Death: a process, not a point, says cutting-edge research : science

[–] [email protected] 57 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Dramatized clickbait headline.

What the article actually says is more like “we might be able to revive you if not too many if your cells have died, even if your heart and brain seem to have stopped.”

AKA they are working on a next tier of CPR.

[+] [email protected] 14 points 4 months ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (5 children)

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[–] [email protected] 9 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Are you the same person every morning when you wake up, or a new one with the same memories?
There's literally no way to know.

[+] [email protected] 5 points 4 months ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

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[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (1 children)

When I fall asleep, the conscious being that I am right now is not going to just never wake up.

But how do you know this? That's the root of the question.

How would you distinguish "I woke up as the same consciousness" from "I woke up as a new consciousness with an identical memory", from the first person perspective?

One answer could be that having the exact same memories means you are the exact same consciousness. But this means that your moment-to-moment feeling of "self" is not actually intrinsic to your consciousness, since the memories alone are sufficient.

[+] [email protected] 1 points 4 months ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

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[–] [email protected] 0 points 4 months ago (1 children)

You seem to be missing the point of the philosophical question.

Just because you feel like you are the same conscious doesn't mean you are, which is what needs proving. We need to demonstrate that we have some way to know we are a different entity without just saying "I know I am". Is it enough to have the same set of memories? Surely not, as the Star Trek thought experiment implies.

For the record I do have an inner monologue. I just also think that the notion of consciousness and what it means to "be" the conscious process isn't as simple and clear-cut as you think it is.

[+] [email protected] 1 points 4 months ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

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[–] [email protected] 0 points 4 months ago (1 children)

I don't accept "I know I am" as any form of proof toward any introspective qualities, whether that is sentience or consciousness or even free will. I also don't accept "I just know it" as proof of any deity or higher power, or that there is an objective morality embedded in the universe, etc.

I'll stop responding here, because I think we are just not going to make any progress with each other. Your posit that you can just tell the difference and know it, is fundamentally incompatible with my stance that there must be some method or technique to distinguish what the difference is. I simply do not know that I am the same person today that I was yesterday - I feel that I have good reason to believe that I am, but I also accept that this might simply be an illusion because of the circumstance of having woken up with memories that lead me to that conclusion. I have no way to know that the consciousness that "ended" with sleep last night is really the same one that woke up this morning, outside of the apparent continuity of memory. I find it an interesting and thought-provoking question, but you may also simply decide that you know the answer by feeling.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

As long as your brain mass has not deteriorated you should still have access to at least your long term memory. But in theory it could range from a terrible hangover to amnesia and brain damage, and in that case recovery may take longer and you may end up being a completely different person, as it can already happen with some accidents.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

At that point you “die” every time you fall asleep.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 4 months ago (1 children)

https://existentialcomics.com/comic/1

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 months ago

I hope having a transporter device is more like folding space than particle-scanning and reconstruction. The scanning and reconstruction would still be great for replacing or repairing lost or deteriorating structures. Regardless, I have a number of questions that come up as we learn more about how our brain might work.

If our brain is changed in (near) death how would we determine what was lost?

Could we even reconstruct consciousness (this could be also gradual, but what is the speed of consciousness)?

It seems more like we would have to gradually move our conscious processing from per-existing wetware to whatever replaces it (even more wetware). It should behave like our brain as much as possible, but I don't think we could avoid being different from what we were.

Our own brain changes over time, do we think the way we did when we were 5? How different will we think far later in life (assuming our brain is at least healthy)? I think we would have to accept changes in our fundamental being (which is already very challenging). The difference is that not only could we live for longer physically, but within the pure consciousness an entire lifetime could be lived in less than a second. We experience this temporarily in dreams, or while experiencing a life threatening event such as an automobile accident or the final moments of death itself. What if that was extended over physical months, years, decades? How would we deal with such a inheritance, who would teach us how to cope and find meaning?

Would we want to live life at the speed of the physical world after such an experience?

[–] [email protected] 31 points 4 months ago (1 children)

I mean it depends. If you get liquified by the implosion of a submersible three quarters of the way to the Titanic, there’s not much of a process.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 4 months ago

A very momentary process.

[–] tostiman 24 points 4 months ago

The real article

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2024/apr/02/new-science-of-death-brain-activity-consciousness-near-death-experience

[–] [email protected] 22 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Many who have watched someone die will likely know this

It's not like the light leaves their eyes and that's it

My cousin's breathing stopped, but his heart kept stopping and starting again. He was clearly gone, but certain parts didn't stop working for several minutes

[–] [email protected] 3 points 4 months ago

Yeah nothing about this seems like it shouldn't be obvious, it takes some time for everything to fail, just like being 'alive' and having a single organ fail, you can be in various states of 'alive'.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 4 months ago

My death is when I permanently stop experiencing life.

Not sure what that means for an 'Upload' scenario... I guess he's just a swamp man of me and he's alive but I'm not anymore... but I'm not signing up for the digital afterlife anyway.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 4 months ago (1 children)

There's a big difference between mostly dead and all dead.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 4 months ago

At what point do I go through their clothes and look for loose change?

[–] [email protected] 7 points 4 months ago (1 children)

The article by the Guardian that is linked is very interesting! I can really recommend reading it to people interested in this stuff.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Thanks for recommending the guardian link. Crazy stories in there and an interesting conclusion on what we're learning about death.

Makes me wonder about organ donations and if the timing for those may change based on newer findings...

[–] [email protected] 3 points 4 months ago

Yes, that is an interesting question as well. I am wondering what the people with near death experiences could still experience from their bodies, because that would make a big difference as well.

[–] dream_weasel 4 points 4 months ago

What a low effort article.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 months ago (1 children)

WTB device to make it a point.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 months ago (1 children)

As someone else in here mentioned, a trip to titanic in a private submarine controlled by a rechargeable Xbox controller and a narcissist captain would be a good bet

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 months ago

I need something much cheaper.

[–] [email protected] -2 points 4 months ago

These feet are nasty

[+] [email protected] -9 points 4 months ago

And this is why I carry an organ donor card prohibiting taking my organs.
Death is a poorly-understood process and I don't want doctors under extreme time pressure to decide when to end it.