Is it theoretically possible to bring back the dead to life?

[The Void]

Like if someday science can successfully, fix a damaged brain of some dead person,
and fix all the things, and can transplant stuff,
then theoretically the dead can be brought to life ain't it?
Pardon me, if it is a stupid question, I am not so educated.

 

[Hadoblado]

As far as I know, yes.

 

[Base groove]

As far as I know, no.

Death may look like a continuous process but it's actually a discrete compilation of events that culminate in irreversibility over time. Until it's irreversible, it's not death. That will be my working definition.

 

[The Void]

As far as I know, no.

Death may look like a continuous process but it's actually a discrete compilation of events that culminate in irreversibility over time. Until it's irreversible, it's not death. That will be my working definition.

I was talking about death in a practical sense.
Like a person dies from a disease, the doctors declared him death,
(but it hasnt decomposed or stuff, and havent reached the point of irrevesibility, okay not completely reversible though, something will be changed afterward, but I am not trying to go too much into philosophical stuff with this, ) and then theoretically it is possible to bring that person to life by replacing stuffs, fixing stuffs,.....
if it is not totally messed,

 

[Jennywocky]

If it's all mechanistic, then if we understand the machinery and processes, we could feasibly reverse it. However, there are a lot of issues to consider, along with cellular deterioration. (For example, the "death programming" in cells that caused a lot of complications when heart attack victims were brought back, only to die anyway within 30 minutes... the cells themselves had triggered a destruct mechanism....)

At least we'd be able to address the issue of "souls." If you can bring back someone who has been certifiably dead past any of the realistic markers, and they act and behave just like before without discernable differences...

 

[Imaginary Numb3r]

Don't believe that conservative nonsense about death and that it's irreversible.
HERBERT, WE NEED MORE RE-AGENTS.

Sorry, couldn't resist ^^

@Topic
Judging from the knowledge we have so far in medicine, we can't bring back the dead.
I had some classes in anatomy and our professor kept saying "our problem is always oxygen in the brain". Because dead brain cells stay dead and we can't do anything about that.
If there would be a way to regenerate brain cells and re-activate the electric signals in the brain (Frankenstein anybody?), yeah it could be possible.

But I highly assume that those newly grown brain cells will start with zero information.
So, it wouldn't be the same person after all. The person would probably need to start life at the mental age of an infant again with no memories of the former self.

And there is NO way to restore the brain information saved in the dead brain cells... unless you make backups and download them into the brain. What a scary thought.

So the much more interesting question is: Would it be the same person?

 

[Methodician]

What he said at the end. The ONLY way I know for this to work (unless it's within moments/hours in which case maybe, as @Base Groove said, they're not really "dead" so to speak) is if you have a completely accurate scan of the brain and the ability to re-consstruct every neuron, every synapse, and every molecule. The problem is that a lot of our memory is likely stored at the molecular level, not just the synaptic structures. That's only a part of it. It would be extremely difficult to rebuild the synaptic structures and damn near impossible to place all those proteins and molecules (don't know the details of how it works) back where they go.

So, no, after someone has been dead for a while I don't think that we, even with crazy futuristic nanotechnology and microscopic robots, could fully resurrect a person just as they were. We could breathe new life into the body and awaken the brain but they will only be a shadow of their former selves. They won't necessarily be infants (the infant brain actually has way more neurons than the adult brain) but they will have a long ways to go before becoming a functional human, or member of society, again...

 

[Hawkeye]

We're still not entirely sure what the "you" part of the body is.

I suppose at the moment, we are similar to non-rechargable batteries. Once we're spent, that's it.

 

[Cognisant]

Come to think of it I've never heard of anybody trying to revive dead brain cells, then again it's probably not the lack of oxygen that's a problem but rather the build up of waste products like CO2 which poisons the cells, hence the "self destruct" mechanism Jennywocky mentioned.

I suppose if you introduced some manner of catalyst that strips CO2 and facilitates oxygen absorption it should be possible to revive cells up to a point, but I don't know if such a catalyst exists or is even possible, furthermore if someone's revived after being metabolically "dead" for a few hours they're going to need loads of antibiotics and probably a full blood transfusion to get the accumulated toxins out of their system.

 

[Jennywocky]

What he said at the end. The ONLY way I know for this to work (unless it's within moments/hours in which case maybe, as @Base Groove said, they're not really "dead" so to speak) is if you have a completely accurate scan of the brain and the ability to re-consstruct every neuron, every synapse, and every molecule. The problem is that a lot of our memory is likely stored at the molecular level, not just the synaptic structures. That's only a part of it. It would be extremely difficult to rebuild the synaptic structures and damn near impossible to place all those proteins and molecules (don't know the details of how it works) back where they go.

