/sci/ - Science & Math

[Anonymous No.1809949]

Why don't people save their brains? they still contain information, in a distant future they might be repaired and ''turned on''

is very stupid what people do, burn it or allow them to get putrefied

[Anonymous No.1809962]

so how do you suggest we save them?

[Anonymous No.1809965]

technology to stop brains from dieing, its available or it preserves them/keeps them alive for a while, i don't know about indefinatly. its kind of impracticle

instead we record knowledge on paper... its easier

[Anonymous No.1809968]

>>1809962

advanced cryogenics?

[Anonymous No.1809967]

>>1809962
not op, but freeze them? we can freeze people now with no frost, so there would be no damage.

[Anonymous No.1809973]

>freezing
>icecrystals
>burst
>rupture cells.

fucking water, how do they work ?

[Anonymous No.1809974]

Brains effectively liquefy when disused. You're always a few short seconds away from synaptic disintegration. Cryogenics would damage it even further.

[Anonymous No.1809976]

>>1809973
We have better methods now of freezing.

[Anonymous No.1809979]

>>1809967
>>1809968
The problem with good old freezing is that it causes massive mechanical damage to the brain due to the expansion of water and the solidification of lipids altogether. More advanced methods like replacing the blood with different fluids are tricky as well because a necessary part is that the brain be drained completely before replacing the blood, and this causes widespread ischemic damage. If we had the technology to repair that there would be no need to save the brains anyway.

[Anonymous No.1809990]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chemical_brain_preservation

>you now realise that people that don't presserve brains are fucking stupid

[Anonymous No.1809993]

>>1809976

No, we don't. Practical cryogenics is horrifyingly bad at present.

[Anonymous No.1809994]

/g/ here.

You're all mistaken. A gentoo liveCD will let you grab information out of even moderately putrefied brains, providing the brain itself can be mounted.

[Anonymous No.1809995]

>>1809990

"The fact that the procedure must be applied post-mortem means that there will be a problem with adequate perfusion of chemical fixative throughout the brain.[2] Even if fixation is perfect, a very advanced form of nanomedicine will be required for repair and restoration of the person. Moreover, advocates of the procedure are also counting on the possibility of mind uploading to a computer.[2]"

Any 'scientific' technique that requires both 'nanomedicine' and mentions mind uploading is going to be bullshit.

[Samefag No.1809996]

>>1809994
why is penguin sitting on that code block?
get down from there, penguin
you are a penguin
you dont even fit

[Anonymous No.1809997]

>>1809990
You still end up with massive ischemic damage. You also don't store fine synaptic connections but just the large scale gray and white matter organization.

[Anonymous No.1810000]

>>1809997

its better than nothing

[Anonymous No.1810005]

>>1810000
No it's not. It's useless.

[Anonymous No.1810007]

>>1809967
>not op, but freeze them?
doesn't work

freezing inevitably creates cracks that severe synapses worse than other preserving methods

[Anonymous No.1810013]

Chemical Brain Preservation is the process of preparing the brain, or entire central nervous system for long term, high quality storage. Unlike cryopreservation, chemical techniques do not require freezing and storage at extremely low temperatures. There is currently research into the development of a surgical protocol that can reliably and demonstrably preserve a human brain’s precise neural circuitry for long-term (>100 years) storage. If such a procedure were available it would give interested persons a means of avoiding death and reaching the distant future.

[Anonymous No.1810019]

>>1810013
Yes, thank you, we've already read the wiki page.

[Anonymous No.1810020]

>they still contain information

Nooope, they don't.

It could never happen unless you can preserve the brain perfectly. Within about 5 hours after death, autolysis/apoptosis (cell self-destruction) in the brain destroys the network. Unless preserved in something like the picture, left on its own it will melt into a lump of fat with a handful of blood pooled at the bottom of the skull within one fucking day. And of course, a brain preserved in fucking formaldehyde or other preservatives will be far beyond saving; formaldehyde destroys the DNA.

