What exactly is death?......

Discussion in 'Warbirds International' started by tazman88, Jul 11, 2009.

  1. tazman88

    tazman88 Well-Known Member

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    This is a question we must ask ourselves after witnessing the result of this experiment.
    http://www.archive.org/details/Experime1940
    Keep in mind that this footage was shot in 1940, and that if research persisted knowledge in this field must have grown considerably
     
  2. ledada

    ledada Well-Known Member

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    the grim reaper

    now, that was an interesting watch.

    i liked it a lot, when the narrator says:
    'se dog... iss dead.' (12:50), kind of sweet and touchy.

    i was a bit confused at the end, when he says:
    'after se experiments, se dogs grow and have families.' (17:50), which is probably the most stunning result of se whole thing:
    [​IMG]


    well, besides that, it is less about death - in contrary!
    in most european countries, a person (or dog) is dead, when there is no measurable brain-activity for 30 minutes. after that time, the damage is assumed to be irreparable. however, that is juriditionary only (for organ-donators, fe). there have been cases of far longer flatliners, which still could recover full.
    those 10 minutes se dog stayed in the tunnel wouldn't count for dead.

    during that timespan of 'to be or not to be', most (human) patients nowadays will make thankfully use of the modern version of brychonenko's invention (se autojektor), which he patented in europe as early as 1928. he also was the first ever to execute open heart operation (with dogs).
    brychonenko kept a dog alive for two hours only with se autojektor in '26. he concluded in an article (1928), that the most promising use of it would be the possibility of operating human heart diseases, where the heart has to rest motionless.
    the autojektor is basically the same as a heart-lung-machine, and has got the same main parts as the one used by gibbon (who earned the credits for inventing it). the tale (as told in the lands of free tales) is, that gibbon had a vision during a nightwatch in 1930, then developed a mechanical device in '37 and used it for the first open-heart operation (human) in '53.
    brychonenko also used hypothermia (on dogs) already in '31... 20 years before bigelow received honours for it - not to discredit bigelow (creator of pacemaker and an artist with knives), but it is sometimes surprising to see the western world's ignorance that time (not now anymore). at least i hope, it was just ignorance...


    so, research has persisted, and knowledge has indeed grown considerably. i would say, for good... in general.

    i have never seen that movie before, and it is indeed kind of creepy. the date must be wrong, as the opening sequence shows haldane, who died in '36 (maybe revived...).
    brychonenko built se autojektor in the early '20s, and pictures of the lonely head were published in germany in '29, as part of a newspaper's horrorstory. the paper suggested (well, they claimed to quote brychonenko, but he never said anything like it) to have some trials with murderers.
    which lead george bernard shaw answer in that same newspaper, that he thinks, it would be a waste. he much more would like to see brillant minds (heads), freed of deseases and all physical limitations, so they could teach forever. he even said, how lucky it would make him himself to have his head free for writing only (not sure, how detailed he was about 'writing').

    if i am not wrong, one of my earliest and most favourite thrills was to read that story of a man, who wakes up and can't move. he gets visited by his wife, whom he can't stand anymore - and after short he realises, that she has agreed to an experimental operation to save him after he collapsed.
    so he is only a brain and one eye now, but she promises she will take good care of him.
    i think, it was from roald dahl's collection 'kiss, kiss'...
     
    Last edited: Jul 12, 2009
  3. rudeboy

    rudeboy Well-Known Member

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    When I was revived the medical people hadn't cut my fuckin head of.
    It's a dog's life, eh?
     
    Last edited: Jul 12, 2009
  4. ledada

    ledada Well-Known Member

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    too late

    hi biles,

    well, now there is nothing left to reply to :)

    anyway, the dog's head hasn't been revived so much as more being kept alive. the other one was drained and then filled up again with gasoline (however, seems both have families now)

    btw, gibbon did exactly the same, when he 'invented' the machine 10 years later. he just used cats, not dogs.
     
  5. rudeboy

    rudeboy Well-Known Member

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    Re: too late

    It didn't look good to post the stuff that I edited out of the post. Sorry.
    I saw The Un-name-able, Ya or Ja or Allah or Inhotec or whatever it was......
    The Great Creative Force Thingie, The Light, It was red. My whole awareness was of the colour red and I could taste a peppery minty taste. That vision I had, was the sum of my being. I didn't know myself. I had no thoughts. I could just taste something and could see red. For about a million years.
    If that sort of non-awareness is what I can expect when I die, I am not unhappy to go there.

    If I die and I find out that there are people in the place we go after we die? I DON'T WANT TO BE THERE.
    I want to go back to that environment, the place we go after we are not anymore. It was like a dish you get after a meal.