So, no, after someone has been dead for a while I don't think that we, even with crazy futuristic nanotechnology and microscopic robots, could fully resurrect a person just as they were. We could breathe new life into the body and awaken the brain but they will only be a shadow of their former selves. They won't necessarily be infants (the infant brain actually has way more neurons than the adult brain) but they will have a long ways to go before becoming a functional human, or member of society, again...

Good point.

I suppose the analogy would be fixing your computer after a bad crash so that it boots but where a lot of the individual, personal data you had stored on it has been lost -- a working system with a fairly clean OS but little of the data that made it your computer.

 

[Base groove]

Come to think of it I've never heard of anybody trying to revive dead brain cells, then again it's probably not the lack of oxygen that's a problem but rather the build up of waste products like CO2 which poisons the cells, hence the "self destruct" mechanism Jennywocky mentioned.

I suppose if you introduced some manner of catalyst that strips CO2 and facilitates oxygen absorption it should be possible to revive cells up to a point, but I don't know if such a catalyst exists or is even possible, furthermore if someone's revived after being metabolically "dead" for a few hours they're going to need loads of antibiotics and probably a full blood transfusion to get the accumulated toxins out of their system.

It's an interesting theory but I don't believe it's quite accurate (regarding the dissolved gases in the blood).

Releavant:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cerebral_hypoxia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_water_blackout
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shallow_water_blackout

They won't necessarily be infants (the infant brain actually has way more neurons than the adult brain)

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

 

[The Void]

Don't believe that conservative nonsense about death and that it's irreversible.
HERBERT, WE NEED MORE RE-AGENTS.

Sorry, couldn't resist ^^

@Topic
Judging from the knowledge we have so far in medicine, we can't bring back the dead.
I had some classes in anatomy and our professor kept saying "our problem is always oxygen in the brain". Because dead brain cells stay dead and we can't do anything about that.
If there would be a way to regenerate brain cells and re-activate the electric signals in the brain (Frankenstein anybody?), yeah it could be possible.

But I highly assume that those newly grown brain cells will start with zero information.
So, it wouldn't be the same person after all. The person would probably need to start life at the mental age of an infant again with no memories of the former self.

And there is NO way to restore the brain information saved in the dead brain cells... unless you make backups and download them into the brain. What a scary thought.

So the much more interesting question is: Would it be the same person?

Am I the same person I was 2 years ago?
The persona has changed.
Most of my cells are changed,
my beliefs, thought pattern, everything has changed,
my body has changed.
what is there in me that hasnt changed?

 

[Hawkeye]

Am I the same person I was 2 years ago?
The persona has changed.
Most of my cells are changed,
my beliefs, thought pattern, everything has changed,
my body has changed.
what is there in me that hasnt changed?

Your (dare I say it...) soul.

 

[The Void]

Your (dare I say it...) soul.

But what is soul?

 

[Jennywocky]

But what is soul?

This guy doesn't have it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KsUhlYetMus

 

[The Void]

Well after all the digging, the most basic part of my essense that I can get into is the property of being conscious, that is what hasnt changed, the being,
and it is this continous state of being, that keeps the discontinous weird changes within me looks cool and smooth and normal,
the base of all pictures, the screen for all scenes, the light falling in the move reel,
the ultimate essense: I Am: consciousness: what is it I cant tell, I cant define,
nothing is there that I can define,
I am, just am,

 

[Grayman]

...

It is debatable whether John Doe is still John Doe after he suffers from a stroke and he loses a peice of his brain.

The question is how much can be changed before it is no longer John Doe? Do I die thousands of times a day, becoming a new being?

I think you are being too particular. I think it reasonable to just reconstruct the synapsis.

 

[Pizzabeak]

Well there's an idea that smoking exorbitant amounts of hash slowly but surely inhibits the soul from manifesting properly. It would just be noticeable one day, that there were some things that you wanted to do but never did since you did too much hash and got caught up in that instead. It's based on the 'ol familiar principle of smoking the finest quality shit and then falling into a slumber shortly afterwards.

It's meth addict before and after pics on a different scale

 

[Hawkeye]

But what is soul?

Not sure.

To me it's the life force that exists in your body when you're alive and ceases when you die.

Russians have brought animals back from the dead (kind of). They decapitated a dog's head and "powered" it artificially.

