Is it possible to percieve death?

[WestAir]

To start: Religion is strictly prohibited from these forums and this thread.

In the same way an outside observer can never actually witness their friend fall into a black hole, is the brain also never actually able to perceive or experience its death? Out of the billions of people who have died, have any of them actually been able to "perceive" their death?

I always imagine the brain like a compute that computes stimuli. Information comes in like:

[Timestamp: 21:59:20]

Left Arm is hot.

Reflex initiated: Retracting left arm.

Looking left to determine proper response.

Visual cortex reports: Metal Pipe we tried to touch is glowing red.

Thought: "Man that's hot!"

To continue this, death would leave nothing to compute.

[Timestamp: 21:59:20]

Visual cortex reports: Parachute not opening.

Thought: "This is gonna hurt..."

Looking down to determine altit-

[sPLAT]

As you can see, there's never any comprehension of death. It happens, and the brain is never able to analyze it. It's never able to say "I've died" - that never comes. Is it actually possible for us to perceive the stimuli of our deaths, or - from a certain point of view - do we never die?

[Camacha]

I guess it depends on how the brain dies exactly. There are some theories that the white light and tunnel is actually the brain being starved of oxygen or other vital supplies. It might be possible for the remaining part of the brain to be aware that the first part is breaking down or missing, but since death is defined by a lack of brain activity, it is impossible to experience full death, as per definition there is nothing left to experience it.

Of course, preparing for it in the face of death is possible. I have always been a little puzzled by the few examples that I have seen, as people tend to accept it in a pretty docile fashion, even if the outcome does not seem that sure at all.

Edited October 20, 2014 by Camacha

[KerikBalm]

I guess it would be possible to perceive the early stages of death but not the final stage.

[Nuke]

yes, the problem is you only get to do it once.

neural impulses dont really travel that fast. its not a bunch of wires where the electrons move at very close to c. there are chemical reactions that slow the impulses down to about 200mph (actually there is a wide range of speeds, i just recall the one mentioned in my psychology 101 textbook which i no longer own). thanks to extreme latency, if you splat into the ground at a speed greater than that (lets say for dramatic purposes that this happens at mach 2) you are essentially atomizing your brain faster than your impulses can tell the rest of your brain that its being atomized. most people dont die by running into the ground at mach 2. capital punishment folks might consider using rocket sleds for the sake of being humane.

Camacha has it right though, at the moment of death your whole nervous system is in extreme shock. oxygen isnt getting to the brain. the brain is being bombarded with signals that it doesn't have the resources to process. neurotransmitters are all out of whack. there are a lot of things going on which can explain near death experiences.

[Technical Ben]

Every night we get to "perceive" death. Our concious turns off (excluding the parts of our sleep where we dream). Then we wake up.

So, death, as we have no conciousness, is the same. When we sleep, we wake up "instantly" from our perspective the next morning. We had nothing in between. So there would be nothing to "observe". :/

[KerikBalm]

That ignores dreaming of course... most of which we don't remember.

Brain activity continues, even if we lose full consciousness.

I don't think its equivalent.

I don't even think medically induced comas result in a state functionally equivalent to temporary brain death

[CyberDroog]

Brain activity continues, yes, but not in a conscious manner by definition which is why, I think, that Technical Ben excluded dream sleep since that produce conscious memories. Death is permanent unconsciousness, so I suppose it can be likened to dream-less sleep or just passing out. The difference, based on reports of people who have nearly died and where then resuscitated, is that it may not always be perceived at the end as just "going black". Lots of people report just going black, but others reports very trippy, pleasurable or terrifying experiences before... nothing. Not going black, but simply no more memory of the trippy, pleasurable or terrifying experience before coming back to consciousness.

[cantab]

Most causes of death will at some point deprive the brain of oxygen. The last thing that's experienced will thus be the well-described effects of that.

[Technical Ben]

That ignores dreaming of course... most of which we don't remember.

Brain activity continues, even if we lose full consciousness.

I don't think its equivalent.

I don't even think medically induced comas result in a state functionally equivalent to temporary brain death

My "life" is entirely defined by my experience of it. As I can experience nothing when asleep, as said when not dreaming, then the two are indistinguishable to me on the scale of conciousness. The only thing that differs is if the rest of my body is alive. As you said, this can vary in medical instances (heat stopping, or visa versa).

So, as said, "death" is not a thing we experience. Dying can, and is something we all experience though.

[KerikBalm]

"Brain activity continues, yes, but not in a conscious manner by definition which is why, I think, that Technical Ben excluded dream sleep since that produce conscious memories. Death is permanent unconsciousness, so I suppose it can be likened to dream-less sleep"

We lack a good definition of consciousness.

On one end, is being fully awake.

"Zoned out"?

Lucid dreaming should count as conscious, no?

What of other dreams, there is definite thought in them, even if there is severe logical flaws, and mental impairment (I've had some dreams where I try to do math, or enter a password, or stuff like that, I'm not nearly as good as when I'm awake, but I do manage simple things like the derivative of X^2 is 2X)

What of dreams we don't remember? research shows that we basically dream every night, but fail to remember it (in contrast, if study participants are woken up during the night at random times, or when certain EEG ques show up, they report having dreams at much higher rates).

