so special because they're trying to figure out how to stop death! Who cares about that? C'mon. Give me more iPhone news! C'mon, I hear Apple's introducing a new color... ;)
I don't respond to AC's.
And then when you're resuscitated or reanimated it gets restored from the last save. B-)
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
I've known that mitochondria cause cell death ever since I played Parasite Eve. Of course, the immediate cause of cell death was the fireball that the 3 tailed rat just threw at you.
I felt a great disturbance in the ATP production, as if millions of mitochondria suddenly cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced. I fear something terrible has happened.
I was anxious to read the article to see if the Mitichlorians had something to do with Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon's not-death experiences.
This is kindof old news (or at least, an old experiment), albeit with a little extra detail (ie. that its the mitochondria effecting the cellular respiration).
2 1/1637245
http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/01/
What interests me is that it brings up philosophical questions about the definition of life. By shutting down the cellular respiratory system they are in effect turning it into a lifeless clump of molecules - with as much life as a block of stone.
The reanimation process is therefore activating the life within the cells. Fascinating.
Make it even more likely that I'll die yelling and screaming in a flaming car wreck instead of peacefully in my sleep.
What?
Cool. I worked on a project a few years ago where my job was to come up with various scientifictional anti-aging medicines, and one of our focuses was on mitochondria; of course at the time we thought that mitochondria made good technobabble and real anti-aging research on them was way farther away than this, but its good to see ourselves proven wrong. :)
There is an excellent novel "Passage" by Connie Willis involving scientists researching near death experiences (NDEs). (This is fiction about science, rather than Science Fiction, although she writes that too.) They're also doing battle with a crackpot researcher who vigorously prompts patients into "remembering" angels etc etc.
Quattuor res in hoc mundo sanctae sunt: libri, liberi, libertas et liberalitas.
You might be the most perfect example of this I've seen this week.
From urbandictionary.com
1. Internuts
The phenomenon that occurs when someone becomes a badass when addressing others on a message board.
It is a common practice for the reticent, meek, and cowardly to make bold statements, on the internet, knowing there is no way to be held accountable.
Example: The poster was getting badly flamed, so threatened to kick everyone's ass. His anger made his internuts grow.
Appended to the end of comments you post. 120 chars.
Hmm... This story sounds familiar. Although the mitochondria is pretty hot I don't think I want to meet her.
(It's a good movie, btw. I especially love the ending scene!)
My other account has a 3-digit UID.
But this is precisely what the bible teaches about death. [note: no one is required to read this]
Dead cannot think:
Psalms 146:4 His breath goes forth, he returns to his earth; in that very day his thoughts perish.
Ecclesiastes 9:5 For the living know that they shall die: but the dead know not any thing, neither have they any more a reward; for the memory of them is forgotten.
It also says the soul dies at death:
Ezekiel 18:4 Behold, all souls are mine; as the soul of the father, so also the soul of the son is mine: the soul that sinning, it shall die.
Romans 5:12 Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned.
Therefore the soul cannot think either. Aka no out of body experiences. Please note I'm not discussing heaven etc, just the state of the dead/soul.
Hammer me down mods! [flamesuit="on"]
Some interesting thought experiments regarding consciousness are these:
Suppose that, one day, we develop the technology required to scan and emulate the human brain with total precision. Now, this means that we can shove your head into the scanner, and presto, some amount of time later, we have a computer running a simulation of your brain. It's pretty clear that your consciousness stays in the same place, especially if anesthesia is not required for the scanning process. Yet there is a copy of your brain running on that computer. From its perspective, does it have the same sort of consciousness that you still do?
Suppose that instead of just scanning your brain to make a copy, we instead put you under, scan your brain, start the simulation running, and kill your old body. We wake up your simulated brain. What happens to your consciousness? Have you achieved a mortality unencumbered by the failure of your biological body by doing this? From the perspective of your simulated brain, did you fall asleep and wake up running on the computer? What about from the perspective of your now dead physical body?
