• Question: would it it be possible in the future to bring back the dead?

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      Asked by Olly to John, Laura, Luke, Ruth on 22 Jun 2016. This question was also asked by Jazz.Au.
      • Photo: Ruth Patchett

        Ruth Patchett answered on 22 Jun 2016:


        No. I don’t think we’d want to either. We don’t know what happens after we die, imagine if someone was somewhere else and liked it better than here? It’s a great way of getting a lot of money out of rich people who have chosen to be frozen after they died though!

      • Photo: Laura Finney

        Laura Finney answered on 22 Jun 2016:


        I’m not sure I would want to, given that the dead wouldn;t be in great state if we brought them back. Also some people don’t mind dying. Also we don’t know if there is an afterlife and it might be nicer than here!
        The immediately dead are often brought back to life though – like when someones heart stops for 3 mins or so and we manage to save them and get their hearts beating again! They are classed as clinically dead for that 3 minutes!
        I think people do choose to get themelves frozen though as Ruth said incase we can ever be brought back but I always thought being frozen would burst your cells (since we don’t have cell walls like plants) but maybe fast freezing doesn’t do that. I think lack of oxygen to the brain would be a huge problem to overcome though since this is what causes brain damage and we don’t know how to reverse it!

      • Photo: Luke Williams

        Luke Williams answered on 22 Jun 2016:


        Well, I would tend to agree with Ruth and Laura. However I would extend the “what do you mean by dead” question.

        Cryopreservation is something that I believe will enable people to be brought back from the dead, but only insofar as they have an incurable disease at the point of freezing and then they would be able to be treated in the future. I have not discounted such a treatment for myself, should the need arise.

        The issue with this kind of thing is that you are essentially going to be waking up, potentially hundreds of years in the future. That is the best case scenario, that nothing goes wrong in the interim, that thawing is a technology that can be developed, and that the incurable disease can in fact, be cured. As a last ditch thing I can certainly understand the appeal though.

        I would also suggest that clinically dead people can be revived after a fairly lengthy period, which can be very substantial in the case of hypothermic patients – lowering the body temperature, and particularly the brain temperature I believe, can extend the period in which current technology is able to revive someone. Probably the most famous example is Fabrice Muamba, who suffered a cardiac arrest during the first half of an FA Cup quarter-final match between Bolton and Tottenham Hotspur at White Hart Lane. In that case he was immediately treated by high level professionals including an off duty consultant cardiologist. His heart stopped for 78 minutes, and he has since made a full or near full recovery.

        Given that we are on the verge of being able to grow replacement organs at will (probably within 20-30 years for many organs I estimate), and we already are aware of one of the major causes of aging (the shortening of caps called telomeres on chromosomes), there is no reason why we couldn’t extend life almost indefinitely. I can certainly envisage a future whereby any injury can be treated with genetic engineering and/or stem cell therapy.

        Another key technology which exists already is the ability to not breathe for an extended time. A solution of nanoparticles has been developed which allows a patient to survive for 15-30 minutes without needing to breathe, which was developed as an emergency measure to allow medics time to get a patient into a heart-lung machine before the brain suffered damage. One quick injection and you’re good to go. This may be improved in the future. https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/06/120627142512.htm

        Lastly, with huge advances in battlefield medicine, keeping people alive is getting easier and easier, even with horrendous wounds. Yet another key invention is the “instant bullet hole filler” which can block wounds with near immediate effect and stop patients bleeding out in battlefield situations, allowing time for emergency evacuation. It is now making its way to civilian use: http://www.theverge.com/2015/12/9/9877788/gunshot-wound-syringe-xstat-fda-approved

        I would also add that cybernetic, or at least prosthetic limbs, are progressing well too. I see it likely that any limb or organ that couldn’t be regrown or otherwise organically replaced may be replaced with a synthetic equivalent. Both options would also potentially lead to augmentations as well.

      • Photo: John Fossey

        John Fossey answered on 23 Jun 2016:


        In what way?

        A rotten corpse no

        but if it were possible to understand human consciousness and download and replicate it some how – perhaps

        Gut that is very much scifi not sci fact

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