    All subjective and I don't care at all if it was. What else is there?
    The 23 of July is my first birthday. It is coming up and I think about it. I haven't celebrated a birthday since I was a boy. I am celebrating now, which is approcimatelt the day I had my first heart attack. It was something between June 30 and july 23. At june 30 I sent emails out stating I thought I was dying. I don't remember those, but I can read that stuff, it is there, in my emails. After july 7, I stopped writing anything that made sence, I was losing, I was falling fast, heading toward death. It was interupted on 23 july, my birthday.
     
    Last edited: Jul 12, 2009
  6. tazman88

    tazman88 Well-Known Member

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    Yea I guess it is less about death but my point was that someone could loose their body in an accident and if you get a new one for them soon enough, they can live again. if that is the case, all one really needs to live on is a brain. Everything else can be provided for in another body. Research is already being done in the field of software engineering that tackles the problem of digital representation of the brain. It has not advanced to a state of representing someones thoughts as 1s and 0s but I suspect that even this can be done sooner or later (probably more later)
     
  7. rudeboy

    rudeboy Well-Known Member

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    Is all we are simplified on or off? Binary? What if we are trinary?
    What if it were such that the whole body is the mind?
    We have a lot of billions already. Why is one human live so important it cannot tolerate a normal lifespan?
    Many sci fi writers have explored what would happen to humans if we had extended lifespans for some [the rich, the worthy, the intelligent, the Royal] and normal or lessor lifespans for others [paupers, scum of the earth, mentally retarded, serfs]. Don't dare get caught steeling or eating more than your ration allows, lest you wind up in a organ bank.


     
  8. --stec

    --stec Well-Known Member

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    As simple as electric impulses running through your neurons.

    Demand of evolution?
     
  9. mumble

    mumble Well-Known Member

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    Death is the point where your doctor no longer feels that operating on you is feasible. :deal: As soon as Joan Rivers runs out of money, I suspect she shall die. Unless she already has been converted to a bionic being, then one only has to keep swapping batteries. I cannot tell the difference between the living Joan Rivers and the robot Joan Rivers, so we may never know the truth about that one. :p
     
  10. tazman88

    tazman88 Well-Known Member

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    LOL
     
  11. rudeboy

    rudeboy Well-Known Member

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    Being resurrected is like:
    Smoke a fat one. Or smoke nothing if you are in no need of substances.
    Lay down where it is comfortable and warm.
    Put on a record called 'The Captain And Me' Doobie Brothers
    Now, this choreagraphic is important, you must do it this way.....
    Track one, you can wander around and sing along with it or you can not, it doesn't matter, but feel free to just hear without listening.
    Have another toke before track two.
    After track 2, lay down on a couch [sofa].
    Make sure your stereo is truned up as loud as it will go.
    Now, stop thinking. Try not to think.
    You will become a little kernel in a fuge. Or something. SOrry, I don't know music terms as well as some people, all people, most people.
    Lay there on your couch, your sofa. If you do have to leap up and dance, it is okay, I forgive you. Some folks don't know how to groove while sitting still. Try to lay back down before you have to play side two. Side two is important.
    Try to remain fuged.
    No, I should say BE FUGED.
    Ensure you do not light your house on fire, make sure the fucking joint you were smoking before you lost yourself is NOT BURNING.
    ...
    ...
    ...
    ...
    ...
    ...
    resurrection:
    Wow, what the fuck happenned, where am I? That was so nice. WHAT HAPPENNED TO ME? WHY AM I HERe?
    DID I DIE? [no]
    I wish i could go back into the music. No, I don't care about the lyrics, give me some more of that music. If I can't have it I will die [no you won't!]
    Being ressurected is like going into that state and then being pulled out of it with a jerk at the end of the recording you listenned to for a thousand warm comfortable years.
    If you want to listen to the record again, feel free to, but there is no need, there are lots more. Lots more.
     
  12. --stec

    --stec Well-Known Member

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    Endorphines, Biles. The "luck hormone" released into your blood stream while you're excited, having sex... or dying (a farewell present from the nature?). It works on the same receptors as opiates so at the moment of your death you are simply stoned. Hence the pleasant sensations, visions and such. Sorry to bust your mystical approach to the subject :).
     
  13. -al---

    -al--- Well-Known Member

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    Yeah, so if you want to know what dying feels like, get some pretty woman to hit on you, then quickly start having sex and chow on some chocolate while you're at it :p

    oh yeah, a bit of pot might also help ;)
     
  14. looseleaf

    looseleaf Well-Known Member

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    Comedian David Steinberg (Canadian, I think) said this:


    "Death is Nature's way of saying: "Slow Down".



    There is a lot of sci-fi mind rot on the subject too.


