The news was presented at the AAAS meeting in Phoenix, Arizona. Anna Fowler presented a synthesis of dozens of studies on near-death experiences and neuroelectrical activity around cardiac arrest. - https://particle.news/story/aaas-presentation-argues-consciousness-may-persist-minutes-to-hours-after-clinical-death
A long time ago, my old therapist asked me what I thought would happen after I died. I told him I didn’t know and was ok waiting to find out when it happened. He pressed me on it and I said “ok, either the big switch flips and that’s it, or something soul-like survives, or the human mind dilates my final moments into an eternity because it cannot comprehend non-existence.” And then he changed the subject.
This reminds me of that.
or the human mind dilates my final moments into an eternity because it cannot comprehend non-existence.
Gawdamm I never thought of that possibility. You’ve broken my brain sir/ma’am. I’m going to be useless for the rest of the day contemplating this.
What do you think Hell is, if it’s not that eternity spent going over our worst moments?
Based on the anesthetic I had a few years ago it’s probably not the third thing, but the therapist was annoying me.
Didn’t Sam Parnia confirm this already?
I presume this depends heavily on the methid (and definition) of death.
Sure, bring them back after they realize heaven and hell are bullshit.
Electrical activity in dead brains is just chemical potentials that take a while to break down. No one, ever, has actually come back from actual death.
As long as you keep moving the bar of actual death. Heart stop, ‘brain death’ people have come back from, rotting in the grave, not so much.
This isn’t really about coming back but about how long it takes to completely go
Consciousness barely lasts a couple seconds without bloodflow though. Clearly a clickbait title that is intentionally misleading.
I think the consciousness they’re talking about here is the subjective sense of something happening - that it feels like something to be. The fact of experience itself. Unconsciousness in the medical sense doesn’t necessarily mean the end of experience.
I can tell you from experience, you are not aware of being unconscious. It goes from the moment before you lose it, to when you regain without any period between.
There are multiple ways to be “unconscious.” Head trauma, sleep, general anesthesia, fainting, coma - for example.
The experience varies wildly: from absolute nothing under general anesthesia to extremely vivid stuff during sleep.
Ok, that depends on definition I guess.
This is a really difficult concept for some people in our modern society. Enlightenment style thinking would have you believe that human consciousness is a blanket term for salience, attention, awareness, sentience, social cognition, self-recognition, meta-cognition, etc. It’s as though you looked at a car and didn’t see its component parts or individual qualities, you just saw this weird new thing called Car.
Proven by data from those killed by guillotine.
I could nominate some people for further testing with that instrument
EEG collapses completely after 30 sec of stopped blood flow. Consciousness will be probably gone in 10-15 seconds.
@kalkulat@lemmy.world @science@lemmy.world
This reminds me of the time I had general anesthesia during a surgery. I experienced this… phenomenon. One where I barely closed my eyes and, suddenly, I was laid down on another bed in another room, surgery was complete. There was no dreaming in-between, no hallucination, and even the “time gap” itself felt… non-existent. Just a literal, overwhelming but relaxing, almost cosmic, “nothingness”. As if the general anesthesia were a Seek-Forward button which was pushed and my biological existence simply jumped an unknown amount of time into the future (it was roughly an hour, a simple surgery).
See, the passage of time looks pretty much like a “fall” towards a singularity. All matter is moving towards a point into the “far future”, some moving slower than others due to the gravitational and relativistic effects (e.g. time is slightly slower for us than it is for ISS astronauts, because we’re closer to the Earth’s gravitational well). There are scientific hypotheses about the “far future” having some kind of “singularity”, such as the logical conclusion from the Black Hole Cosmology which states that this universe were actually a cosmically-big black hole due to how cosmological constants and measurements matched the ones expected for black holes. If this proceeds, matter would be literally falling towards a cosmic “abyss”, towards singularity, and what we, as living beings, perceive as “death”, would be just the subjective (almost “solipsistic”) stretched perception of said singularity.
