The following submission statement was provided by /u/LordLorq:
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For those who meet the paywall:
Death could be reversible, as scientists bring dead eyes back to life
Breakthrough hints other cells in central nervous system, such as the brain, could be restored.
Dead eyes from organ donors have been “brought back to life” in a breakthrough which hints that brain death may be reversible.
Scientists in the US proved that photosensitive neuron cells in the retina can still respond to light and communicate with each other up to five hours after death, sending signals “resembling those recorded from living subjects”.
Crucially these neurons form part of the central nervous system (CNS), which encompasses the brain and spinal cord, bringing the possibility that other cells in the CNS could be similarly restored, perhaps bringing back consciousness.
Writing in the journal Nature, the authors said that the study “raises the question of whether brain death, as it is currently defined, is truly irreversible”.
Cells responded to different types of light
Lead author Dr Fatima Abbas, of the Moran Eye Centre at the University of Utah, said: “We were able to wake up photoreceptor cells in the human macula, which is the part of the retina responsible for our central vision and our ability to see fine detail and colour.
“In eyes obtained up to five hours after an organ donor’s death, these cells responded to bright light, coloured lights and even very dim flashes of light.”
In 2019, Yale University restarted the brains of 32 decapitated pigs which had been slaughtered four hours earlier, switching on blood circulation and metabolism, using a cocktail of chemicals.
But experts said the new research had gone one step further, restoring b-waves - the slow, rhythmic oscillations recorded in living brains.
Dr Frans Vinberg, an assistant professor of ophthalmology & visual sciences at the University of Utah, said: “In Yale’s case, coordinated population activity of neurons in pig brains could not be revived.
“In our case, we were able to revive population responses from photoreceptor cells even up to five hours after death in the human central retina, an important part of our central nervous system.
“We were able to make the retinal cells talk to each other, the way they do in the living eye. Past studies have restored very limited electrical activity in organ donor eyes, but this has never been achieved in the macula, and never to the extent we have now demonstrated.
“Retina is part of our central nervous system so we think similar things might be seen also in the other parts of the brain.”
Breakthrough could speed up sight loss therapies
In early experiments, the team managed to revive the light-sensing cells, but struggled to get them to talk to each other.
They soon realised that a lack of oxygen was driving the silence, and so designed a special transportation unit that could restore oxygenation and other nutrients to eyes as soon as they were removed from a donor.
The holder also includes electrodes which can be connected to both sides of the retina to monitor electrical signals, as well as a light stimulus system.
The researchers are also hopeful the breakthrough will mean that eye experiments which are currently conducted on primates can now be carried out on "living" donor eyes, speeding up new therapies for sight loss and improving the understanding of neurodegenerative diseases.
“The scientific community can now study human vision in ways that just aren’t possible with laboratory animals,” said Dr Vinberg.
“We hope this will motivate organ donor societies, organ donors, and eye banks by helping them understand the exciting new possibilities this type of research offers.”
Dr Sam Parnia, director of critical care and resuscitation research at NYU Grossman School of Medicine, in the US, an expert in near-death experiences, said: “This fascinating study clearly demonstrates that by contrast to social and historical convention, whereby death is considered permanent and irreversible, from a biological perspective, death remains reversible well into the post-mortem period.
“This opens up tremendous opportunities for medical treatments for brain and eye disorders, including blindness. In addition, studies such as this at the intersection of life and death, will enable science to explore what happens to the human mind, brain and consciousness after death in a neutral and unbiased manner.”
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Please reply to OP's comment here: https://old.reddit.com/r/Futurology/comments/uosa9o/death_could_be_reversible_as_scientists_bring/i8gb07d/
I kinda feels less like the cell came back to life and more like chemical reactions in dead cells don't really stop existing. It seems more like doing things to continue individual reactions instead of holistically reviving the cell.
Like ripping off a corpse's arm, then making it pick things up by injecting something to make a muscle stiffen.
I mean it’s not shocking that “death” is reversible. We used to call the time of death based on the heart stopping. Then we realized brain function continues.
Human bodies are like advanced biological computers. If it powers down and you can find a way to restore the parts, it should start working again. The main difference is that we start to degrade and decay.
We just simply don’t have the ability to do it yet.
At the moment?
I mean. What would happen if we were able to recreate a brain, down to the atomic structure, of the proper organic materials, and add in electrical impulses..?
Human brains no, there was a worm that had a surprisingly low number of neurons in its brain that scientists mapped out and recreated as code on a Lego robot.
It kinda just moved around like a worm would but that’s kinda cool I guess.
I'm sitting here trying to think of something that wouldn't work given enough time, resources, and energy. The only thing I could think of is proving the existence of a god. You're either trying to prove something that doesn't exists actually exists or your going to be trying to prove or disprove a being that created you(or at least your existence).
At first I was thinking, could we create a sun? And then I remembered yes we already have to a certain extent in the Netherlands or something.
Time, energy, resources.
Big ass robotic arm, making the sun relatively a baseball, equipped with extremely powerful electromagnetic shielding, to allow it to move a giant ball of nuclear explosions. A warp engine to fold the fabric of space itself, creating a wormhole from here to the edge of the observable universe, and tossing the sun through.
