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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.
I don't want to troll, but I prefer not to get my science from MSNBC and other mainstream media sources.
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
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.
You are totally correct, we have known about them forever. There are however, apoptotic pathways that do not directly involve mitochondria in the same central way cytochrome C/cardiolipin/caspase cascades do. So again, "death" is much, much more complicated. Cheers
Argh. The laws of science be a harsh mistress.
How we know is more important than what we know.
If you don't buy that this happens at night, you can make a good argument that this certainly does happen during a coma, when there is little to no electrical activity in the brain. Alternatively, you can anesthetize certain parts of the brain, and also cause the personality to disappear. 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". The eastern philosophies argue that all phenomena, from electrical activity in the brain, to the existence of rocks, are chaotic, always in flux. In other words, you are a different 'you' for every moment of your existence. It's like saying, "I was once an 8-year-old boy, but now I'm a thirty-year-old man." Well, wait a minute -- isn't there only one you? How can you be both an boy and a man? The answer is that 'you' are a continuation of a series, a phenomenon, like the flame of a candle, or a river. The flame is never the same flame from one moment to the next, nor does a river ever have the same water or same banks, at any moment. Yet will still perceive it as the continuity of the same 'thing'.
The idea of the 'you' as a fixed, permanent thing, seems to be an idea that traces back to Greek philosophy. They were always looking for unchanging, eternal, fixed, stable 'things'. And it really breaks down when we try to apply that to the self or consciousness. Eastern philosophy seems more advanced in this respect -- it says there are no things, only processes or phenomena that are *always* changing.
Computers are useless. They can only give you answers.
-- Pablo Picasso
*waves hand* These are not the midichlorians you are looking for.
Move along.
Rampant carbon sequestration destroyed the Dinosaurs' tropical paradise. I'm here to help repair the damage.
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"]
"you" is just something your brain does. Asking where you go when your brain turns off is like asking where the spinning goes when the motor turns off.
Play Command HQ online
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
Another nice analogue: your body is not the same body it was 15 years ago. You think of it as the same body, only grown a bit (in length or width, depending on your age). But in fact all of the atoms that made up your body 20 years ago have all been replaced by other atoms. Our body is not really a static object, it's more like a very slow wave.
(I read it like this in Richared Dawkin's The God Desulion, but he got it somewhere else again, can't remember where)
The mind, conscience, personality, is perhaps a similar phenomenon. It's not a thing that can be pointed out somewhere in our brain, but it's a recurring pattern of thoughts and actions, emerging from the mechanics of our brain and the experiences therein.
assignment != equality != identity