[extropy-chat] FWD (SK) Reanimation of Humans...

[Terry W. Colvin]

Terry W. Colvin fnarded:
> As I recall, a biochemist named Robert Cornish achieved a certain fame 
> or notoriety back in the 1930's by asphyxiating dogs with nitrogen and 
> then reviving them. The 1940's and 1950's Fortean writer R. DeWitt 
> Miller devoted a page or so to Cornish's experiments in his 1947 book 
> _Forgotten Mysteries_, and I also recall reading an article on Cornish 
> and his revived dogs in FATE in the early 1950's.
...
>> But three hours later, their blood is replaced and the zombie dogs are
>> brought back to life with an electric shock.
>>
>> Plans to test the technique on humans should be realised within a
>> year, according to the Safar Centre.
>> [full story at
>> < http://www.news.com.au/story/0,10117,15739502-13762,00.html >]

I don't know if I've raised this issue here before, but I have grave 
misgivings on this cryro technique being applied on humans.

I have voiced my concerns elsewhere before, but the issue tends to be 
misunderstood.

Basically, it all has to do with the nature of our consciousness.

Let me state it this way -- is a book conscious? An encyclopedia? A 
computer switched off? Or anything else static? I think we can all agree 
without question with a rather emphatic "NO".

If a static system is *not* conscious, then consciousness must depend 
and "supersist" on the dynamics of a non-static system.

I think most of us can agree with a "YES" to that one.

Now, consciousness is a monastic, not dualistic phenomonea. That is, 
there is no such thing as "soul" or "spirit" in the usual mystical 
sense. Consciousness exists as a pure physical phenonomea that is rooted 
in *this* universe, not in some supernatural or metaphysical "plane".

I think most of us here would agree with a "YES" to that assertion, 
though I suspect there would be a handful that might raise objections.

Now, for those who are in agreement with all of the above:

What happens when you subject a human to cryogenic suspension and revive 
him again? During the cryro suspension, the human's brain is "clinically 
dead", meaning that if you look for neural activity, it will be 
completely absent. That is to say, the corpus becomes static, just like 
a library, etc. The physical organization of the neurons, etc., are 
preserved, but there is no activity. The person -- the consciousness -- 
no longer exists. It is not "preserved" anywhere unless you invoke a 
dualistic explanation. Yep. You'd have to come up with a supernatural 
explanation of the person's "spirit" or "soul".

I think the more scientifically astute of us would agree with that.

Now, here's the catch.

If the consciousness no longer exists for the person, then that person 
is dead. Gone. Kaput.

Now when you revive the corpus, assuming you are successful, of course, 
you restart the body. The heart begins pumping blood again, the brain is 
reactivated, and the neural dynamics is recreated. There is a 
consciousness that now exists in the brain.

My rather bold assertion is that it is not *the same* consciousness, but 
 a new one that is indistinguishable from the pre-cryro one. This 
*must* be the case since the old dynamic is not preserved across the 
cryro procedure.

It is, for all practical purposes, the functional equivalent of 
producing an exact duplicate of a person. The duplicate would be 
indistinguishable from the original, but clearly would have a new 
consciousness that is obviously not the same as the old.

The main difference here with the cryro procedure is that the original 
person is *dead*, gone forever.

Call this, if you will, "Mitchell's Paradox".

This, of course, would also apply to survivors of those being plunged 
into frigid waters long enough to cause flatwave brain activity and then 
 revived. The old person *died*, a new person indistinguishable from 
the old -- save any brain damage -- appears in his or her place.

I would like to see your responses to this here. The few I've hit with 
this found it most disturbing and was unwilling to accept it. I find it 
disturbing too, but the logic seems impeccable -- to me at least.

Well, feel free to tear this apart! Have I erred anywhere in my 
deductions? If you disagree with my assertions, why? What's your 
explanation? Can you disagree without invoking dualism? Keep in mind 
that there is a difference in preserving *the patterns* of consciousness 
and the consciousness itself. They are *not* the same. And I would 
imagine there will be some disagreement on that fine point as well.

And if you think that's crazy, let me digress into utter lunacy.

I question whether the continuum of consciousness, or "Q" as I call it, 
is preserved even when we go to sleep at night. It may well be the case 
that we -- our Q -- dies when we go to sleep, and a completely new Q 
arises when we wake up the next day. Yes, that means what you think it 
means -- that we actually die every time we slumber, and a new "us" 
replaces us when we wake, carrying the "baton" of our former selves. And 
you thought "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" was creepy enough! ;-)

Call that one the "Mitchell's Sleep Paradox". If that could be shown to 
be true, it would have all kinds of ramifications for religions, the 
justice system, ownership, etc. If I am not the same person as I was 
yesterday, can you fairly punish me for any crimes one of my former 
selves committed?

And now for the science question: is there any hope for falsifiability 
for  either of these paradoxes? And if not, what are the implications? 
If there is, how can we proceed?

-Fred Mitchell
 http://fred.mitchellware.com



-- 
"Only a zit on the wart on the heinie of progress." Copyright 1992, Frank Rice


Terry W. Colvin, Sierra Vista, Arizona (USA) < fortean1 at mindspring.com >
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