Suppose that instead of scanning your brain, we can replace a portion of your brain with equivalent nanotech. For all purposes, this nanotech behaves exactly as your old neurons behave. The nanotech can be implanted gradually, neuron by neuron, on the fly - as each neuron is replaced and killed, the nanotech neuron takes its place and picks up exactly where the old neuron left off. So, we perform this procedure on you, and ultimately, your brain is replaced with its nanotech equivalent. What happens to your consciousness in this process? Is this sort of gradual process necessary for your consciousness to survive the transition from your old wetware to your new hardware?
Is your consciousness an expression of a dynamical state - perhaps even including state variables we haven't detected yet - in your brain that must be preserved in order to survive any such transition, or do your memories suffice to keep your perception of consciousness continuous, even if most of that dynamical state is temporarily lost?
...as it is known to be physically impossible to copy something down to the atomic level without destroying the original. The things you learn on Wikipedia :)
(rot13) rpbzbab@tznvy.pbz
Oh boy, you really picked the wrong fight brother, given that I have a degree in Physics and know a few things they teach in grad school. :) I'm not talking about reproducing quantum information, I'm talking about constructing an identical arrangement of atoms. Using your logic I guess it's impossible to duplicate anything atom by atom. I guess you should call the guys working on nanotechnology and tell them to give up.
Speaking of quantum effects, I always hate when people bring in quantum effects to try to explain consciousness (or new age garbage, like that "What the #$!@ do we know" movie masquerading as some sort of science documentary). As far as I can tell, their reasoning goes something like this "Quantum mechanics is weird and spooky, and we don't quite understand how it works, consciousness is weird and spooky, and we don't quite understand how it works, therefore consciousness is a quantum effect."
I think I saw this on star trek once...
The Right Reverend K. Reid Wightman,
Baby seal walks into a club...
(Posting anonymously because it's a stupid joke.)
If you make your machine out of materials that rot as quickly as human flesh, then yes, there is a very good chance that your machine will be FUBAR by the time you replace the parts of the system that lead to the initial failure.
An older reference:
Or this: [1] Myocardial reperfusion: a double-edged sword?: PMID 4056048
[2] Brain ischemia and reperfusion: molecular mechanisms of neuronal injury: PMID 11054482
-- The Genesis project? What's that?
The geek in me says "same place your computer's goes when you put it into hibernation mode".
The logical side of me tells me that my personality is formed by neural impulses in my brain. No neurons firing, no personality. In fact, I'd guess it gets frozen in time, unless the neural connections weaken over time in suspension.
But I guess we'll never know 'til we try.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
> The article goes on to probe delicately at the question of where a person's personality 'is' between death and later revival,
> and describes several ongoing scientific studies of near-death experiences."
Obviously the personality is in the same place as before, only it is frozen. Later it is thawed and stays in the same place at that time also. Just like when you are sleeping your personality stays in the same place. It's like asking where does a person's personality go when they're high? Same fucking place as before.
Trust me, the man hunting a few game birds and deer will do less harm to the environment over the course of 80 years than Al Gore making one private jet trip to criticize us all for not doing enough on global warming. And I'll be honest, there are so many deer now in "nature" that I would view it as an act of kindness if he came out and got rid of 90% of them. Every time someone kills a deer, the environment benefits.
Stop with the jejune concern over animal rights, the environment and all that crap. It's very easy to criticize when you came from an upper middle class family, and now work mainly to pay your iphone bill and then tell people how like to live simply.
It's posturing, sort of like how a sizable chunk of college freshman girls pretend their a lesbian for about 3 months to prove they're really rebels and to somehow prove to their parents that they're rebels (all the while living off their largess).
My mom not only gave me life - now she's held responsible for my death too?
Free, as in your money being freed from the confines of your account.
so consciousness is a side effect, a product of the brain's operation, like the magnetic field surrounding an electromagnet when the current is flowing...
sounds like the basis of a new religion;-}
Brain Shutdown On Death
Why did I have the impression this is a well established fact? In addition, mitochondria not signalling the cell to die is the main reason that cancer cells don't die. It's many months now that research into dichloroacetate (DCA), which has been used for other purposes too, causes cancer-cell mitochondria to resume their operation and cause the cells to eventually die. See an example of a similar report.
I speak England very best
Life after death is the same as life before you were born.
So I might as well get my mitochondria removed at the same time as I go in to get my fear cured. Anything else I should ask my doctor for?