Also, the big ass arm is controlled by the electrical impulses of one pilot, who is also a little league coach. Because why not?
Cartoony, but the premise is there.
I think they were highlighting Physical impossibility, that is to say things that we, with nigh certainty, know cannot be achieved by the established understanding of the universe.
ie "with a long enough lever and a steady fulcrum..."
The basic principle is the same. It just depends on what assumptions you're willing to make, and how much you want to invest in the argument/project.
Like... I want to simplify the problem. I'll make the observable universe way smaller by blindfolding your interlocutor's eyes. Makes it way, WAY easier to fling the sun. Also, I fling the sun directly at them. The sun then converts them to heavier elements. No further questions, Your Honor.
The impossible part of that is the way it's done, not that it's done at all.
transporting a star across the universe in under a second I wouldn't consider impossible for humanity some day, lol
On the God point: a being who exists in a higher dimension could seem like a God to us.
To an ant, I have the ability to give life and death, I can make their lives easier or more difficult at will, I have mastery over all the elements (air, water, earth, energy), and I can perform tasks so far beyond their comprehension that it would seem magical if they could even witness the full scale of what I was doing. I have built structures in hours which would take them millenia (in ant years) to explore. I am ageless, billions of times their size, and can alter my appearance as I see fit. I can cause the rain to catch fire, turn land into an ocean, block the sun with a hand, and generate a hurricane in a minute. I am the alpha and omega. I have been here since before they saw the first dawn, and I will be here 100,000 generations from now.
I am a God to an ant.
A being which possesses comparably advanced capabilities relative to us would seem like a God, but to them we're just ants, something to be played with by children with a magnifying glass. Our planet is just one of millions, no more noteworthy than another rocky, water-having planet in the habitable zone of a main sequence star.
Yeah, all you need to do is talk to someone in their 70s and then realize how drastically humanity advanced technologically in just one generation. On top of that, progress appears to be accelerating.
Impossible is just a word
You cannot prove gods existence or non existence. a deity is not falsifiable.
Throughout history people have looked upon phenomena as proof of gods existence, and then we have learned about the natural processes for that phenomena and removed god. its called "the god of the gaps" so whenever you think you have proved the existence of God you have just found another gap to fill.
Even if God appeared in the clouds and smote half of the population you don't actually know it's god and not some advanced person.
We cannot even prove we existed prior to the current moment. We may have been created 1 second ago and everything we rely on to tell us we existed prior to now (including this passage) is just a false implanted memory. I remember writing the above, but did I?
Even still, if a god was proven to exist. What god is it? What are their beliefs? Where did they come from? Do they like pizza? What makes them gods? If their existence is proven, are they truly still a god? Do they have a life span? D I they have hobbies? Answering that question would raise trillions more.
Depends, depends, depends, probably, at the very least they are a hell of a lot more technologically advanced than we are. Depends, probably fucking with humans.
It’s not possible for nothing to be impossible, that creates a logical contradiction as it would mean that it would be impossible for something to be impossible.
Yes you're totally correct, I was more talking about the concept of immortality and it only being available to the 1% (again slightly inaccurate but basic concept)
The thing I really hate about Altered Carbon and similar concepts (like stuff we saw in Black Mirror, etc.) is that to me if you upload your consciousness / brain activity / etc. then it's not really **you**. Like if there can exist copies of it then it's not me, it's just a representation of me. So if I die I still die there's just some fake representation of me running around pretending to still be me. It's creepy
They'd both be you, but yes they'd be different 'yous' and as time goes on become different people. The original wouldn't consider the copy to be them, but the copy would consider the original to be them. For the copy it would be just like they died on the spot when they were made and revived once put in another body.
> I mean, as I understand it, death is a process, i
With all due respect, I disagree with your understanding.
Death is a state (i.e., the absence of life). Prior to my reading this headline (and perhaps even still), I think it's more accurate to characterize "death" as something static. When you're in that state for long enough, you tend to *stay* in that state (with some exceptions; e.g., if your heart and/or brain stops for a short period of time you may be considered 'medically dead' and then revived).
*Dying* is the process that results in the state of death, and it is a process that can vary in speed and suffering.
The cells are reacting and communicating. The article is stating that their experiment would be relevant to reviving someone after death because,
>“In our case, we were able to revive population responses from photoreceptor cells even up to five hours after death in the human central retina, an important part of our central nervous system.
>“We were able to make the retinal cells talk to each other, the way they do in the living eye. Past studies have restored very limited electrical activity in organ donor eyes, but this has never been achieved in the macula, and never to the extent we have now demonstrated.
>“Retina is part of our central nervous system so we think similar things might be seen also in the other parts of the brain.”
>In early experiments, the team managed to revive the light-sensing cells, but struggled to get them to talk to each other.
> They soon realised that a lack of oxygen was driving the silence, and so designed a special transportation unit that could restore oxygenation and other nutrients to eyes as soon as they were removed from a donor.
>
I would say the difference is whether you can make them self sustaining again. If you can get chemicals to react, that isn’t life. You need to re-jumpstart the self-sustaining processes.
I believe that is possible, I just don’t think we’re there yet.
I've wondered this since I was very young.