At least, I myself like to think of my death as this. A spaghettified but imperceptible, fall towards the abyss, akin to that general anesthesia I once had, except that it wouldn’t jump to wakefulness anymore; rather, it would become stuck in a perpetual state of “Seek-Forward”, without a perceivable gap in-between. An eternal nothingness, essentially a return to the same “nothingness” I perceive from the time before I was born. And, well, it’s scary, but it’s also pretty comfortable if I really think about that, knowing that there’d be no more nociceptors triggering my central nervous system into feeling pain, knowing that there’d be no more emergent “me”, just the primordial “nothingness” from the singularity we, as baryonic matter, exist in.
I got some (dark, esoteric) beliefs alongside that (especially “Death Herself”) but, given I’m in c/science, I’m trying my best to stick to the more (or, at least, as close as) scientific (as) aspects (could get) of what I think about the phenomenon of death, with “sentience” as an emergent byproduct of a dynamic system (think “dual pendulum experiment”, but deeper and more intricate involving several interconnected biological systems) we refer to as biological organism, a self-rearranging structure, and “death” as the cessation of said emergence (as soon as the a significant part of this dynamic system grinds to a halt, therefore rendering it unable to self-rearrange).
Hmmfh, you might benefit from this. As time goes on (see what I did there) it seems like information is the actual zero point energy concept in quantum mechanics. The possibility that entropy can’t really destroy information, merely disperse it until an eventual reconciliation is pretty fascinating. Black holes might even be seen as stasis chambers. Perhaps we all emerge again at the big crunch (or the restaurant at the end of the universe) for the next go around.
Personally I remain an Agnostic until such time that I know better, I expectation manage with the switch just turns off, but I’m fine with something else, sometime else, patterns written into the void. If there is a hell however, I’m totally going Karen, that’s bullshit.
Thanks for a most excellent post.
@MalReynolds@slrpnk.net @science@lemmy.world
That’s… highly interesting, thanks for recommending it! I’ll be pondering on this reading.
Perhaps we all emerge again at the big crunch
As someone who believes in some kind of cyclical cosmos (Ordo ab Chao, Chao ab Ordine), it pretty much matches the way I try to make sense of it religiously, although I also believe (or, deep inside, I want to believe) there’s a chance that this cosmic cycle is able to grind to a halt somehow, due to how, scientifically speaking, decay is something observed for cyclical processes (e.g. in the water cycle, some water is always “lost” from the water cycle, not “lost” as matter stuff, but “lost” as recyclable water; similar thing happens for nitrogen cycle and carbon cycle and even the biological food web/transfer of energy from plants to herbivores to carnivores; even orbiting undergo decay as the orbiting cycles repeat; cycles aren’t 100% efficient because of an omnipresent decay) and this may apply for information as well (the transformation of information wouldn’t be 100% efficient and would be subjected to this decay). We shall think of decay not as “loss” (because it would violate Conservation of Energy), but as a branching and merging between parallel cycles going on (e.g. in a nutshell, the water lost from earthly water cycles becomes part of other cycles, such as sparse H2O molecules as vapor ending up escaping to outer space, never getting to precipitate as rain, and becoming eventually attracted by orbiting stuff such as falling towards asteroids or into the Moon, falling towards planets at vicinity, or falling towards to the Sun (less likely due to how it requires a higher delta-v), as chaotically as n-body orbits can get)
Then there’s a hypothesis “zero-sum universe” stating that the overall energy from the entire universe sums up to exactly zero, so the whole universe is also accounted when it comes to the laws of conservation of energy. If fluctuations decay as the cycles happen, this can still add up to zero, until everything is infinitesimally close to zero.
But, again, I’m highly speculating across several, seemingly unrelated concepts (which somehow “click” in my ND mind). In the end of the day, it’s something seemingly beyond what we, with scientific rigor, could empirically get to observe and prove.
what we, as living beings, perceive as “death”, would be just the subjective (almost “solipsistic”) stretched perception of said singularity.
What would be the consequence of death being the “stretched perception”, like are you saying that we wake up again after death because of black holes or…?