It's interesting, how much that sounds like a hacking strategy. First acquire access, then disable... Maybe we should have used the term "computer virus" for hackers themselves
He wouldn't have made them out of meat so they could be so tasty as part of a marinara sauce.
The problem with quotes on the internet, is that nobody bothers to check their veracity. -- Abraham Lincoln
Perhaps a virus can kill the pesky mitochondria. We could call it the T-virus. Yes, I think that has a nice sound.
Didn't she always say, "I brought you into this world, and I can take you out"-?
(When I died, I went to the house at the end of the universe. No one sees the tunnel of white light anymore...)
The House Between - Original Sci-Fi Series
Why did I have the impression this is a well established fact?
I was actually first introduced to this concept way back in middle school when I read Madeleine L'Engle's A Wind in the Door. Granted, we now know that mitochondria are not little pig-like creatures that kill cells with overzealous games of ring-around-the-rosy. But L'Engle's understanding of the role mitochondria play within a cell was pretty good, I think. At least, I still remember it from a book I read over 20 years ago.
Your fantasies contain the seeds of important concepts.
I count over four dozen completely off topic replies. You must be so proud. I just have one question: if you are against killing animals for sport, what was that I saw you doing with your mom, two hamsters, a quart of Wesson Oil, and a ball python the other night?
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
...it's pretty obvious. Leaking fluids, pooling blood (i.e. bruising along all of the lowest parts of the body), rigger-mortise (for a while), lack of pulse, no breathing, &c. At that point, what's to debate? Of course, we still tend to wait a couple of days before we put the body in the ground (or burn it, or dispose of it in some other way), just to be sure.
I am not dead yet
I can dance and I can sing
I am not dead yet
I can do the highland fling
I am not dead yet
No need to go to bed
No need to call the doctor
'Cos I'm not yet dead
Tsukasa: All I really want, is to be left alone...
The brain is to personality and conciseness what legs are to "walking".
One needs legs to walk and one needs a brain to think
There are people who have no use of their legs. They can't walk.
But on the other hand just because you have legs you are not walking.
Walking is a process of balance and motion performed by legs
personality and conciseness is a process that a brain can do.
So where does personality go when the brain stops working? The same
place "walking" goes when you sit down.
The problem here is that the question is leading. You can never
answer a leading question. So when did you stop beating you wife?
Why did you take the money?... Where does personality go? All these
question assume something that is not true
Salad is what food eats! Always remember that!
I never understood why shooting an unarmed animal too dumb to run from a guy with a gun was considered a sport, and that's not even taking into account things like timed deer feeders, blinds, camo, etc. Heck, at least children would know to run...
.22 in NH. Thank you.
Bow hunting: at least that takes some skill, but a hunter told me that most animals get away wounded, so it's probably crueler.
Now if you were to hunt with just daggers, THAT would be a sport. You with two 6" daggers versus a havalena (huge boar) with two 6" tusks, mano y swine-o. Not only would it be a sport, but I would so watch a reality TV program about it. Maybe we could build a Colosseum to house the set...
PS: please remember it is illegal to hunt bears with a
Indeed, there is no reason to believe that quantum effects are any more relevant to the process of consciousness than to the operation of a bicycle.
Similar stories were previously discussed here in /.
http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/05/0 1/1849257
http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/06/2 9/1950219
Interesting stuff!
These new discoveries will certainly change the way we handle death.
I'll agree that germline genetic engineering is likely to be a path to radical life extension, but it's hardly the only one. The technology that will be required to perform the cellular level repairs necessary to revive cryonics patients will almost certainly make life extension trivial, so I don't think that'll be an issue. We'll be able to rejuvinate the elderly well before we're able to revive "cryonauts".
Your second point is something that I hear a lot, and I don't really understand why. A cryonicist won't be alone. He'll have the support structure and camaraderie of all of the other cryonicists, who will be making the same adjustments and living through the same adventure.
He'll also likely know many of them already, as the cryonics community is small and fairly closely knit. Even setting aside the active online community, I personally know over a dozen other cryonicists reaonably well, and couldn't guess at how many total I've met. I've never met one I didn't like, and am happy to say that my wife and three of my closest friends are also cryonicists. Assuming I "come back", it's highly unlikely that I'll do it alone.