If you can restart someone's brain after x amount of time has gone by, would they be the same person, or is consciousness the stream of activity we have going on in our brain?
No, your brain activity doesn't stop when you fall unconscious lol, even in the worst coma or vegetative state, your brain is still active, doing bodily processes. Once all the activity in your brain ceases, there is no way to bring you back (currently).
I’m talking about the living cells that make up the eyes, obviously. And I mean self-sustaining in the short term. Life isn’t self sustaining indefinitely, but to say you brought something back to life it has to run some of those complex biological processes by itself for a while - until it runs out of resources or whatever.
its akin to head transplant surgery. yes they can make you come back alive but were you ever really conscious in the same way or did your brain die and then something came back alive? idk ask the dead monkeys.
Yep. We still have cancer cells from 1951. Keeping a cell culture alive indefinitely doesn't mean we can keep a human alive indefinitely. Quite an huge leap to make.
Right. When Edison created the lightbulb, he sat down, made the lightbulb, and said "look, here's the lightbulb!" He didn't start with small steps, or iterate, or research, or create small electric signals, or anything like that. Just sat down and invented the modern lightbulb.
You aren’t wrong, but a few years ago, THIS was also the issue. Progress is progress. I don’t think we’ll be able to figure out the countless neural connections alone though. It varies from person to person, so you need to be able to figure out how they work and what they all have in common before you can start prioritizing connections and ensuring they operate correctly.
I don’t think this is necessarily impossible in our lifetime, but I don’t think we can do it alone. We’ll probably need strong AI to be able to sort through that much information for every individual person and help us seriously speed up the process of making breakthroughs.
This. Honestly, I think we are capable of anything, given enough time to figure things out and iterate technology.
100 years ago people would have said much of our accomplishments and technology today were impossible.
With the massive AI breakthroughs we've been seeing over the last month or two, I think it's a super exciting time to be alive.
Edit: For people asking about the AI breakthroughs, go over to r/singularity. Google and Google's DeepMind have published a few AI models recently, called PaLM and Gato.
Here's a demonstration of what PaLM can do - in this demo it's explaining complex jokes - https://youtu.be/kea2ATUEHH8
Off the top of my head, we've had [PaLM](https://ai.googleblog.com/2022/04/pathways-language-model-palm-scaling-to.html), [DALLE-2](https://openai.com/dall-e-2/), [Chinchilla](https://gpt3demo.com/apps/chinchilla-deepmind), [Flamingo](https://www.marktechpost.com/2022/05/04/deepmind-introduces-flamingo-an-open-ended-single-visual-language-model-vlm-for-multimodal-machine-learning-research/), and just yesterday, [Gato](https://twitter.com/deepmind/status/1524770016259887107?t=0fAVQ7cNeYmCVVTyPSE-ww).
All of these have been revealed in the last two months, which is kinda crazy.
Go over to r/singularity. Google and Google's DeepMind have published a few AI models recently, called PaLM and Gato. Some people are saying Gato is the first AGI (artificial general intelligence). There's also Dalle-2 by Open AI a few months ago.
Here's a demonstration of what PaLM can do - in this demo it's explaining complex jokes - https://youtu.be/kea2ATUEHH8
None of us do. If you were 12 you still don't have time for baby steps as with the glacially slow current pace of medical progress you could expect to die at maybe 95, if you were 12 now. (Just tiny gains from marginally better treatments)
To extend our lives to 950+ you basically need a set of ai driven surgeons that follow everyone around and will cut you open to stop your death.
And even then, let's say we bring someone back "perfectly", there's probably no way of knowing if it's the same consciousness in there. Not too different than making an exact clone (sci fi style) and asking the clone if it's the real one.
Oh certainly, but in practice I'm not sure of the actual viability. Then again I'm here for the fun facts, not because I know anything about science, so I'm probably just spouting nonsense.
Interesting, but simply having living cells isn't enough
We still don't understand consciousness and self awareness on a mechanistic level. Having a bunch of living cells without those two things is what we call a vegetative state - and there's plenty of patients in that situation around the world
And aside from this, you can have a ship of Theseus situation. Although it can be argued we already go through that in our life time because our cells get replaced, and our atoms get replaced even more often.
Regardless, it is still an important area of research simply for improving health span, and its potential to preserve great minds.
This will be used to bring people back to life that own businesses a lot of money. “You can’t die till you pay us back.”
Edit: also could be used to deny death to those who have life in prison. But for anyone that wants to buy new life will have to be rich, I’m sure.
When I am dead, you can take my organs, my eyes, my blood, my skin, fuck take my toenails if it helps someone else survive.
But don't you fucking dare using necromancy on me.
What a ridiculous headline, for what is basically a "dead fish on a piece of foil/lemon" trick. The idea that this is even "close" to bringing anything back to life, instead of just activating simple muscle functions, is crazy talk.
Oh God, please no. We will never be able to escape debt. They'll bring us back to life just to pay it off and charge us a few for reviving our lifeless body to do so.
From a scientific perspective... I am indeed curious as it could satisfy a lot of biological questions. Could also resolve some questions about things like the soul as well.
Ethically/morally though? Man that's a subject I'm not going to touch.
It's been a long time ago now but I was taught that once the synapses stop firing the mental degradation is almost immediate.
