[extropy-chat] Cryonics and uploading

["Eric Messick" at syzygy.com]

"Michael Lawrence" <Michael at videosonics.com> wrote:

>> Ok, so what about children who have been revived after hours of being
>> submerged in near freezing water?  They have no circulation and no
>> brain activity when they are pulled from the water.  They experienced
>> death, but then are revived, apparently undamaged.
>
>My understanding is that 'brain death' is irreversable, and so there =
>would have still been "brain activity" on some level.

Ok, you made me go looking for references.  Although the general
prognosis is not good, there are isolated cases of survival, which was
the point.

Here is a brief quote from: http://www.emedicine.com/neuro/topic491.htm

  Montes and Conn reported ECS after near-drowning in a child aged two
  and a half years. The child had CPR for 30 minutes, was placed on
  a mechanical ventilator, had initial decerebration, and was then
  paralyzed with pancuronium. Phenobarbital was loaded intravenously,
  and a core temperature of 35°C was documented. Two hours later, an EEG
  was performed and described as flat in all leads. Ten hours later, EEG
  activity reappeared and the patient went on to recover fully. The
  authors suggested allowing 24 hours of observation after near-drowning
  before declaring brain death in children.

We have here a case where there was no brain activity, followed by
full recovery.

Hypothermia seems to be protective in such circumstances, hence the
desire for a cryonics patient to be cooled quickly.

>>> In other words, original life can only exist for a single session
>>> which means that as soon as you die, you stay dead forever.
>>> [...]
>>> Slawomir

The case above seems to contradict this.

-eric