The following video may or may not be real, but is based on the works of Sergei Brukhonenko.

Spoiler

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KDqh-r8TQgs

 

[John_Mann]

It's possible to entangle quantum particles through any amount of time and distance. So if we could scan the whole spacetime we could rebuild everything, like a brain of a long dead people. I think it's not impossible to a super intelligent being to do this.

 

[Jennywocky]

Not sure.

To me it's the life force that exists in your body when you're alive and ceases when you die.

Russians have brought animals back from the dead (kind of). They decapitated a dog's head and "powered" it artificially.

I knew about the dog head experiments where they grafted one dog's head onto another dog's body. But I hadn't seen footage here, so vividly, of a "live" head. Just kind of freaky.

... As far as souls go, one word: Chimeras. To me, it suggests that the idea of souls just really doesn't work.

 

[Pyropyro]

Like if someday science can successfully, fix a damaged brain of some dead person,
and fix all the things, and can transplant stuff,
then theoretically the dead can be brought to life ain't it?
Pardon me, if it is a stupid question, I am not so educated.

That's an interesting question. This 2013 article say that Urodeles (Salamanders) have limited brain regeneration capabilities. If we can somehow figure out their cells' unique capabilities then we may use it to regenerate brains that suffered trauma.

 

[deadpixel]

This guy doesn't have it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KsUhlYetMus

I think I know who Carlton Banks studied to help create his character now.

 

[Ribald]

Google search Quantum Archeology.

 

[Imaginary Numb3r]

Am I the same person I was 2 years ago?
The persona has changed.
Most of my cells are changed,
my beliefs, thought pattern, everything has changed,
my body has changed.
what is there in me that hasnt changed?

IIRC in an average life most of our body completely regenerates itself about 7 times. But what is important when it comes to the personality is the brain and the resulting personality (or consciousness).

Well, I can at least say that I am not exactly the same person. Of course, some parts certainly remained. But when it comes to perception it's not so important what we do but who we are.

Yes, we constantly change but most time, this change is extremely slow. Mostly, it's too slow to be noticed. Actually, it's hard for our brain to realize change, we generally only compare, but that's an active process. We normally realize change when a lot has been changed already. Subtile changes are hard to spot, harder for some types than other, I guess (depending on what exactly it is about).


Imagine losing contact to your best friend at the age of 8. With the age of 30, you meet him again but realize that you and him simply don't match. You have developed so drastically differently, that you don't want to be friends with him again.

That's not too farfetched, is it? I think there would be something wrong, if we don't change ourselves. Imo, stagnation is recess.

I'm sorry, I know that this is the philosophy forum, but it's simply my scientific kind of "philosophy" ^^

 

[scorpiomover]

I knew about the dog head experiments where they grafted one dog's head onto another dog's body. But I hadn't seen footage here, so vividly, of a "live" head. Just kind of freaky.

... As far as souls go, one word: Chimeras. To me, it suggests that the idea of souls just really doesn't work.

Why can't a person have 2 souls?

Why can't a soul be shared between 2 people?

Why do 2 sets of DNA have to have 2 different souls anyway? Is science a subset of religion?

 

[Pyropyro]

IIRC in an average life most of our body completely regenerates itself about 7 times.

The problem is that the human brain cells don't like to regenerate. They just die.

 

[The Void]

The problem is that the human brain cells don't like to regenerate. They just die.

√-1 is talking about beforedeath stuff, when there is blood, o2 supply, heart is beating and all that, brain is working properly, and then the cell regenerates and stuff,

 

[Pyropyro]

√-1 is talking about beforedeath stuff, when there is blood, o2 supply, heart is beating and all that, brain is working properly, and then the cell regenerates and stuff,

Even in a healthy brain, the brain cells simply die. They don't regenerate. That's why we need to figure out how to tease the cells into dividing again. Otherwise, we can't save a living or dead brain.

 

[The Void]

Even in a healthy brain, the brain cells simply die. They don't regenerate. That's why we need to figure out how to tease the cells into dividing again. Otherwise, we can't save a living or dead brain.

He said the body regenerates
which can be viewed as the dying cells dying, and getting replaced by new healthy cells,
so regeneration can also be seen as forming of new cells replacing the old ones,
it can create an overall effect of bodily regeneration,
but on cellular level, it is not each cell regenerating though...

 

[Imaginary Numb3r]

The problem is that the human brain cells don't like to regenerate. They just die.