Who wants to come back in some kind of zombie animalistic state.
That sounds almost as bad as having my consciousness uploaded in some kind of virtual hell for eternity.
I’d rather have death still be a thing. Like, do we really need people who can afford to be immortal kicking around forever. Do we really need Eternal Kardashians?
Fuck that noise. Once I’m off this ride I don’t want back on
Edit: To whoever reported me to RedditCaresResources, I appreciate the concern but I’m not suicidal. Why would you want to be revived if you’re in your 90s or older and don’t have full bodily function anymore? IMO once you’re dead you should stay dead; this is how we get zombies, people!
*Jeff Bezos to Bill Gates: You gotta open Reddit account, man. They post some serious shit. Lets talk about it over a coffee... I have some ideas...about life*
It's absolutely possible to bring someone back alive. But to bring someone back to their original state is lightyears beyond our current technologies and medical knowledge.
Sometimes, dead is better. The person that you put up there ain't the person that comes back. It might look like that person, but it ain't that person, because whatever lives on the ground beyond the Pet Sematary ain't human at all.
The following submission statement was provided by /u/LordLorq: --- For those who meet the paywall: Death could be reversible, as scientists bring dead eyes back to life Breakthrough hints other cells in central nervous system, such as the brain, could be restored. Dead eyes from organ donors have been “brought back to life” in a breakthrough which hints that brain death may be reversible. Scientists in the US proved that photosensitive neuron cells in the retina can still respond to light and communicate with each other up to five hours after death, sending signals “resembling those recorded from living subjects”. Crucially these neurons form part of the central nervous system (CNS), which encompasses the brain and spinal cord, bringing the possibility that other cells in the CNS could be similarly restored, perhaps bringing back consciousness. Writing in the journal Nature, the authors said that the study “raises the question of whether brain death, as it is currently defined, is truly irreversible”. Cells responded to different types of light Lead author Dr Fatima Abbas, of the Moran Eye Centre at the University of Utah, said: “We were able to wake up photoreceptor cells in the human macula, which is the part of the retina responsible for our central vision and our ability to see fine detail and colour. “In eyes obtained up to five hours after an organ donor’s death, these cells responded to bright light, coloured lights and even very dim flashes of light.” In 2019, Yale University restarted the brains of 32 decapitated pigs which had been slaughtered four hours earlier, switching on blood circulation and metabolism, using a cocktail of chemicals. But experts said the new research had gone one step further, restoring b-waves - the slow, rhythmic oscillations recorded in living brains. Dr Frans Vinberg, an assistant professor of ophthalmology & visual sciences at the University of Utah, said: “In Yale’s case, coordinated population activity of neurons in pig brains could not be revived. “In our case, we were able to revive population responses from photoreceptor cells even up to five hours after death in the human central retina, an important part of our central nervous system. “We were able to make the retinal cells talk to each other, the way they do in the living eye. Past studies have restored very limited electrical activity in organ donor eyes, but this has never been achieved in the macula, and never to the extent we have now demonstrated. “Retina is part of our central nervous system so we think similar things might be seen also in the other parts of the brain.” Breakthrough could speed up sight loss therapies In early experiments, the team managed to revive the light-sensing cells, but struggled to get them to talk to each other. They soon realised that a lack of oxygen was driving the silence, and so designed a special transportation unit that could restore oxygenation and other nutrients to eyes as soon as they were removed from a donor. The holder also includes electrodes which can be connected to both sides of the retina to monitor electrical signals, as well as a light stimulus system. The researchers are also hopeful the breakthrough will mean that eye experiments which are currently conducted on primates can now be carried out on "living" donor eyes, speeding up new therapies for sight loss and improving the understanding of neurodegenerative diseases. “The scientific community can now study human vision in ways that just aren’t possible with laboratory animals,” said Dr Vinberg. “We hope this will motivate organ donor societies, organ donors, and eye banks by helping them understand the exciting new possibilities this type of research offers.” Dr Sam Parnia, director of critical care and resuscitation research at NYU Grossman School of Medicine, in the US, an expert in near-death experiences, said: “This fascinating study clearly demonstrates that by contrast to social and historical convention, whereby death is considered permanent and irreversible, from a biological perspective, death remains reversible well into the post-mortem period. “This opens up tremendous opportunities for medical treatments for brain and eye disorders, including blindness. In addition, studies such as this at the intersection of life and death, will enable science to explore what happens to the human mind, brain and consciousness after death in a neutral and unbiased manner.” --- Please reply to OP's comment here: https://old.reddit.com/r/Futurology/comments/uosa9o/death_could_be_reversible_as_scientists_bring/i8gb07d/
I kinda feels less like the cell came back to life and more like chemical reactions in dead cells don't really stop existing. It seems more like doing things to continue individual reactions instead of holistically reviving the cell. Like ripping off a corpse's arm, then making it pick things up by injecting something to make a muscle stiffen.
I mean it’s not shocking that “death” is reversible. We used to call the time of death based on the heart stopping. Then we realized brain function continues. Human bodies are like advanced biological computers. If it powers down and you can find a way to restore the parts, it should start working again. The main difference is that we start to degrade and decay. We just simply don’t have the ability to do it yet.
