What Happens to Consciousness and Memory at the End of Life?

[runner]

What do you think happens to a person's mental processes when they die? We know the molecules that made up the body are converted into simpler molecules and recycled back into nature. How about something like the memories that were recorded in their brains (chemical and electrical connections)? What happens to consciousness?

 

[Pythagorean]

It's highly speculative and there's no reason to believe anything special happens if you assume consciousness is an emergent property of brain matter. Rather, like heat, it dissipates upon death.

 

[runner]

It's highly speculative and there's no reason to believe anything special happens if you assume consciousness is an emergent property of brain matter. Rather, like heat, it dissipates upon death.

That's the way I look at it.

What happens to the heat after it escapes?

Thanks!

 

[phinds]

That's the way I look at it.

What happens to the heat after it escapes?

Thanks!

He did not say that consciousness IS heat, he said it is LIKE heat in that it is an emergent property.

Another way to look at it is that consciousness is a characteristic of a live brain. When the brain dies, it doesn't have that characteristic any longer. It would be like putting 4 match sticks on a flat surface in the form of a square. Now you move the match sticks and the square just isn't there any more. It didn't "go" anywhere, it just ceased to exist. The analogy fails in the sense that with match sticks, you could put them BACK into the form of a square but when the brain dies, you can't bring the consciousness back.

 

[DataGG]

He did not say that consciousness IS heat, he said it is LIKE heat in that it is an emergent property.

Another way to look at it is that consciousness is a characteristic of a live brain. When the brain dies, it doesn't have that characteristic any longer. It would be like putting 4 match sticks on a flat surface in the form of a square. Now you move the match sticks and the square just isn't there any more. It didn't "go" anywhere, it just ceased to exist. The analogy fails in the sense that with match sticks, you could put them BACK into the form of a square but when the brain dies, you can't bring the consciousness back.

And I believe this topic is going to get closed anytime soon..

Anyway, is there any studies being done on recovering information stored in the brain after death (memories and such)?

 

[jobyts]

The brain ultimately uses electric energy to keep the data. My best analogy is - what happens to the data saved in a calculator, once the power is removed?

 

[wolram]

Calculators are man made humans not, thread closed LOL

 

[micromass]

This thread is pure speculation. We don't want to encourage such things here. So (as many guessed): thread closed.