While I believe some scenes in this film to be inherently impossible, the idea raises an interesting point about about the evolution of unity. By unity I mean the organs in out body acting in unison to create highly advanced systems. An organ on its own, isolated from a bodily cavity is essentially dead since it cannot perform its designated function. In this video, they attempt to artificially revive a decapitated dog head by supplying it with oxygenated blood, but in reality the dog would need more than that to react to stimuli. It would need functioning nerve cells and muscle cells in order to move its face, as well as functioning brain that could sense and respond. The fact that our survival as humans depends on the maintenance of fragile bodily systems, might seem like an enormous disadvantage. If we were more like the sea sponge, for example, we could technically be lacerated into the smallest pieces and retain the ability to regenerate ourselves back into a fully functioning organism. However, the sea sponge does not have a nervous system, tissues, or the ability to move. So is it more successful evolutionarily speaking? probably not. Perhaps the unison in our bodies reflects the trend of unison that Edward O. Wilson speaks of, that is sociability. Animal societies with the most successful social constructions are often the most dominant. From bee hives to large metropolises, sociability and the division of labor creates a group of organisms which are each reliant on the whole for food, shelter, and other necessities. But on their own, they are like a still heart sitting on an examination table.
Many of the scenes from this film seemed like they had to be a hoax, until I did some further research and found that apparently these experiments were supported by documented evidence and accepted by the majority of the scientific community during the time, to the point where Sergei Brukhonenko was awarded the Lenin prize in 1940. Lilly brings up the point of a brain needing more than just oxygen in the blood perform all it's functions, and that's of course true in a living organism to continue on functionally normally for an extended period of time. However I don't think this fact discredits this experiment, theoretically, if the blood used was taken from the animal and stored properly, the cells might still contain the nutrients that they possessed when the animal originally ceased to live, and since this experiment did not have to go on for a long period of time, these functions might have been able to be performed properly by the nutritional remnants in the cells as they were oxygenized by the machine.
The meaning of this experiment - if it were to be genuinely true - is quite amazing. Of course, people have been "brought back to life" many a time throughout history, through CPR and defibrillators etc., but these methods have involved manually keeping the blood flowing by creating false heart beats while forcing air into the lungs, and electric shocks to shock the heart back into action. Neither of which are comparable to the extremities of draining all the blood from an animal, leaving it in a dead state for 10 minutes, and then cycling re-oxygenated blood back into the body.
At the same time, the ability to do this almost makes sense in a way. This dog died, but there was no trauma done to his internal organs that would have stopped them from functioning, and he was left dead for 10 minutes before the revival process began, which is still within the range of time after death before cell degrading begins, so when the re-oxygenated blood was put back and cycled through the system, it's not inconceivable that the experiment could have actually taken place and been successful. I appreciate the fact that this process of revival might be an actual possibility, but at the same time I don't think it's one that would actually be helpful towards bringing back the dead in most cases, since most deaths occur from damage to our organs, or diseases that affect the functionality of our cells, I think it would be very rare for a death to naturally - or by the cause of a disaster/murder etc - that would fulfill the conditions required for this process to be successful as a means for bringing back the dead.
This film was hard to watch, as so many questions immediately flooded my mind, leading to disbelief. How is it that an isolated heart of a duck can continue beating with the proper transaction of giving and receiving its necessities for survival without being in the body of the animal? How could the head of a dog respond accordingly to stimuli such as sound and touch when it is isolated from its body and it’s consciousness? http://www.damninteresting.com/sergei’s-litter/ Here is an article explaining Bryukhonenko’s goals behind the experiments, along with the experiments conducted by Robert J. White involving similar speculations on the matter. There are many flaws in the film that enable the viewer to question and doubt the successful experiments. But the fact remains that they are indeed truthful and have a long lasting influence on the field. My remaining question is that if organs and even entire heads are able to function after death under the control of science, perhaps there will be a day in which science can procure the consciousness of an animal after death while hooked up to these machines, making the animal decide to react without certain stimuli simply because the animal believed he heard a whistle or felt a breeze.