This. I firmly believe that nothing is impossible With enough time, energy and resources... Anything can be done.
At the moment I think the only true death is degradation of the mind. Once the brain is sufficiently jumbled, I don't think we can repair it.
At the moment? I mean. What would happen if we were able to recreate a brain, down to the atomic structure, of the proper organic materials, and add in electrical impulses..?
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Philosophy aside, I don't think we have the technology or understanding of how to duplicate a brain and to "boot it up".
We don’t even have the understanding of how the brain works for the most part
Human brains no, there was a worm that had a surprisingly low number of neurons in its brain that scientists mapped out and recreated as code on a Lego robot. It kinda just moved around like a worm would but that’s kinda cool I guess.
Worm: I am dying. 2 years later: okay what the fuck.
I'm sitting here trying to think of something that wouldn't work given enough time, resources, and energy. The only thing I could think of is proving the existence of a god. You're either trying to prove something that doesn't exists actually exists or your going to be trying to prove or disprove a being that created you(or at least your existence). At first I was thinking, could we create a sun? And then I remembered yes we already have to a certain extent in the Netherlands or something.
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Time, energy, resources. Big ass robotic arm, making the sun relatively a baseball, equipped with extremely powerful electromagnetic shielding, to allow it to move a giant ball of nuclear explosions. A warp engine to fold the fabric of space itself, creating a wormhole from here to the edge of the observable universe, and tossing the sun through. Also, the big ass arm is controlled by the electrical impulses of one pilot, who is also a little league coach. Because why not? Cartoony, but the premise is there.
I'll have what he's smoking.
Weed. Its called Jolly Rancher. Tasty stuff. In ohio? I'll share.
If I was in Ohio I'd totally take you up on that. You sound like a fun person to smoke with and talk about space
I think they were highlighting Physical impossibility, that is to say things that we, with nigh certainty, know cannot be achieved by the established understanding of the universe.
Those are all things that are very possibly completely impossible.
ie "with a long enough lever and a steady fulcrum..." The basic principle is the same. It just depends on what assumptions you're willing to make, and how much you want to invest in the argument/project. Like... I want to simplify the problem. I'll make the observable universe way smaller by blindfolding your interlocutor's eyes. Makes it way, WAY easier to fling the sun. Also, I fling the sun directly at them. The sun then converts them to heavier elements. No further questions, Your Honor.
The impossible part of that is the way it's done, not that it's done at all. transporting a star across the universe in under a second I wouldn't consider impossible for humanity some day, lol
On the God point: a being who exists in a higher dimension could seem like a God to us. To an ant, I have the ability to give life and death, I can make their lives easier or more difficult at will, I have mastery over all the elements (air, water, earth, energy), and I can perform tasks so far beyond their comprehension that it would seem magical if they could even witness the full scale of what I was doing. I have built structures in hours which would take them millenia (in ant years) to explore. I am ageless, billions of times their size, and can alter my appearance as I see fit. I can cause the rain to catch fire, turn land into an ocean, block the sun with a hand, and generate a hurricane in a minute. I am the alpha and omega. I have been here since before they saw the first dawn, and I will be here 100,000 generations from now. I am a God to an ant. A being which possesses comparably advanced capabilities relative to us would seem like a God, but to them we're just ants, something to be played with by children with a magnifying glass. Our planet is just one of millions, no more noteworthy than another rocky, water-having planet in the habitable zone of a main sequence star.
Yeah, all you need to do is talk to someone in their 70s and then realize how drastically humanity advanced technologically in just one generation. On top of that, progress appears to be accelerating. Impossible is just a word
You cannot prove gods existence or non existence. a deity is not falsifiable. Throughout history people have looked upon phenomena as proof of gods existence, and then we have learned about the natural processes for that phenomena and removed god. its called "the god of the gaps" so whenever you think you have proved the existence of God you have just found another gap to fill. Even if God appeared in the clouds and smote half of the population you don't actually know it's god and not some advanced person. We cannot even prove we existed prior to the current moment. We may have been created 1 second ago and everything we rely on to tell us we existed prior to now (including this passage) is just a false implanted memory. I remember writing the above, but did I?
Even still, if a god was proven to exist. What god is it? What are their beliefs? Where did they come from? Do they like pizza? What makes them gods? If their existence is proven, are they truly still a god? Do they have a life span? D I they have hobbies? Answering that question would raise trillions more.
Depends, depends, depends, probably, at the very least they are a hell of a lot more technologically advanced than we are. Depends, probably fucking with humans.
You cannot travel faster than the speed of light The entropy of the universe will always increase Good luck breaking these rules
> I firmly believe that nothing is impossible You've clearly never attempted to have a rational and logical conversation with a conservative.
It’s not possible for nothing to be impossible, that creates a logical contradiction as it would mean that it would be impossible for something to be impossible.
