Thread: Future possibility of reanimation

Reanimation aside, there seems to be some confusion mentioned about the "chemicals" that supposedly constitute one's whole life/entity/being.

Firstly, the chemicals are secondary. The chemicals are actually a first response - reactions to the initiation of the firing of them. They are not primary, rather a response, and the action taken is a second response of those chemicals, in a chain of events. When you understand the nature of chemicals and their systems, this becomes more clear.

The more you study chemicals, neurology, and the like, the more you realize that chemicals, neurons, nerves, synapses, this whole system, is a system of messengers carrying messages. The chemicals themselves *are* the messages. No message comes into existence without a messenger. The chemicals are thus not the raison d'etre. They represent the leap from unconscious thought and will into an action in the conscious world, and they are the beginning of that action into the conscious world. From my studies, that is the chain of events that occurs, and as such, we cannot attribute the beginning of "existence" to the "messengers" - that is, the chemicals. There is a state that precedes this one. My 2 cents.

I agree that the only way this would work is if someone could preserve their entire state (the position and momentum of every atom in the body) at a single instance in time before they die. This is against Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle, so you'd only be able to be able to preserve part of the data.
Let's assume that you could reconstruct a person based on this incomplete data - you would then be able to 'duplicate' yourself completely (nothing says that you'd have to wait until you did to reconstruct yourself), which would have profound implications on what is consciousness and the soul.

One nice little side benefit of all this is that it would make teleportation possible, if you could figure out a way to deal with all of your clones :)

Why is it that people say something is impossible because of the complexity? A fucking flashlight is way to complex to make to somebody living in the 1600s. Complexity is never and never will be an issue ever. Unless for some reason the issue is infinitely complex which is not really possible.

The brain is a computer. Its got a power supply, a GPU, a monitor, speakers etc. There all just more complex than the computer I have on my desk. Just because you don't know how to replace your GPU doesn't mean you can't. But of course with all this scifi replacing body parts stuff, haven't we already done this? The heart for instance? Is it really so hard to believe that one day we will be able to preserve, replace, and change our brains?

Very interesting topic fellas! I for one think it is achievable to a certain extent. Namely, head transplants. There's only been one documented head transplant to date, courtesy of a monkey. It can be found all over the inter-webs. It opens a window to immortality and while its a long shot away from resurrecting the dead, there are definitely some similarities between the two. Check it out ;] Although from memory, it was a fairly disturbing video, ye have been warned!!

Edit: Far out! Seems our scientists have been busy. head transplants have actually been done with other species like rats and dogs (and even puppies)!

Damn them mad scientists! Do what you will with rats and monkeys but leave the poor puppies alone!

head transplants have been done back in the 50-60s (from memory but 70s at the latest)

theres been so many transplants that have been done in the past that i think its only a matter of time before it is possible i doubt it would be in our lifetime tho (you can already have your head/brain frozen when you die for when it does happen)

as far as what you would see while you where out i have no idea i think it would be the same as being in a coma or maybe like passing out
but i think its only a matter of time before someone finds a way to put adverts in so you die see a few coke ads maybe a car ad or 2 and then wake up

if i was to have it done tho i would want to be transfered into a robot insted of a meatbag tho

On a wider note, why would you want to be reanimated, and under what conditions would someone not be reanimated? If I was in a serious car accident and died instantly, there's no way I would want my mangled body reanimated. Let me go! But if it were possible and my next of kin got a court order to do so (a la Terry Shiavo) would I be allowed to choose to die again? The more I think about it, the more I hope it is never possible. I feel I've got a limited time to make my contribution, and once I die I'm done, and someone else will take my place in society. That system has worked very well for millions of years.

Nope, this is, in my opinion, an impossibility. Even if science advanced sufficiently to extract the personality, knowledge, feelings of someone from their brain or whatever, it would still be just an extremely sophisticated DIGITAL SIMULATION of that person's thoughts, ideas, etc. it wouldn't actually bring that person back to life...

It may be possible to preserve and even 'reactivate' vital organs and tissue and blood transfusions could compensate for the lack of the subject's own. However I don't see how it woul be possible to reanimate a person's conscious on account of neural decay and even if it were, there's no telling whether that person would have regular brain functions, or if they would be the 'same' person afterward. They may turn out 'worse than dead.'

There is also the ethical side. To take away our end seems inhuman. We have a given span of time to live our lives and that is as nature intended. Also, without the fear of an end would any of us be motivated to really try and accomplish anything in our lives? After all if we mess up this life we can always start over.

If it were however, used to bring back people who died in accidents or were murded for example, it may be acceptable, yet it still hovers over a moral gray area.

Perhaps there are some places humans are not supposed to dwell.