@QueenHawlSera@sh.itjust.works @science@lemmy.world
are you saying that we wake up again after death
(Disclaimer: I’m being speculative while trying to connect scientific principles and hypotheses. I’m aware this is not strict science, even though I’m trying to keep my religious beliefs aside.)
Much to the opposite, akin to a PC which was powered off forever. The transition between “powered-on” and “forever powered-off” states is something unexpected to the “software” (the “sentience” emerged inside our brains). Living beings, especially those with nervous system like us, are wired to being alive, and death is unexpected and unknown state, so this “transition” (dying) is confusing. As all senses across the body become numb, adaptiveness plays a role, with the cortices trying to compensate for the lack of sensory input (including inputs from within the brain itself, as synapses begin to fail), including a heightened activity of long-term memory as it tries to remember what exactly led to this “dying” state (part of fight-or-flight response): there’s the Near-Death Experience ppl often recall experiencing after effectively dying but getting to be reanimated.
I believe there’s an extra-baryonic factor in play too (what spiritualists would call “spiritual realm” would be another “brane” from a multibrane cosmos, with everything having “spiritual matter”, not necessarily self-rearranging (“living”) and the so-called “soul” merely another emergent property of a physical structure made of “spiritual stuff”, akin to a baryonic sentience), but it’s belief so I’m keeping this out.
As the emergent properties within sentience are inexorably bounded to its “hardware” (i.e. the body and its nervous system), the way matter is constantly subjected to entropy is an intrinsic part of cognition (i.e. brain gets wired and accustomed to the effects of entropy, trying to adapt as the years pass and aging happens, just like (geologically) life adapted outside water during Late Devonian and (individually) astronauts aboard ISS become accustomed and develop muscle memory for microgravity motion).
This means, if Black Hole Cosmology is to be considered, that the effects of “existing inside a black hole” are indirect part of how life adapts (e.g. adapting to the way time “stretches” as the years pass). The energy within matter (chemical reactions that keep happening even after death, especially those from decomposition processes) means that the physical structure from which “sentience” emerged will be subjected to the entropy long after being rendered unable to self-rearrange as living being. The brain may’ve died, but its organic molecules are still undergoing reactions at the microscopic level, until being completely transformed by decomposition and eventually fossilized. As there’s no working memory registering mechanisms anymore, it’s essentially “undergoing time without registering it”, pretty much akin to the “time gap from general anesthesia”.
I concur
well, that certainly doesn’t send me into an existential nightmare /s
I don’t even want consciousness while I’m ALIVE.
Go to sleep?
he wants unconsciousness. let’s drug him
@kalkulat years after death in the case of some politicians
I think you have it backwards, their consciousness ends years before death.
Sometimes at birth.
I think they’re conscious, but have no conscience.
Considering low oxygen to the brain after 6 minutes results in brain damage occuring, would you really want to be brought back a vegetable?
I was born dead for several minutes; sometimes i wonder if could be smarter i given more favorable ircumstances
Yeah, that would be a high priority item that I’m sure was part of the talk.
Well that just gave me a new fear.
I always wanted to go out by jumping into a volcano when I feel that life is spent so this is just validating that idea
Edit: I have been corrected so I’ll just use my gun instead (also this isn’t a suicidal thing, I just will not experience consciousness after death cos that’s horrifying so I’m going out on my own terms, glad to find out that volcano jumping wouldn’t be as releasing as I had thought)
Edit: this was a joke, which was misinterpreted by the OP, out of respect I have removed it.
Edit: misunderstandings that have been clarified
Woah, not my intention at all, sorry. It was just a joke, as I assumed your “jump in a volcano” statement was a joke.
Absolutely zero ill intent, I apologise completely. I’ll edit the comment.
Oh my bad, I was a bit touchy about it in my response. I appreciate the clarifying, it’s all about intentions and I see that you had good intentions there so we’re square. I’ll edit mine to indicate a misunderstanding so you aren’t left with the tenth degree about it.