And if by some fluke I am the only one? I still prefer it to oblivion.
Boundless Expansion, Self-Transformation, Dynamic Optimism, Intelligent Technology, Spontaneous Order- BEST DO IT SO!
+5 Insightful or something.
mmm may be toss one Offtopic, but insightful nonetheless.
We are Turing O-Machines. The Oracle is out there.
You make an interesting point, but I have to disagree. Even if quantum effects are part of the brain's mechanisms, I have serious doubts about them being the "seat of the self". They'd act as little more than random number generators, and I think that identity is much more than that.
In my opinion (and I freely admit that my only qualifications here are that I've looked into emergent behavior and also pondered this very question far more than any sane person should) the whole idea of consciousness transfer and the question of "which one is the real you?" are nothing more than fuzzy thinking resulting from imprecise language and bias introduced by our perspective of spending our entire lives instantiated in a single body. In reality the questions are nonsensical.
"You" is not an object. "You" is a set which happens to contain just one object at this moment, but which also encompasses who you have been in the past and who you will be in the future. If your neural patterns could be faithfully reproduced, either in another biological brain or in some digital simulation, those too would be "you" even if both of you had no intercommunication beyond what any two people have. The software metaphor really is spot on. One copy of Firefox has just as much claim to the "Firefox" identity as another, and the hardware on which it's running is tangental. So too with intelligent beings.
I realize that this is a counterintuitive stance, and potentially uncomfortable to consider as well, but please give it thought. Like I said, I've spent a ridiculous amount of time considering this, and it seems to be the only answer that doesn't require invoking any metaphysical woo woo. As the technologies for AI, uploading, and reviving cryonics patients arrive these questions will more than just exercises for the armchair philosopher. They're going to be important issues that will determine the rights and responsibilities of an increasing percentage of society.
Boundless Expansion, Self-Transformation, Dynamic Optimism, Intelligent Technology, Spontaneous Order- BEST DO IT SO!
One theory of OOBE I especially like is that the brain has a reserve of DMT that is released when you die. For those who are unaware, DMT is one of the most powerful hallucinogens out there... When you die, the brain releases a dose, and you trip balls. To anyone that has done the drug, or maybe LSD, you'd agree that this explains out of body experiences, flashbacks, and an overall euphoria. Which is why the patient in the article was thinking, "if you knew how great this is, you wouldn't be worried about dying." Can't wait for one final trip on my way out!
"If you look at a brain cell under a microscope, it can't think. Why should two brain cells think? Or 2 million?"
How can they walk around on two legs, you moron?
Seriously, you have to wonder how someone this stupid has a job anywhere, let alone in science or medicine. He should be in Bush's Cabinet.
Richard Steven Hack - This sig is TOO GODDAMN SHORT TO DO ANYTHING USEFUL WITH! MORONS!
Those little mitochondrial fuel cells are important to a lot of things, and doing a reset can have unanticipated effects.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
It doesn't. I'm not trivializing ethics, your finger, the beauty of a forest, or anything else. I'm just saying that if you're going to assume that humans are deterministic then you can't start talking about humans doing non-deterministic things (like choosing - really choosing - something). That's just logic. If we're non-deterministic (based on soul, consciousness, whatever) then the things you mention have a very real (for lack of a better word) spiritual significance. If we're machines then consciousness and everything that goes with it is an integral part of the processing architecture, and is still significant and non-trivial.
What I was attacking is the parent post's use of the word "choice":
Let us assume the brain is deterministic, but that it has no way of knowing whether it is. However, society chooses to believe that it is. Based on the belief that it is non-deterministic, will it not make different decisions?because in the context of deterministic beings moving about a (we think) non-deterministic universe the only way a bunch of humans (society) could "choose" to believe anything is if they somehow happened to start believing it (say one of them got hit on the head - or reacted to some other outside force), and it happened to be beneficial - which evolution would then select for.
Is that what you meant to say? Because if it is then we're in complete agreement, and I'm sorry for attacking the badly chosen word "chooses" with the badly chosen word "quirk". But if you really did mean to say that society actually chooses - as in the thing that "spiritual" free-will-posessing people may or may not actually be doing - despite the assumption that people are deterministic, then you'll have to explain what you mean by "society" more clearly (are you talking about some super-being where we assume the role of neurons or something?).