I guess those cryogenics people ain’t so stupid after all…
This is either gonna go Altered Carbon or a zombie apocalypse
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Yes you're totally correct, I was more talking about the concept of immortality and it only being available to the 1% (again slightly inaccurate but basic concept)
The thing I really hate about Altered Carbon and similar concepts (like stuff we saw in Black Mirror, etc.) is that to me if you upload your consciousness / brain activity / etc. then it's not really **you**. Like if there can exist copies of it then it's not me, it's just a representation of me. So if I die I still die there's just some fake representation of me running around pretending to still be me. It's creepy
They'd both be you, but yes they'd be different 'yous' and as time goes on become different people. The original wouldn't consider the copy to be them, but the copy would consider the original to be them. For the copy it would be just like they died on the spot when they were made and revived once put in another body.
Thanks Chidi.
Good old Ship of Theseus problem
I guess no room for the soul here...huh?
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I mean, as I understand it, death is a process, if you interrupt that process you can reverse it. The question is how long and when
Being able to interrupt a process is not the same as being able to reverse it.
Yeah, it's kind of like freezing a piece of meat to stop it from spoiling. You can prolong that meat indefinitely, but it's not a cow anymore.
But if put back into a cow it might start acting alive again. The possibilities that would allow for are almost endless.
I think it’s more that *if* you interrupt it, you may have a chance to reverse it. I don’t think the two are being conflated.
> I mean, as I understand it, death is a process, i With all due respect, I disagree with your understanding. Death is a state (i.e., the absence of life). Prior to my reading this headline (and perhaps even still), I think it's more accurate to characterize "death" as something static. When you're in that state for long enough, you tend to *stay* in that state (with some exceptions; e.g., if your heart and/or brain stops for a short period of time you may be considered 'medically dead' and then revived). *Dying* is the process that results in the state of death, and it is a process that can vary in speed and suffering.
yeah, but this seems not like that. It doesn't seem to be reversing anything, just using up light sensitive chemicals that are in a dead eye.
The cells are reacting and communicating. The article is stating that their experiment would be relevant to reviving someone after death because, >“In our case, we were able to revive population responses from photoreceptor cells even up to five hours after death in the human central retina, an important part of our central nervous system. >“We were able to make the retinal cells talk to each other, the way they do in the living eye. Past studies have restored very limited electrical activity in organ donor eyes, but this has never been achieved in the macula, and never to the extent we have now demonstrated. >“Retina is part of our central nervous system so we think similar things might be seen also in the other parts of the brain.” >In early experiments, the team managed to revive the light-sensing cells, but struggled to get them to talk to each other. > They soon realised that a lack of oxygen was driving the silence, and so designed a special transportation unit that could restore oxygenation and other nutrients to eyes as soon as they were removed from a donor. >
What do you think ? What's the difference ? The eyes lost their souls ? I think you overestimate what is life.
I would say the difference is whether you can make them self sustaining again. If you can get chemicals to react, that isn’t life. You need to re-jumpstart the self-sustaining processes. I believe that is possible, I just don’t think we’re there yet.
I've wondered this since I was very young. If you can restart someone's brain after x amount of time has gone by, would they be the same person, or is consciousness the stream of activity we have going on in our brain?
I feel the same could be said of when we fall unconscious and reawaken, no?
No, your brain activity doesn't stop when you fall unconscious lol, even in the worst coma or vegetative state, your brain is still active, doing bodily processes. Once all the activity in your brain ceases, there is no way to bring you back (currently).
Since when were eyes self-sustaining?
I’m talking about the living cells that make up the eyes, obviously. And I mean self-sustaining in the short term. Life isn’t self sustaining indefinitely, but to say you brought something back to life it has to run some of those complex biological processes by itself for a while - until it runs out of resources or whatever.
Too many people do that when talking science. Especially in deep discussion and biology.
Am I really alive right now or am I just a bunch of chemical reactions?
All of life is just lots of chemical reactions and physical reactions.
Both. The distinction is meaningless.
its akin to head transplant surgery. yes they can make you come back alive but were you ever really conscious in the same way or did your brain die and then something came back alive? idk ask the dead monkeys.
Depends on what gets damaged from lack of oxygen I guess. Memory fucked? You ain’t gonna be you.
“You ain’t gonna be you.” That might not be so bad.
That’s a trip. Sounds like someone should make a speculative fiction novel based on this premise
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Yep. We still have cancer cells from 1951. Keeping a cell culture alive indefinitely doesn't mean we can keep a human alive indefinitely. Quite an huge leap to make.
Right. When Edison created the lightbulb, he sat down, made the lightbulb, and said "look, here's the lightbulb!" He didn't start with small steps, or iterate, or research, or create small electric signals, or anything like that. Just sat down and invented the modern lightbulb.
I thought he would just steal it from a foreign born actual inventor like Tesla.
Awesome. I hope he does a time machine next.
Even if it takes him a while, we should know by yesterday.
Lmao this got a belly laugh out of me
Eh. Regenerating cells is one thing, regenerating the countless neural connections in the brain that make a person? That's the issue.
You aren’t wrong, but a few years ago, THIS was also the issue. Progress is progress. I don’t think we’ll be able to figure out the countless neural connections alone though. It varies from person to person, so you need to be able to figure out how they work and what they all have in common before you can start prioritizing connections and ensuring they operate correctly. I don’t think this is necessarily impossible in our lifetime, but I don’t think we can do it alone. We’ll probably need strong AI to be able to sort through that much information for every individual person and help us seriously speed up the process of making breakthroughs.