And we haven't been proven to be able to actually preserve the brain perfectly after death yet. Vitrification (a type of cryogenics that has basically no ice crystal formation and hence the cells are not skewered by countless trillions of little icicles aka fucked up).. might work. But. A thawed brain would need to be hooked into a working body or any kind of other platform to keep it stable, and brain transplant would most likely involve making a spinal graft at the bottom (I don't know if it would even be possible to surgically re-attach a brain missing the stem onto another one, as the ones in the pic are, pretty fucking doubtful actually). And obviously fixing the spinal chord is one of the only notably lacking things in our medical science aka we still cannot do fucking jack shit about it, apart from like 1 dude in Costa Rica whom stem cells may have partially mended his spine, but the ethical fucking faggots will continue to cockblock such therapies for who knows how long, even the guy who got fucking partially cured, the place that did it got in trouble for possibly violating international regulations on stem research.

[Anonymous No.1810021]

>>1810019

and u mad?

[Anonymous No.1810024]

yes, another idea is to keep the brain alive just before the heart is dead or about to stop and an induced comma or something

[Anonymous No.1810045]

I was about to masturbate, now I guess I'll hve to fap with the image of an old bathtoob full of brains in my head

[Anonymous No.1810065]

>>1810020

(basically continued)... Basically, I'm saying that as soon as you're dead, it's basically already too late unless your brain is perfectly preserved within not even an hour of your official death. I know that cryogenics places like Alcor usually can't get to the body to preserve it in time. Plus if you died in an unexpected way they can hold onto your body for autopsy.

Imo preservation would have to be done basically before you were even completely dead.. sort of mega-coma, only with a completely non-functional brain at near absolute zero, with 100% vitrification. And there is still no guarantee you'd come back even if you got a new body cloned and aged for you.. the memories themselves are not completely understood. It's possible that once you're completely braindead for a long time the electric forces at play dissipate irreversibly, which is why near-death experiences only ever occur a few minutes after certified brain death.. the ones who go any farther don't make it because the system short-circuited from the neurons going apeshit from oxygen starvation.

On the plus side, seeing as how our memories are electrochemical in nature, and we already have a bit of a knack for electricity, I'd be more inclined to believe that eventually we will have cyborg like options where your mind was downloaded into a computer. Of course this isn't immortality, in fact you'd be far more vulnerable, only in different ways. And an emulated brain in which your downloaded memories would be placed probably won't hold a candle to a real brain for fucking centuries if ever. That or it could technically surpass our brains; with a hybrid digital/analogue computing system (a digitized human brain) you might end up remembering a bunch of shit you forgot while you were alive etc. Forget the organic brain, the most plausible post-death consciousness is through extremely advanced computing/cybernetics.

[Anonymous No.1810067]

>>1809994
I know its offtopic but how is Gentoo vs Ubuntu for research use?

[Anonymous No.1810069]

>>1810045
Girls don't need orgasms anyway.

[Anonymous No.1810078]

>>1810065
I love reading about NDE, but it does show that our brains sometimes stay active for awhile after death, which is hopeful for cryogenics but it isn't long like you say. But it would be useful for people who are expected to die soon from heart disease or something, if we can freeze the activity in the mind before true death.

[Anonymous No.1810088]

What if we could preserve the brain while it was still alive?

Someone mentioned that automatic cell death is a major problem. Well, cancer cells negate that function, so there's some kind of switch that we could manipulate to prevent the brain cells from self-terminating. As long as the brain is removed and preserved after the treatment, there's no danger for cancer everywhere.

[Anonymous No.1810095]

>>1810088

it should work

[Anonymous No.1810096]

>>1810088
We can do this for short periods but I believe it dies after realizing it isnt attached to its own body, take the experiment where they took 2 monkeys heads, put them on the others bodies, and they lived, but only for short while, after which the body and mind rejected each other. A religious fag might say well this means souls exist, but its gotta do with us all having our own unique genetic code. If the puzzle doesn't fit, it doesn't fit.

[Anonymous No.1810104]

>>1810096

that's bullshit

[Anonymous No.1810111]

>>1810096
Ok. So.

Dude is getting old. Body falling apart.

Grab genes, growth tank, hormones. Grow new body. Remove new body's brain. Implant old dude's brain. tada!

Lie to the public about the whereabouts and mental faculties of the clone brains.
????
IMMORTALITY!

[Anonymous No.1810110]

>>1810104
Which part? The experiment happened, and the heads rejected the bodies, you may speculate why that happened all you like.