While I believe some scenes in this film to be inherently impossible, the idea raises an interesting point about about the evolution of unity. By unity I mean the organs in out body acting in unison to create highly advanced systems. An organ on its own, isolated from a bodily cavity is essentially dead since it cannot perform its designated function. In this video, they attempt to artificially revive a decapitated dog head by supplying it with oxygenated blood, but in reality the dog would need more than that to react to stimuli. It would need functioning nerve cells and muscle cells in order to move its face, as well as functioning brain that could sense and respond.
ReplyDeleteThe fact that our survival as humans depends on the maintenance of fragile bodily systems, might seem like an enormous disadvantage. If we were more like the sea sponge, for example, we could technically be lacerated into the smallest pieces and retain the ability to regenerate ourselves back into a fully functioning organism. However, the sea sponge does not have a nervous system, tissues, or the ability to move. So is it more successful evolutionarily speaking? probably not. Perhaps the unison in our bodies reflects the trend of unison that Edward O. Wilson speaks of, that is sociability. Animal societies with the most successful social constructions are often the most dominant. From bee hives to large metropolises, sociability and the division of labor creates a group of organisms which are each reliant on the whole for food, shelter, and other necessities. But on their own, they are like a still heart sitting on an examination table.
Many of the scenes from this film seemed like they had to be a hoax, until I did some further research and found that apparently these experiments were supported by documented evidence and accepted by the majority of the scientific community during the time, to the point where Sergei Brukhonenko was awarded the Lenin prize in 1940. Lilly brings up the point of a brain needing more than just oxygen in the blood perform all it's functions, and that's of course true in a living organism to continue on functionally normally for an extended period of time. However I don't think this fact discredits this experiment, theoretically, if the blood used was taken from the animal and stored properly, the cells might still contain the nutrients that they possessed when the animal originally ceased to live, and since this experiment did not have to go on for a long period of time, these functions might have been able to be performed properly by the nutritional remnants in the cells as they were oxygenized by the machine.
ReplyDeleteThe meaning of this experiment - if it were to be genuinely true - is quite amazing. Of course, people have been "brought back to life" many a time throughout history, through CPR and defibrillators etc., but these methods have involved manually keeping the blood flowing by creating false heart beats while forcing air into the lungs, and electric shocks to shock the heart back into action. Neither of which are comparable to the extremities of draining all the blood from an animal, leaving it in a dead state for 10 minutes, and then cycling re-oxygenated blood back into the body.
At the same time, the ability to do this almost makes sense in a way. This dog died, but there was no trauma done to his internal organs that would have stopped them from functioning, and he was left dead for 10 minutes before the revival process began, which is still within the range of time after death before cell degrading begins, so when the re-oxygenated blood was put back and cycled through the system, it's not inconceivable that the experiment could have actually taken place and been successful. I appreciate the fact that this process of revival might be an actual possibility, but at the same time I don't think it's one that would actually be helpful towards bringing back the dead in most cases, since most deaths occur from damage to our organs, or diseases that affect the functionality of our cells, I think it would be very rare for a death to naturally - or by the cause of a disaster/murder etc - that would fulfill the conditions required for this process to be successful as a means for bringing back the dead.
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ReplyDeleteThis film was hard to watch, as so many questions immediately flooded my mind, leading to disbelief. How is it that an isolated heart of a duck can continue beating with the proper transaction of giving and receiving its necessities for survival without being in the body of the animal? How could the head of a dog respond accordingly to stimuli such as sound and touch when it is isolated from its body and it’s consciousness? http://www.damninteresting.com/sergei’s-litter/ Here is an article explaining Bryukhonenko’s goals behind the experiments, along with the experiments conducted by Robert J. White involving similar speculations on the matter. There are many flaws in the film that enable the viewer to question and doubt the successful experiments. But the fact remains that they are indeed truthful and have a long lasting influence on the field. My remaining question is that if organs and even entire heads are able to function after death under the control of science, perhaps there will be a day in which science can procure the consciousness of an animal after death while hooked up to these machines, making the animal decide to react without certain stimuli simply because the animal believed he heard a whistle or felt a breeze.
ReplyDelete