Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!aramis.rutgers.edu!athos.rutgers.edu!nanotech From: GARY@maximillion.cp.mcc.com (Gary Knight) Newsgroups: sci.nanotech Subject: Resuscitation implications Message-ID: Date: 28 Jun 89 20:30:48 GMT Sender: nanotech@athos.rutgers.edu Lines: 65 Approved: nanotech@aramis.rutgers.edu I was fascinated by a closing on a recent nanotech posting which said: "If you can be reconstructed, you aren't dead!" I'd like to comment on that and ask some questions for others to consider. Assumptions: (1) A well preserved body/brain system can, at some future time, be resuscitated (even returned to prime operating condition) with memory/personality essentially intact. (2) Using only an individual's DNA (meaning you don't have to find much), the individual can be reconstructed (a) as a tabula rasa, or (b) with memory/personality essentially intact. I'm not commenting on the possibility or likelihood of any of the assumptions, just using them for purposes of discussion. If assumption (1) applies, then anyone in a reasonably sophisticated embalmed or cryonically preserved state could be resuscitated and returned to normal function. If that is the case, is this individual legally dead? Under current law and medical practice, almost certainly yes. But as the practice of resuscitation becomes feasible, those in the preserved state might simply be regarded as "on hold," with "death" a temporary but reversible stage. Do their estates pass to heirs? What if they come back? Won't they want their toys back? But I digress, because I'm really more interested in the philosophical/theological implications than the legal problems. So are they dead or aren't they? If they can be resuscitated, what are they doing in the meantime? By all known information about human physiology and brain function, they aren't doing much of anything. Whereas during sleep (a state which, save for the non-conscious element, is not otherwise analogous to death) our brains are very active (moreso in some situations than during the awake state) and our bodily functions are churning away. But the "dead" person is sort of like Schrodinger's cat -- if someone resuscitates the body, then it wasn't dead after all, but if (after passage of an infinite amount time I guess) it isn't then it was. Aarrgggh. And in the interim, what does this do to ideas of afterlife, reincarnation, and so forth? If the dead person can be reconstructed under assumption (1), then it isn't likely to be off somewhere reincarnated as another living thing is it? Or would the reincarnated life form just topple over when the resuscitation took place? Gets a little macabre, doesn't it? I suppose the memory/personality could be off in some Elysian field, or heaven, waiting for recall (but would it want to come back from paradise? And could it prevent being brought back?). So what does this say about theological theories of what happens when the brain is flatlined? More interesting questions arise if we make assumption (2). Under option (a), the legal questions now become more complex -- namely, is this the same "person" as before, since it has no memory/personality which is the hallmark identification of individual humans. The problem probably wouldn't arise unless someone was interested in obtaining lots of zombie- like labor, because who'd want to be resuscitated if they weren't "they" anymore? But if we make option (b) operative, we now can literally restore full function and personality to anything that ever lived if we can find so much as a shred of DNA (i.e., you can be reconstructed from anything short of a ground zero nuclear explosion). So if even the memory construct of the brain (synaptic modifications held in place through cryonics or embalming) isn't required, what happened to the memory/personality while the individual was demolished? Just restin'? Hmmm. So what say all of you? ------- [I think it's about time we start getting used to the fact that a lot of our old labels will become increasingly inadequate. Rather than waste time trying to nail down whether these new tradesmen are *really* lords or serfs, it would be more productive to propose/develop new schemes of classification that help us model the new reality in a useful way. --JoSH]