That's why I said "most" ^^

 

[Josteen]

Do you know that there's a theory that in approximately seven years from now all atoms in our body will have been replaced?
If that so then I think bringing the death back to live The way they are before they died is possible for with the right technology we might be able to rebuild the atoms in the body we don't need to recollect the atoms from the old body, we can just use a same atom with the same property and use it to rebuild the physical body , but if we revive the person into what he was before he died he would probably die again from the same condition as before. So the only feasible way to revive the death are by rebuilding them before the problem that caused the death occurs or affect the person.
So in my opinion it was possible to bring back a person just the way they were before death but it won't be feasible, the only way is to remake the person in their healthy state which makes this new entity not the same one with the dying person, there might be similarity but this new entity is more or less than the person that died is.

 

[Aerl]

Am I the same person I was 2 years ago?
The persona has changed.
Most of my cells are changed,
my beliefs, thought pattern, everything has changed,
my body has changed.
what is there in me that hasnt changed?

This is where I come from on this question.

We define our selves by what has happened to us in the past, how others
describe us but in totality that isin't really us. I heared once that when you
come to a zen master you are asked to "Show me who you are". Not what you
do for life, but who you truely are, and the problem is that no matter what you
think or do it isin't your true form, it's like saying "show me your soul" which
isin't possible.

(something from Greek mythology: Hypnos and his twin brother, Thanatos.
Sleep and Death. Every night you go to sleep you die and each morning we
are reborn.)

Now I have another question, if all human beings have souls and billions of
people have died to this day, where does this endless supply of new souls
come from, and where do old ones go? If it is gods plan, why is there a reason
to create new ones and keep old ones from reincarnation?

The only part which can not be replicated in a human being is his soul,
everything else is possible theoretically but perhaps not with our current
technology. There is no scientific way to measure one's soul, all we know is
that it's a concept that allows us to believe that we are supperior to animals
because we have souls and we are smarter because of it.

When you ask to revive the dead, what do you actually want to be brought
back, you should ask yourself that.


p.s. I need to expand my vocabulary it's poor, derp.

 

[The Void]

This is where I come from on this question.

We define our selves by what has happened to us in the past, how others
describe us but in totality that isin't really us. I heared once that when you
come to a zen master you are asked to "Show me who you are". Not what you
do for life, but who you truely are, and the problem is that no matter what you
think or do it isin't your true form, it's like saying "show me your soul" which
isin't possible.

(something from Greek mythology: Hypnos and his twin brother, Thanatos.
Sleep and Death. Every night you go to sleep you die and each morning we
are reborn.)

Now I have another question, if all human beings have souls and billions of
people have died to this day, where does this endless supply of new souls
come from, and where do old ones go? If it is gods plan, why is there a reason
to create new ones and keep old ones from reincarnation?

The only part which can not be replicated in a human being is his soul,
everything else is possible theoretically but perhaps not with our current
technology. There is no scientific way to measure one's soul, all we know is
that it's a concept that allows us to believe that we are supperior to animals
because we have souls and we are smarter because of it.

When you ask to revive the dead, what do you actually want to be brought
back, you should ask yourself that.


p.s. I need to expand my vocabulary it's poor, derp.

Soul\anima\life force may also be something impersonal, more like what electricity is for machines.
A permanent personal soul is a ridiculous theory anyway, because the persona changes all the time, but if I want I can change my persona, the I may be something that transcends persona aka impersonal consciousness.
So persona is only the appearance, an expression of something impersonal.
Well I dont really like these types of words like 'soul' they are loosely defined and all, and can have many different definitions,

like they used to say, soul is breath, as breath seems to be necessary for life,
well if one want to term breath as soul then let the one term it, whats wrong,
again soul are often called as psyche or the mind, in that respect, psychology =spirituality,
but the general things about soul, non-corporeal stuff and all, it is all pretty vague,
and people trying to define and label things that are non-understand,
and just by labeling or using a cliche word they think they know.

 

[Ex-User (8886)]

It's stiupid question. Dead brain won't live again. Too complicated thing.

 

[Thurlor]

@ Pyropyro

It has since been shown that human brains can regenerate, either naturally or with medical aid. Stem cells are great.

 

[Reluctantly]

... As far as souls go, one word: Chimeras. To me, it suggests that the idea of souls just really doesn't work.

To me it suggests it depends on what one means when they say soul.

I'd say that since we have consciousness, which is special in its own way (mainly that we are the world interpreting itself), we could argue that a soul is the process of how our consciousness unfolds with reality, beginning at birth and ending at death. It deals with the paradox of the objective world also being subjective, while also grabbing what makes each of us unique.