[Anonymous No.1810115]

>>1810096

It would be interesting to see that experiment repeated with clones. The only issue is that environment has an effect on gene expression.. unless the monkeys led as close to identical lives as theoretically possible then their bodies might be slightly different. I'd also heavily control the experiment.. the two subjects would never know of each other or be subjected to variances in stimulus which might change something, and after the head swap was performed they would need to be kept in identical surroundings as when they last had consciousness.. an effort to trick their brains into thinking that they're on the same bodies they had.

If that STILL doesn't work after many repeated attempts, well then fuck, I guess we've got a long ways to go before brain transplants work.

[Anonymous No.1810123]

>>1810111
Eventual brain death would happen anyway unless you slowly replaced it with machinery that effectively replaced the function of a part of a mind. Transhumanism is another discussion entirely tho.

[Anonymous No.1810127]

>>1810123
I imagine if we get the tech to clone bodies, then introducing new brain cells to replace the old ones won't be a problem.

Of course, they'll have to reform connections so there might be some information loss...

[Anonymous No.1810128]

>>1810115
I'd say you're the perfect candidate to lead such a experiment regardless of ethics and morality. Id very interested to see if it would succeed. If it could succeed, we could possibly take someones head, place it on their clones with no developed brain, and they could live a whole new lifetime lease.

captcha: Lord's tridente

[Anonymous No.1810131]

>>1810127
So much of the information in our minds is benign tho, so I doubt we'd care or notice, we might even have renewed moments of wonder and curiosity. I don't think that'd be too bad to deal with.

[Anonymous No.1810142]

>>1810131
Memories and such, I'm sure could be handled with physical diaries to look over. But things like motor skills and language would have to be re-acquired.

Unless: It's already possible to create a framework to grow new organs with. Perhaps we could create a micro-framework to coax new neural connections, and if the "mind" is really the result of neural connections, we could create thoughts with the proper framework.

OK! Who wants to sell their soul to SCIENCE!?

[Anonymous No.1810146]

Hypothermic therapy can preserve tissues in REVIVABLE state for several hours, it have been proved in lab animals, and it have been proved by reviving drowing victims that have been soaking for hours.

Which means that a stand-by team waiting for you to die that immideatly administers hypothermic therapy to you will halt the degeneration process for enough time to perfuse your organs and primarly the brain with anti-freeze solutions, allowing you to be soaked in liquid nitrogen without actually freezing, you'll vitrify and your synapses will be intact.

Now of course, reviving you is by no means possible today as not only would they need to repair your damaged body, they would also need to get rid of the anti freeze and thaw you in a decent way.

Destructive scanning and computer simulation is probably the easiest way to restore the person, though many people will probably want their old body to be restored, in which case we more or less needs nanomachinery.

Now of course, if nanomachine research actually had any fucking funding we would probably have it coming in a few years, but apparently it's much more amusing to fund nanochemsitry and build carbon nanotubes than attempting awsome nanomachines.

[Anonymous No.1810152]

>>1810142
Hold on, I think I got a line of candidates on the street, and on SSI, use them. Sucking up funds and not contributing to society, give them the chance.

[Anonymous No.1810157]

>>1810146
Too true on nanomachines, they have so much positive potential to shape our lifes and help the world, but there is a serious lack of interest in society =(, why!?

On another note, great idea, but I think it wouldn't save the persons mind.

[Anonymous No.1810165]

>>1810157
Originally nanotechnology refered to nanomachines and mechanosynthesis and there was an interest in it, even from goverment.

Smelling huge amounts of grand money however, a lot of the field of chemistry relabled itself to nanotech, did some lobbying and hijacked both the name and grant money. Sad but true.

[Sage !Pz581/NRUw No.1810172]

so... frogs.
Isn't there a certain type of frog that has the ability to be frozen solid and come back just fine after thawing?
And what about those tiny little bugs everyone is always calling cute. They are damn near invincible.

The answer is already in front of us, we just have to understand it.

[Anonymous No.1810173]

>>1810152
vic- I mean subjects are great, but we need scientists willing to violate everything that it means to be human in the pursuit of knowledge.

We will destroy thoughts, and create ideas. We will break down a person's most valuable beliefs and replace them with new ones. And they will have no idea that they ever felt differently than when they leave the operating table.