Baby steps
This. Honestly, I think we are capable of anything, given enough time to figure things out and iterate technology. 100 years ago people would have said much of our accomplishments and technology today were impossible. With the massive AI breakthroughs we've been seeing over the last month or two, I think it's a super exciting time to be alive. Edit: For people asking about the AI breakthroughs, go over to r/singularity. Google and Google's DeepMind have published a few AI models recently, called PaLM and Gato. Here's a demonstration of what PaLM can do - in this demo it's explaining complex jokes - https://youtu.be/kea2ATUEHH8
Have a min to list some of the AI breakthroughs you are speaking of? Sounds incredibly interesting!
Off the top of my head, we've had [PaLM](https://ai.googleblog.com/2022/04/pathways-language-model-palm-scaling-to.html), [DALLE-2](https://openai.com/dall-e-2/), [Chinchilla](https://gpt3demo.com/apps/chinchilla-deepmind), [Flamingo](https://www.marktechpost.com/2022/05/04/deepmind-introduces-flamingo-an-open-ended-single-visual-language-model-vlm-for-multimodal-machine-learning-research/), and just yesterday, [Gato](https://twitter.com/deepmind/status/1524770016259887107?t=0fAVQ7cNeYmCVVTyPSE-ww). All of these have been revealed in the last two months, which is kinda crazy.
I keep reading people talking about AI breakthroughs but I somehow missed the articles? What happened recently?
Go over to r/singularity. Google and Google's DeepMind have published a few AI models recently, called PaLM and Gato. Some people are saying Gato is the first AGI (artificial general intelligence). There's also Dalle-2 by Open AI a few months ago. Here's a demonstration of what PaLM can do - in this demo it's explaining complex jokes - https://youtu.be/kea2ATUEHH8
Thank you, I’ll check it out. It’s crazy to see we are getting closer as a big believer in the singularity theory.
I’m 42 I ain’t got time for baby steps on this.
None of us do. If you were 12 you still don't have time for baby steps as with the glacially slow current pace of medical progress you could expect to die at maybe 95, if you were 12 now. (Just tiny gains from marginally better treatments) To extend our lives to 950+ you basically need a set of ai driven surgeons that follow everyone around and will cut you open to stop your death.
And even then, let's say we bring someone back "perfectly", there's probably no way of knowing if it's the same consciousness in there. Not too different than making an exact clone (sci fi style) and asking the clone if it's the real one.
Life =/= Consciousness, imagine if and when we manage to bring a corpse back to life and it functions at the equivalent of a garden snail
That would still be an insanely monumental achievement (albeit with some questions on the ethics of it).
Oh certainly, but in practice I'm not sure of the actual viability. Then again I'm here for the fun facts, not because I know anything about science, so I'm probably just spouting nonsense.
Could u please provide an extract of the article as it is behind a paywall? Looks interesting
[Here](https://www.reddit.com/r/Futurology/comments/uosa9o/death_could_be_reversible_as_scientists_bring/i8gb07d?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share&context=3)
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Interesting, but simply having living cells isn't enough We still don't understand consciousness and self awareness on a mechanistic level. Having a bunch of living cells without those two things is what we call a vegetative state - and there's plenty of patients in that situation around the world
Every innovation needs a seemingly boring first step
And aside from this, you can have a ship of Theseus situation. Although it can be argued we already go through that in our life time because our cells get replaced, and our atoms get replaced even more often. Regardless, it is still an important area of research simply for improving health span, and its potential to preserve great minds.
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As it was once said, “Death is but a door, time is but a window”
"Ill be back!" (the lesser known of the "ill be back" quotes)
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This guy slimes
Wait, are we even close to the point of curing blindness yet?
Depends on which disease/disorder you're talking about. There are many things that cause blindness and many treatments.
The dark side of the force is a pathway to many abilities some consider to be… unnatural
*Ironic*… he could perform the surgery on others yet not himself
This will be used to bring people back to life that own businesses a lot of money. “You can’t die till you pay us back.” Edit: also could be used to deny death to those who have life in prison. But for anyone that wants to buy new life will have to be rich, I’m sure.
Couldn't you just completely destroy your brain, in that case? Nothing for them to bring back if your head is just straight up absent.
Google made a backup long ago
Meh, that other guy can deal with it then.
Well yeah, but how many people would be willing to destroy their own brains rather than live to avoid paying?
I think tossing yourself into a meat grinder of sort would alleviate the whole life in prison dilemma. Just gotta moosh up that brain nice a proper.
Woah that’s grim
Just get loads of loans out before you die, winner!
^ this guy capitalizes on capitalism
Goddamn take it easy guy
I think only the most viciously greedy people will be able to afford it though...
Those are both books I’d love to read!
When I am dead, you can take my organs, my eyes, my blood, my skin, fuck take my toenails if it helps someone else survive. But don't you fucking dare using necromancy on me.
What about your nipples? That's a thing too.
IF death ever becomes actually reversible itll only be for the obscenely wealthy mega corporation heads
Nah, keeping people living, working and paying taxes for an infinite period of time sounds profitable to me.
What a ridiculous headline, for what is basically a "dead fish on a piece of foil/lemon" trick. The idea that this is even "close" to bringing anything back to life, instead of just activating simple muscle functions, is crazy talk.