Not just that but magma is pretty damn dense. It’s gonna be like hitting solid rock and then immediately burning up.
Didn’t they calculate that if you did jump into an open volcano, that you’d basically explode before you even touched down?
Edit: I’m getting old and must be misremembering this. https://youtu.be/Q1blQRrM4TA
Pop like a hotdog?
Explode? That’s certainly news to me!
So you want to be concious for hours while enveloped in lava?
I like how the other people were responding with helpful answers and then you just decided to be an asshole to pile on
Make sure to livestream it, shouting “try this, kids at home!”
I’ll just use my gun instead of jumping
On the off-chance you’re not joking don’t actually do that. I thought we were doing some edgy humour it’s not actually a good suggestion.
No joking here. I don’t think the world wants to see my brains splatter though so I wasn’t planning on live streaming. Don’t worry though, it’s not a suicidal thing, more like a “when I’m terminally ill and going to go on my terms” thing and if consciousness is in the equation after death, I’d like to make sure that doesn’t happen so no brain would remedy that.
Maybe you already know but if you throw yourself into a volcano you don’t dive like in water. You stay above it because of density.
I actually wasn’t aware, thank you for actually giving me a helpful response unlike the other assholes
We don’t really know what consciousness is to begin with. Some philosophers even speculate that everything might have some kind of consciousness. In that case, your consciousness might go on forever, but you’d have no physical reality. No senses or anything.
Panpsychicism, can’t say that I take too seriously without evidence. I mean how does a rock have consciousness?
I assume the most basic scenario that we’re just complex patterns of self referencing data (electrical activity), your conciousness can cease during anethstetic or some types of coma or rare cases of temporary brain death and start right up again no problem, if someone replicates a close enough copy of you then that’s got an equal claim to your continuity as the you that wakes up in the morning, even if you’re still alive both of the yous are you, the yous could even be merged again so long as no data is destroyed the new hybrid you would have a completely valid claim to both continuities that emerged following the intitial seperation.
TLDR: You’re no more special than a videogame save file and that’s fantastic because it makes it really easy to be immortal or get resurected.
If you do get merged though, don’t tell Janeway.
How could I get resurrected, what mechanism are you proposing?
Well if you’re just data all someone would need to do is re-create that data within some unknown (but presumably within the range of what gets inflicted by head trauma) error margin. Depending on how the universe works that could inevitably happen someday if it goes on forever (along with shakespear), alternatively some future civilization might run an ancestor simulation or maybe they just have an immense quantity of resources and decide to try and simulate every possible human conciousness.
All of these are highly unlikely or far future but you don’t have to experience the intervening time.
So if you “recreated my data”, would that be a clone of me, or would my consciousness “jump to it”
And if the latter, how does that work?
The interesting thing about general anesthesia is that it’s quite unlike dreaming. It’s like you’re just instantly teleported into another place and time without any sense of time having passed in between. You were effectively dead for a few hours from everyone else’s perspective, but for you there was no gap at all. It’s not like there’s a blank section in the film - rather like someone entirely cut out that part and you just jumped instantly to the next act.
I can’t help but wonder if something similar happens when you actually die. By definition you cannot experience being dead, so what if your consciousness just jumps over the being-dead part and continues from whatever is next? Even if there’s a million-year-long queue before you get to respawn, that would still happen instantly from your subjective experience. Perhaps death is only for your physical body, but your consciousness can only continue to have experiences wherever there are experiences to be had.
I think this idea is called quantum immortality.
How could my consciousness continue to exist after the destruction of my brain? What are you proposing makes me?
it makes it really easy to be immortal or get resurected.
Your consciousness, feelings, sensory input, and your entire character can be massively affected (even controlled) by the bacteria in your gut (which has its own separate nervous system), or by parasites.
It’s not as simple as measuring the electric signals between neurons in your brain.
What you feel, think and do is often fully controlled by processes that happen elsewhere in your body. And your consciousness just comes up with a reason for your behavior after the fact.
Not sure if that’s more or less scary than oblivion