[Anonymous No.1810180]

>>1810173
This is what mad people are for, I am among them, I can feel indifferent If and when I choose. Tell me what to do, and I'll do it with a smile on my face if you prefer, or I can smirk or grin while working. Society needs all types.

[Anonymous No.1810183]

>>1810180
You also need expertise and funds, so shit won't work, unless you're sitting on a multi million inheritance and an army of technicians.

[Anonymous No.1810189]

>>1810183
I just might be, my father is anyway... but he's a vicious man. Maybe that is what I need tho, he is a die hard conservative(at least he says) that would rather see people killed then him have to pay taxes for their helplessness. May as well use that against him.

[Anonymous No.1810222]

>>1810000

beter than nothing get

[Anonymous No.1810243]

You know, I don't know why, but I suddenly have a feeling that future museums will say something like this:

"we have dozens, if not hundreds, of preserved brains from the past centuries, but the primitive people that saved them didn't believe the spinal cord had as great a role as the brain in cognitive matters. As a result, they discarded this key organ, leaving all these brains unreadable and useless."

[Anonymous No.1810246]

>>1810243
Aw shit.

[Anonymous No.1810258]

>>1810243
The spinal cord is almost certainly only involved in motor and organ control, whatever cognitive impacts it may have are small, we know this thanks to spinal cord injuries.

[Anonymous No.1810260]

>>1810258

Yes, but everything we experience (and hence everything stored in the brain) is experienced through the body; how do we know the encoding on each brain doesn't require at least some of the information on the individual spinal cord's properties in order to be read properly?

[Anonymous No.1810268]

>>1810260
Because people have had their spinal cord completly severed in accidents without getting a bluescreen and turning into vegetables.

Also, people have large areas of their cortex destroyed too without turning into vegetables, the brain structure allows it to cope with most kind of injuries without suffering a complete shutdown.

Neuroscience have been busy exploring all parts of the brain in almost all manners possible for severeal decades, if the spinal cord were super important for memory function we would've noticed it, either in animals or human accidents.

[Anonymous No.1810272]

>>1810268
>Part of your comment wasn't allowed to be posted :(

[Anonymous No.1810276]

Because information is probably then outdated.

[Anonymous No.1810322]

>>1810272
What about the periferal nervous system? The visceral ganglions? The enteric nervous system?

If the spinal cord happens to be important for cognition, why not everything else too?

[Anonymous No.1810334]

>>1810322
Sensory deprivation is a serious issue for people, it causes the mind to create what it craves, be it fears, or happiness, or tetch, hot cold.. ect. But if they're unconscious and dead, it isn't an issue anymore.

[Anonymous No.1810344]

>>1810272
Erring on the side of caution will be the ruin of civilzation and the downfall of man, especially when it is made in the name of baseless statements by clueless laymen.

Arguing there's a brain-encryption key in the spinal cord is about equally retarded as arguing about the existance of a lizard alien shadow goverment controlling us all.

[Anonymous No.1810356]

>>1810344
Don't you question my belief in overlord lizards! Err just having fun.

It is obvious the spinal cord is only useful for transferring information from the body to the mind, could easily be replaced by a similar one.

[Anonymous No.1810358]

>>1810334
But what if we can't decode and restore cognition to people without it? We'll end up with billions of worthless brains.

[Anonymous No.1810364]

>>1810356
It's not entirely true, the spinal cord have some Central Pattern Generators which can, when activated generate walking and gait patterns even when disconnected from the brain. But it's extremely fucking unlikely it's involved or critical for any higher cognition.

[Anonymous No.1810367]

>>1810358
We could just create new artificial spinal cord replacements for them to return to full function. To feed new information it craves, be it a dream world, a heaven we created in a advanced computer system, or reality with new sensors, like being able to hear sonar and such that some animals can do but we cannot. I mean whats the point of bothering to cryo yourself if you don't expect a more interesting future.

[Anonymous No.1810390]

>>1809993
>No, we don't. Practical cryogenics is horrifyingly bad at present.

I guess you belive cryogenics is taking a dead person and tossing them into a vat full of liquid nitrogen and sealing the lid with nothing else done to them.

You don't know how wrong you are.