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

Bret Kulakovich bret at bonfireproductions.com
Wed Jun 29 18:37:37 UTC 2005


>
> 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".

What is a photograph in the dark?

All we need is the boot sequence. Shutdown we are gaining mastery over.

The rest of this is like the myriad "transporter accident" theorems  
or stories a la The Outer Limits. Fun to consider, but currently  
unsolvable to any practical point.

Personally, "I" am this electrical arc balanced over some fat and  
sinew. Some day it will shut off. At a later date, preserved  
properly, it will come back on.



I'll see you there,

]3


On Jun 29, 2005, at 1:03 AM, Terry W. Colvin wrote:

> 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 >
>     Alternate: < fortean1 at msn.com >
> Home Page: < http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Stargate/8958/ 
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