Consciousness is not a binary state.

Couple that with amnesia about our thoughts during sleep, and I'd say its not a good comparison, and its really an appeal to ignorance of what sleep is to equat the two.

*edit*

"As I can experience nothing when asleep,"

So if you drank to much, did some really stupid stuff while really drunk, and then didn't remember it in the morning, you'd say you weren't conscious and the state you were in was equivalent with death?

[rtxoff]

Here's something interesting regarding this matter and the guillotine from wikipedia:

Guillotine Decapitation by guillotine was a common mechanically-assisted form of execution, invented shortly before the French Revolution (although an earlier version of the guillotine, the Halifax Gibbet, was used in Halifax, England, from 1286 until the 17th century, and a version called the "Maiden" was used in Edinburgh during the 16th-18th centuries). The aim was to create a painless and quick form of execution that did not require great skill to carry out. The executioner, after chopping off the head, would hold it up to the crowd. There is dubious evidence that the head could remain conscious for up to ten seconds.^[12] The account of Dr. Beaurieux who observed the decapitation of a convict named Languille in 1905, may imply that the head could still see as he recounts "Next Languille's eyes very definitely fixed themselves on mine and the pupils focussed themselves" (A history of the guillotine, Alister Kershaw), though there are reasons to doubt the accuracy of Beaurieux's account

[WestAir]

You can't say sleeping is like death. I almost always remember my dreams, and I almost always have 3-4 different ones a night. Besides, this is about that last feeling you get when you die, like being warm or cold or hungry or thirsty. All these things you can process, comprehend and experience. Can you experience the death of your brain, or does it all end too soon for you to ever experience it?

[crubs]

Well I guess that depends on how one defines "death". The medical definition is simply "cardiac arrest". Cardiac arrest in itself is possibly perceivable since one can be conscious for a moment even after the heart has stopped.

Sleep is nothing like death. However, unconsciousness due to anesthesia arguably is. One doesn't percieve a passage of time under the knife, unlike when one sleeps.

[Camacha]

My "life" is entirely defined by my experience of it.

Looking at all the things that go on in your brain I would contest that - and I am not only talking about automatic and semi-automatic processes, but also a lot of mechanisms that seem to operate between conciousness and the large part outside of it. One remarkable example is that people with a certain kind of brain damage (often related to high powered rifles) are blind - they cannot see a thing. Though when someone holds up a piece of paper and asks what colour it is, they get it right every time. To themselves it feels like they are guessing, yet statistics tell us otherwise. They see without actually knowing they are seeing.

This is just one example, but there is a huge amount of evidence that shows us there is a whole world inside our brain that is higher level than just automation, but below full conciousness. In fact, our conciousness is only a very thin layer on top of all the other stuff, less than our atmosphere is compared to the bulk of the Earth. It is slow and sluggish too, and requires a huge amount of resources, so I would contest the notion that your life is defined by your experience of it. That is just a clever magic trick of smoke and mirrors your brain does to give you the feeling you are in control and make the environment around you coherent.

However, unconsciousness due to anesthesia arguably is.

There is little similarity, other than unresponsive senses.

[Dispatcher]

Perhaps we would perceive our own death in the same way in which we perceived our own self after conception. Notice that I didn't mention our own birth. We'll be restored to the same state of awareness we occupied prior to our ability to perceive existence in this life initially.

[Camacha]

Perhaps we would perceive our own death in the same way in which we perceived our own self after conception. Notice that I didn't mention our own birth. We'll be restored to the same state of awareness we occupied prior to our ability to perceive existence in this life initially.

In short - we don't.

[tutrakan4e]

I feel like the problem here is that we don't have a definition of "life" or "alive"

It's always fascinated me to think about decapitation. Basically the brain can survive for some time without a body and it will be fully conscious. The feeling would be awful- you know that there's no going back and you are going to die within seconds. I feel like you would be incredibly scared at the last moments of death.

What about death while sleeping? Do you even realise that you're going to die? What if someone drops 20 tons on top of you while you're sleeping? You'd never realise that you've died.

This is a very interesting topic I'm that kind of guy

[-Velocity-]

We've all been dead for the past 13.8 billion years. It's only in the last few decades that we've been alive. So think back to before you were born. That is what death is like.

[WestAir]

We've all been dead for the past 13.8 billion years. It's only in the last few decades that we've been alive. So think back to before you were born. That is what death is like.

If we really want to get technical, we've been alive for most of those billions of years in the cells of parent organisms. If you could rewind time and follow your body back to youth, you'd follow a trail of cellular division that really goes all the way back to the first few single-celled organisms billions of years ago.

This thought game really gives meaning to the term "tree of life"

[KerikBalm]

Indeed, everything living today, is part of an unbroken chain of evolutionary success.

Everything alive today has succesfully reproduced itself for ~3.8 billion years. (note, this is not most of 13.8 billion years)

This may be a comfort and inspiration to those hopeless virgins playing WoW and such out there...

Yet... lineage after lineage is snuffed out leaving no descendant - the branches simply split at a rate comparable to the rate they are broken.

[WestAir]

Correction noted. I wholly meant "Most of Earths existence " and not "Most of the Universes existence " but failed to catch my error.