Originally Posted by masque de Z

Cremated like hell no. Its too unreal without some totally out of the blue kind of physics. Unless we could replicate brain before death at some prior situation in life where the state of the brain in whatever macroscopic valid sense can be replicated and then you regenerate the person in terms of DNA and modify the brain of the "clone" to match the original person or rebuild brain from the ground up starting with cells put together or an alternative seemingly more chemically possible implied next. For example feeding a brain with an intense series of stimulation that replicates prior life compacted in a very brief fraction of the time taken to actually live it, in effect forging neuron relationships taken decades to establish in real time for a real person, now reconstructed chemically with proper stimulation of the clone brain within minutes or days whatever to end up nearly identical to the old one, the original person in the near identical macroscopic sense.

Then once you "reboot" that person they will basically feel like they were that old one that died and they would have absolutely no ability to tell otherwise. But clearly it would not be that other person in the third observer and certainly not physical sense. Basically all this goes down to whether its possible to talk about such a thing as macroscopic state of a human brain that can be well described and reproduced or it is extremely complex and futile because of the necessity to perform something dramatically more elaborate than "simply" an already gigantic task ie the recreation of >trillions of connections without any significant error.

From wikipedia;


"The human brain has a huge number of synapses. Each of the 10^11 (one hundred billion) neurons has on average 7,000 synaptic connections to other neurons. It has been estimated that the brain of a three-year-old child has about 10^15 synapses (1 quadrillion). This number declines with age, stabilizing by adulthood. Estimates vary for an adult, ranging from 10^14 to 5 x 10^14 synapses (100 to 500 trillion).[11]"

You probably would have to replicate all this system like a harddrive copy only in this case its a lot more complicated and sensitive and yet moreover the sensitivity still able to correct itself and recover and adapt well, often within sensible range of changes resulting from disease or whatever conditions. We need to be able to understand all this better, how human intellect/consciousness emerges and functions and evolves in time and how all this "state" is preserved in time and rebuilt partially to move from one point in time to another and more or less be the same person gradually transitioning between these states without losing key properties unique to that person and also some common to all humans (so what defines the chemical difference between 2 brains), in any hope to be able to recreate it and it will be an immense effort even if technologically possible.


On the practical side i am very confident that the definition of death is already expanding in seconds per year this decade. I mean 100 years ago death was within a couple minutes or so declared but these days you have 5-10 min and even 30 min with proper temperature control in some documented recent cases that will shock everyone.The fact is its possible that if certain conditions can be met near death the biological death can be seemingly literally postponed many minutes well over 10 with proper treatment. You really have to look into what happens to cells/organs once a person dies in the traditional sense (heart stops definition?) and try to slow down the processes that lead to an irreversible macroscopic barrier - a point of no return - where you cannot go back anymore without super dramatic technological assistance that tests the extremes defined by the very laws of nature. I think recent results with low temperature treatment of bodies are very encouraging that indeed what we define as death is even primitive and most people of reasonable overall health that die from heart issues probably are if under the right technology treated within minutes can be recovered eventually with minor or severe or even no problems at all. All you have to do possibly in the future is provide any person near you that appears to die in a non violent body destroying death, some proper injections and then the right equipment available to all homes of the future that is instantly connected to the right medical personnel remotely and then buy yourself time practically until the real assistance arrives with the right equipment to reduce temperature and revive the person gradually etc.

However if the brain really passes certain cellular chemical reactions point that is physically irreversible or ultra massively complex task to perform then probably nothing short of the program i described above with brain replication can reverse the death because it becomes an arrow of time problem requiring time reversal of the evolution of a huge number of systems that would be technologically and even physically unreasonable to expect to occur simultaneously.

I try in what i said above to be rationality optimistic and i do not think i am exaggerating or underestimating the situation. I think we will come very close to eliminating 70% of deaths or more in the future by simply having proper equipment and different methodology applied to each person that "dies" as defined today without a violent massive failure situation (such as an explosion or shot in various critical places that affect brain etc.). As for the speculative deeper understanding of human brain and the potential reconstruction to an arbitrarily close macroscopically for all practical purposes prior state i want to remain optimistic but i and also science in general need to learn more about how the brain works and exactly what is it that needs to be done to recover the way neurons connect to each other, basically understand the chemical basis of what is human intellect and of course all other functions of the brain responsible for life. It may turn out possible with substantial effort and technology or it may be extremely complex to impractical even if one had any technological means short of a fundamental breakthrough in physics that intervenes against the second law in a seemingly present day ridiculous macroscopic level.

some reference;

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2741140/

http://www.anesthesia-analgesia.org/.../38/6/423.long

http://www.12newsnow.com/story/16200...tes-underwater

Originally Posted by Eman6969

What about people frozen like ted williams? Are you saying they could be revived eventually?

Originally Posted by jdock100

Our eyes are adapted to scan the horizon on the plains of East Africa looking for predators/prey. They are not adapted to spend hours a day reading. "Smart" people generally have bad eyesight because they read more, wearing the muscles in their eyes out.

Originally Posted by Pokerlogist

Isn't it currently true that the best and brightest humans are currently reluctant to breed while breeeding is rampant among the least naturally gifted class? If this is true and continues, is it more liklely humans will "de-evolve"? Maybe humankind as a whole will become less intelligent and more beligerent over the next 10,000 years.

Originally Posted by masque de Z

A 2008 literature review writes that studies in several nations have found a relationship between myopia and higher IQ and between myopia and school achievement. A common explanation for myopia is near-work. Regarding the relationship to IQ, several explanations have been proposed. One is that the myopic child is better adapted at reading, and reads and studies more, which increases intelligence. They seem smart at least, if its better adapted I don't know as I needed glasses to read and it sucked. The reverse explanation is that the intelligent and studious child reads more, which causes myopia. I did extremely well in school while not studying or ever reading a book. Got myopia at the end of school. Another is that myopic children have an advantage at IQ testing which is near-work because of less eye strain.The guy who proposed this had a fine eye. Still another explanation is that pleiotropic gene(s) affect the size of both brain and eyes simultaneously. According to the two most recent studies, higher IQ may be associated with myopia in schoolchildren, independent of books read per week

Originally Posted by zoltan

Wow how do I keep hitting the worst threads ever? This is pretty good though:



OP, there's pretty much no way to predict the trajectory of human evolution without some insight into environmental (and sociological, I suppose) conditions. Two points are salient in this conversation:
1) h**o sapiens is arguably the most adaptable species to ever inhabit this planet.
2) the current rate of human evolution is greater than it has been in the history of the species.

Discuss. If you dare.