    One I liked was "Ghost in the Shell" "Stand Alone Complex"
     
  15. rudeboy

    rudeboy Well-Known Member

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    The Lost Chord
    Arthur Sullivan

    Seated one day at the organ,
    I was weary and ill at ease,
    And my fingers wandered idly
    Over the noisy keys.

    I know not what I was playing,
    Or what I was dreaming then;
    But I struck one chord of music,
    Like the sound of a great Amen.

    It flooded the crimson twilight,
    Like the close of an angel's psalm,
    And it lay on my fevered spirit
    With a touch of infinite calm.

    It quieted pain and sorrow,
    Like love overcoming strife;
    It seemed the harmonious echo
    From our discordant life.

    It linked all perplexèd meanings
    Into one perfect peace,
    And trembled away into silence
    As if it were loth to cease.

    I have sought, but I seek it vainly,
    That one lost chord divine,
    Which came from the soul of the organ,
    And entered into mine.

    It may be that death's bright angel
    Will speak in that chord again,
    It may be that only in Heav'n
    I shall hear that grand Amen.
     
  16. thug

    thug Well-Known Member

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    Not much of a poetry guy, but that one speaks to me rude, nice.

    What is death ... I'd say a blinking head on a plate is dead--despite its freakish ability to lick its nose.
    A dog is drained of blood, left on the table for ten minutes, then given its blood back and it lives. Creative way, I guess, to stop a heart, I bet that cup of blood was warm, I don't know how I would feel holding it. All this is if we believe the video. A video that was undoubtedly shot as a convincing proposal for more grant money.
    If the video is real, it looks like life is just chemical reactions involving oxygen, which is sad and shows clearly what death is--the cessation of these chemical reactions. The video said these experiment dogs went on to have families, which after all, is why we are here--to procreate. They fulfilled their purpose of life, even if they were half brain dead, which they didn't appear to be, they had kids ensuring one more generation of dogs, which is why they were born. A bodiless dog cannot fulfill that purpose so it is dead even if it starts barking and says I love you.

    No body = dead, even if it's alive.

    As for the minty taste Rude ... did you see a bottle of citric acid lying around when you woke up?
     
  17. rudeboy

    rudeboy Well-Known Member

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    That minty peppery taste was nitroglycerin. I didn't know that until November or December when I got a little bottle of it, instead of a patch on my arm. before then, I wondered for months, I was haunted by that taste, I though it was diet-coke-like, but it wasn't. Aspartame tastes a lot like nitroglycerin, but I didn't know that then.
    I figured out early on, that it was just a hallucination and my sense of taste/smell coming into it.
    And the red colour? That is obvious. Red? Obviously, it was the red I see when I close my eyes and point my head toward bright light. Any child can do that and see that colour. I did when they had my eyelids taped closed, when I was lying in a comma.

    The subjective is everything. The delusions aren't delusions until afterwords, when you have some time to think about things. I don't care whether I was hallucinating or not, I felt good during my comma time, my hallucinations or whatever. I would go back to meet my end any time, I could. I could be dead tomorrow. And guess what? I want to go to that state. It was so nice.
    It was simple. Like being a bacteria or a worm. They say bacteria don't spend a lot of time rationalizing.
     
    Last edited: Jul 14, 2009
  18. Jacobe

    Jacobe Well-Known Member

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    How does it feel to have A Life? younever wondered, nor ever will ask when you got one.
     
  19. rudeboy

    rudeboy Well-Known Member

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    In paradise I did not have any bastard automobile drivers trying to run me down while I was crossing the street. That only happens when I am walking in the world of The Living. While I am walking, I pay attention to everything I can see and hear and smell and touch. I am alive when I am going for a walk. But I could be made into a corpse in an instant, if I look the other way at the wrong time, while a driver is NOT LOOKING.
    Three times in fifteen minutes it happened to me the other day. Three times I came close to being hit by cars driven by people who don't notice things that they SHOULD notice. Three times I had to jump out of the path of a moving automobile.
    Each of those drivers got a finger pointing at them, and a look that could kill. I had to leap out of their way, three times. This was not in the rush hour.
    I do not want to spend eternity in an environment like that.... I have been in an environment like that for fifty years already. I am tired of it.
    I would rather get ate by a bear than get killed by an automobile. A bear kills for the right reasons, she kills so she can eat and raise her cubs. Why does a slow-thinking, not-fit-to-drive human need to prey on passerby?
    We are selling England by the pound. I want out of the market-place, it isn't natural [maybe it is??].
    I want peace.
     
  20. thug

    thug Well-Known Member

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    Because a pack of smokes is three blocks further away than they want to walk.

    You're a rare one--a guy that walks. Remember when sidewalks had a purpose? Only thing they do now is make less grass to cut.