We are organisms. Mitochondria are in a symbiotic relationship with humans (most mammals) that is USUALLY beneficially. When we go into an oxygen-starved state, we can actually survive for some time by using anaerobic processes in our ATP cycle -- much like working out beyond our Aerobic capacity. What has been recently discovered is that the Mitochondria mistake the quick uptake of oxygen as a metastasis of cancer, so in their simple way, they are trying to "take one for the team" and they kill the cell they are in so that other cells might survive. The problem is -- this is the entire body. So the Mitochondria are causing cell death during resuscitation. The hypothermia technique is a way to slowly revive a person even many hours after their heart has stopped by slowing the oxygen uptake -- before your cells begin to break down, that is.
Now, the more complicated discussion this has brought about is "what are we?"
We are more advanced in most things, mentally, than other organisms on our planet.
I've always felt that "spirit" might equate better to reality than "soul". But this bothers a lot of people, because it would mean that we have only "more" of something than our pets, and it is a point of discussion to say we are better than dolphins.
Organically, there doesn't seem much evidence for the classic Christian definition of a soul (and in most of their texts, life begins with the first BREATHE and ends with the last -- the bible doesn't support notions of conception). For instance, if you switch someone off (they die) and back on again. You can usually end up with the same person. Like a computer that is off -- as long as everything was "stored" will be able to retrieve everything.
But if you wipe the memories, the continuity is gone. It's possible for someone to be a different person after amnesia. Both the "feelings" you have -- your general attitude and well being that is organic, and the collection of baggage that makes up your drives (memory), go into creating your personality. Change your chemistry -- like with drugs, and you can love everybody or go crazy. We don't normally go through these sorts of radical fluctuations eating, for instance, a hamburger, so we get to have the comfy notion of how we are going to react. Of course, drugs, war, extreme changes if the world -- can disabuse of the notion of "who we are." I knew a very advanced man in the area of Psychopharmacology, and he told me he could make someone a killer with the right chemicals in an aerosol. So, within hour normal environment and chemistry -- we have a consistent behavior, but change our environment or a few neurotransmitters, and we can behave differently.
If there were a soul, that determined the "type" of person we were. What does that even mean if you can give someone a drug and steal their sanity? You could say; "I'm me as long as I'm drug free," but if I put you on a diet of just sugar, after a few days you would be one cranky, violence-prone individual.
Add to this the idea of "who we are." If there were something besides the organic storing of memories, then people who woke up after a brain trauma with complete amnesia would be the same person. That isn't the case. And if we somehow have a soul that allows us to have eternal life in the clouds somewhere - then there has to be a backup copy of our memories hidden somewhere not in our brain -- because head trauma people can lose every memory (beyond what is stored as reflex) and those memories are specific to areas in the brain. I can lose speech ability, or my childhood depending upon what part of my brain shuts down. If this changes who I am and how I act -- is there a sliding scale when I go before Saint Peter?
Most of us are decent people, when we aren't stressed. We'd like to think we are always good. I might return a briefcase with a million bucks in it -- even if I don't believe that I have a "reward for me in heaven." It has a lot to do with our I was raised -- or with animals, we would say, how they were trained. I can also
>>"ad space available -- low rates!!!"
Amen, brother.
OK, you're an expert, this puts a different spin on things. AFAICT the "no cloning" principle would allow for an atom-to-atom copy of the original... would you claim that that was sufficient to be indistinguishable from a physical perspective? Also, I don't thing the argument is "they are both weird and spooky" so much as "they are both inherently impossible to reproduce precisely (c.f. no cloning, again)". But I am not a physicist, so eh.
(rot13) rpbzbab@tznvy.pbz
How on earth could this parent be modded Troll?!
I think we don't actually disagree;)
The word "choose" is still valid in a deterministic context since there's still the issue of a society being "forced" to do things when its immediate survival is in jeopardy. (The American Indians were "forced" off of their native lands.)
The interesting part to me is there seems to be a bit of Heisenberg in the whole thing; if I were told that I were deterministically predetermined to sit in a certain chair, I would probably sit in a different one just to spite you; some use this as a defense of the vagueness of fortune tellers.