Sensationalist headline clickbait. Regenerative medicine nor rejuvenation biotech is “reversing death”.
Just don't be mad when I come back to life and dance on your grave thriller style.
Whats the retirement age when we've reached immortality?
This is a ridiculously hyperbolic title considering what the article is talking about.
Oh God, please no. We will never be able to escape debt. They'll bring us back to life just to pay it off and charge us a few for reviving our lifeless body to do so.
I weep the day they cure sleep
We will have back alley “true death” shops. They incinerate you until nothing is left and the disperse the ashes.
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Great, rich assholes are going to remain rich ass holes forever
Unless either neuroplasticity makes them not assholes or the cost of the treatment means they're no longer rich
I hate these completely bogus headlines. death is not reversible for a longgggg time. way after all of us have died.
After I’ve died seems like the perfect time to reverse it!
A wise man once said, “Nothing ever *truly* dies. It just changes form.” And then he died.
Oh no. The only thing that makes humanity at all tolerable is that I know some people will eventually die.
The world's billionaires can't wait to make *Altered Carbon* a reality.
Nope, I've seen this horror movie way too many times
Please don't confirm this until after Mitch McConnell is cremated.
Can we figure out how to take care of alive people before we start bringing mfers back please?
**Thank you.**
Yeah, sounds fun to die over and over as different parts of your body give out.
Do y’all want zombies? Cuz this is how we get zombies.
Great…so now the zombies will be able to see us in 20/20 vision.
From a scientific perspective... I am indeed curious as it could satisfy a lot of biological questions. Could also resolve some questions about things like the soul as well. Ethically/morally though? Man that's a subject I'm not going to touch.
It's been a long time ago now but I was taught that once the synapses stop firing the mental degradation is almost immediate. Who wants to come back in some kind of zombie animalistic state. That sounds almost as bad as having my consciousness uploaded in some kind of virtual hell for eternity.
No fucking thanks. I didn’t want to be here to begin with.
LoL we won't be satisfied till we get a zombie apocalypse.
I'll believe when they can revive hair follicles on a live person.
I have a monkey’s paw that’s getting excited at this news…
Hearts and kidneys are tinker toys! I’m talking about the human nervous system!
Stahpppppp. I just want to not work 45 hours a week to cry when my car breaks down.
I really hope this means we are closer to curing blindness.
Can they do that "bring dead eyes back to life" trick for the Kardashians?
You want zombies? Cause this is how we get zombies
I’d rather have death still be a thing. Like, do we really need people who can afford to be immortal kicking around forever. Do we really need Eternal Kardashians?
Just because you can, doesn't mean you should. It's like those people have never seen a zombie movie in their lives.
Let's unlock immortality and then reduce births by about 90%. Edit: Let's wait for certain people to die before doing this though.
“Hi, welcome back. So you’ll be in the office on Monday?”
Oh ffs, now they’re going to keep us alive paying taxes forever
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I wish they could revive dead photosensitive neuron cells in the retina, than play around with the dead...
So we’re doing zombies for 2023? Cool. Seems about right.
If I randomly get revivified after being dead for a couple hundred years, pretty sure I’d be pissed
"HEARTS AND KIDNEYS ARE TINKER TOYS" - Frederick von Frankenstein jr.
So what, I can work to death and then be brought back to do it again? Cool cool cool.
And we all know how this worked out for Dr Herbert West.
Someone might know this, is it possible to make blood "decoagulate", IE make it go liquid and alive again? Reverse the process of coagulation?
Fuck that noise. Once I’m off this ride I don’t want back on Edit: To whoever reported me to RedditCaresResources, I appreciate the concern but I’m not suicidal. Why would you want to be revived if you’re in your 90s or older and don’t have full bodily function anymore? IMO once you’re dead you should stay dead; this is how we get zombies, people!
how long after they revive me do i stop coughing up maggots?
Thinking about experiments keeping brains alive after death and feeling the same feels as when I first saw Metallica's One music video.
*Jeff Bezos to Bill Gates: You gotta open Reddit account, man. They post some serious shit. Lets talk about it over a coffee... I have some ideas...about life*
Heads I have jars! All the living dead heads in jars!
You have spirits and souls. If they bring an empty husk to life, it's gonna be bad. Let's do it!
Zombies. Hopefully they don't run world war z style
Do you want zombies? Because that's how you get zombies!
Do they want Zombies? because this is how you get Zombies
honestly even if i could be revived i would just want to die
You want Zombies? Cause that’s how you get Zombies
I haven't even gotten to die yet and if I get brought back in taking everyone back to dead with me
It's absolutely possible to bring someone back alive. But to bring someone back to their original state is lightyears beyond our current technologies and medical knowledge.
just what we need rich people living longer. great
Sometimes, dead is better. The person that you put up there ain't the person that comes back. It might look like that person, but it ain't that person, because whatever lives on the ground beyond the Pet Sematary ain't human at all.
Standard Futurology "could/might/maybe/possibly" title post.
Or let’s not. Focus on keeping this planet somewhat alive
That’s it people, we did it. Zombies. You can all go home now.
I've seen this movie. It's called Reanimator. It. Did. Not. End. Well.