-- Political fascism requires a Fuhrer.
Well!
Thank goodness it's a reputable mag. Not that silly "New Scientist" or "Sciam".
Or perhaps even the naive Lancet.
I recall fondly the article in Newsweek five years or so ago, promoting Melatonin.
I will LIVE FOREVER! Providing I keep chewing those Melatonin pills.
Whatever happened? Please, Newsweek- tell me that my Mitochondria are still long and firm, like other important parts of my being. You promised me!
Oh my! Is Melatonin passé now?
No matter! I shall follow the Newsweek scientists faithfully!
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- aqk
F U
Probably, but if your fortune teller's worth anything then all the other chairs will probably be occupied by the time you get there. Or maybe you'll suddenly start believing that not sitting in the proscribed chair would offend some mysterious power, somewhere. Maybe you'll be told you'll sit in the sixth chair from the left so you decide to sit in the sixth from the right instead, only to realize that there are 11 chairs in that row.
If it were possible to deterministically predict that you will sit in that chair then you'll sit in the chair - otherwise it wasn't really a valid prediction. Either that or you're not really deterministic and are thus impossible to predict.
If you get the chance I highly recommend reading "What's Expected of Us" by Ted Chiang (I read it in "Year's Best SF11" but I'm sure it's been published elsewhere as well). It's an interesting take on the "assuming we're deterministic" case (and damn good reading).
The interesting part to me is there seems to be a bit of Heisenberg in the whole thing;Yeah, the answer isn't necessarily a binary we are/aren't deterministic. It could be that on a "small" scale we have a lot of (real) choice but on a "larger" scale (say, someone's killing me and my will to live is very much intact) there isn't really any choice (though we might say that there was in order to take credit for the outcome). Hrm...I wonder if electrons have this sort of dillema? Of course, once you make that comparison, have you not essentially turned all that we call "choice" into simple randomness?
Oh and one more thing, given the current state of the universe, there is absolutely no possibility of you sending me a large sum of money in the near future :)
Wow!
..
I bet you've done a lot of this 'out of body' and LSD stuff!
sounds neat! Groovy, even!
Are you dead?
Oh wait- I forgot. You are an "anonymous coward"
Ah, well. But kin ah git some o' thet "LSD"? Like, it must be far out!!
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- aqk
F U
Who believes mitochondria are not part of our body? And are you really sure they're sane and you didn't seriously misunderstand them?
Mitocgondria are most definitely part of our body. They're not part of the nucleus of our cells, though, and look like they were once, in pre-eukariotic times, independent prokaryotes that formed, indeed, a symbiotic relationship with other cells, and that relationship eventually grew into our complex cell structure. But that doesn't stop them from being part of our body.
Seriously, this isn't an out of hand dismissal. To say that the brain, or consciousness is somehow like a computer is, to me, more of a stretch than espousing an afterlife, or a soul.
Let's test one of those two theories, shall we? You can pick which one.
Now I know that slashdot isn't likely to agree with me, and normally I'm loath to invoke a god-of-the-gaps, but if and when the time comes that we can fabricate intelligence in a box, we're going to have some serious rethinking of philosophy to do.
Isn't it more fun to assume our technology will progress to that point and figure these things out now? It's going to be especially useful to have figured out a set of ethics before we 'unleash the machines', so waiting could have bad consequences.
Until then, I really do think that the burden to produce evidence lies with the mind-is-a-computer crowd, i.e. to me the mind looks a lot more unlike a computer than like it.
You should probably explain here the things that a brain does that a computer won't be able to do.
My major concern, how do we know that consciousness as we know it doesn't depend on some yet unknown quantum effects
It probably is quantum in nature. There are operations our brains can do very quickly (e.g. detecting a fake art piece) that classical computation can't touch. There might be quantum effects along the microtubules in each neuron, vastly increasing what we've thought the brain's complexity has been for a while. But we're also starting to build (very simple) quantum computers.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
and i'll bet you haven't, so don't act like you know what you're talking about. I'm sorry I didn't see a need to register on slashdot to post one comment. As if hiding behind a username is any less anonymous. Slap another "I love Bush" bumper sticker on your prius, you conservative fuck.