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Talk:Information-theoretic death

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Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment

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  This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 27 August 2019 and 14 December 2019. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Dcchenn.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 00:32, 17 January 2022 (UTC)Reply

Requested move

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Latest comment: 18 years ago2 comments2 people in discussion

The term used in this article (and the quote given therein) is information-theoretic death, rather than "information theoretical death". The hyphen is used to create a compound adjective which reads less clumsily than "information theoretic death" to this native english speaker's eyes. - 69.174.134.88 03:13, 16 June 2006 (UTC)Reply

I support this move.Cryobiologist 18:09, 16 June 2006 (UTC)Reply

Wrong in any case

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Latest comment: 4 years ago7 comments6 people in discussion

There is a meaningful concept here but the use of the term "information theoretic" is presumptious and misleading. There is a well established body of knowledge, originally formulated in English and a hard (in the sense of "hard science") mathematical topic and sense associated with the adjectival form of Information Theory and no real connection between it and the subject matter of this article has been established. This is OK but I don't want it to go uncalled that the term "information theoretic death" is anything other than a neologism and not a well founded extrapolation of the mathematical theory of the same name.

Further, it is by no means clear, and on the other hand almost certainly false, that a brain whose process state had been lost by virtue of the cessation of all the electrical activity significant to said process state had avoided "information theoretic death" even in the sense intended.

Lycurgus (talk) 09:24, 12 January 2008 (UTC)Reply

It is well-known that only short-term memory depends on electrical activity, otherwise nobody would ever survive cardiac arrest and the rapid loss of brain electrical activity that accompanies it.
“We know that secondary memory does not depend on continued activity of the nervous system, because the brain can be totally inactivated by cooling, by general anesthesia, by hypoxia, by ischemia, or by any method, and yet secondary memories that have been previously stored are still retained when the brain becomes active once again. Therefore, secondary memory must result from some actual alterations of the synapses, either physical or chemical.” — Page 658, Textbook of Medical Physiology by Arthur C. Guyton (W.B. Saunders Company, Philadelphia, 1986) Cryobiologist (talk) 21:15, 15 February 2008 (UTC)Reply
Typical mindless equivocation on "electrical activity". Obviously no organism can survive the complete cessation of electrical activity in it's CNS and the situations mentioned do not constitute same. Note that only hard freezing as in the crude early cryogenics and not simulated hybernation by hyperthermia come close but these are completely destructive of cells anyway. 74.78.162.229 (talk) 04:54, 8 June 2008 (UTC)Reply
This "obviously" is just plain wrong (tardigrades, duh), and it has been proven using vitrification and revival of C elegans that memories persist through cryopreservation. http://www.alcor.org/Library/pdfs/Persistence.of.Long.Term.Memory.in.Vitrified.and.Revived.C.elegans.pdf Lsparrish (talk) 18:36, 8 June 2015 (UTC)Reply
A single study in a fringe journal, with literally one day between being received and being accepted (extra-fast peer review) and experimental protocols not detailed in the paper, probably doesn't count as "proven". Perhaps a reproduction or two of the result before claiming proof? (I mean, I'm very pleased someone finally did the obvious experiment, but everything about that paper is low-quality and sloppy.) - David Gerard (talk) 19:56, 8 June 2015 (UTC)Reply
Your comprehension of scientific papers is rather suspect, in light of past events. Be that as it may, the cryopreservation protocols referenced are described in different papers. The paper for the vitrification protocol has not yet been published, however both protocols showed signs of memory preservation down to liquid nitrogen temperatures. The slow-freezing method (Brenner, 1974) is said to have around 80% fatality rate, but that didn't stop the survivors from remembering the trained behavior, and is not an obstacle to replication. (Remember, slow freezing just means the cytosol is vitrified, with ice forming between the cells.) Lsparrish (talk) 01:02, 9 June 2015 (UTC)Reply
I am researching information theory, and I do not feel that the term "information-theoretic death" is misleading. At least, I have no better idea for the name. I strongly believe that this term is meaningful, we need to have a name of it, and there should be a Wiki page about it. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 193.224.79.242 (talk) 10:40, 19 June 2020 (UTC)Reply
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Latest comment: 16 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion

Is it worthwhile to link to the wiki entry for Lem's novel Fiasco? The first part of the book involves a cyrogenics revival - and neither the patient nor his doctors can figure out which of two possible people he might be.

He's forced eventually to assume a third identity. In the context of this article, the original him (whoever him might be) died. - Jason —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.125.33.112 (talk) 21:41, 12 January 2008 (UTC)Reply

Heisenberg uncertainty principle

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Latest comment: 10 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion

I removed the assertion that the Heisenberg uncertainty principle implies imperfect knowledge of a system. This is only true if you insist on thinking of everything as particles. It is in principle possible to have complete knowledge of a wavefunction, assuming perfect instruments (as in an ideal spin-1/2 system after making a measurement). The observer effect or irreversible quantum decoherence might be more relevant challenges to knowing the complete physical state of a brain. --myncknm (talk) 16:39, 8 January 2014 (UTC)Reply

Paragraph before the lead

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Latest comment: 9 years ago3 comments3 people in discussion

Before the lead paragraph, there was this thing. I did not understand it and it definitely does not belong before the definition:

In cryonics advocacy, the motivation is to avoid dying, but the patient is clinically dead and thus their body and brain are severely damaged at the point when the procedure is initiated. To complicate matters further, there is significant damage done during cryonics procedures. Thus the entire project is only rational under the assumption that damage can be repaired by future technology. However, given hypothetical the prospect of revival, there can be some confusion about if the person is truly dead or not. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Oracions (talk • contribs) 06:34, 14 July 2015 (UTC)Reply

I've noted that "information-theoretic death" is a cryonics jargon term, which should provide sufficient context for the intro - David Gerard (talk) 10:04, 14 July 2015 (UTC)Reply
"Jargon" has multiple pejorative connotations (it is hardly an NPOV word), which is the reason why the WP article on jargon has not been merged with technical terminology on WP (see the discussion page at talk:jargon for why). Yes, the WP article on jargon badly needs a rewrite due to this very problem. But that's no excuse for using an egregiously insulting rather than neutral word here. Mr. Gerard, are you sure you didn't mean to write cryonics wacko jargon term? Since that is what you seem to believe, would that not provide even more context? And in addition, you could helpfully use it for all the other stuff for which you are a skeptic. "Skeptic" being a jargon term for "angry disbeliever." SBHarris 20:15, 21 August 2015 (UTC)Reply

Educating David Gerard

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Latest comment: 9 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion

I regret to inform David Gerard that the statement that "Information-theoretic death is a cryonics jargon term" is rather obviously biased.

Even the blander "Information-theoretic death is a cryonics technical terminology term" is incorrect. Quite a few terms are used in cryonics. That does not make them cryonics technology terms. The term "cryogenics", for example, is sometimes used to mean "cryonics", yet all involved know that it has its own distinct meaning and should not be referred to as a "cryonics" term. Nor is the term "molecular repair" a cryonics term, even though this term, too, is frequently applied in the context of cryonics.

One might, with equal justification, call "information-theoretic death" an "uploading jargon term" or "transhumanist jargon term", just as one might call "acceleration" an "artillery jargon term" or an "astronomical jargon term".

In fact, it is none of these things. It is a recognition of the fact that human life can be viewed from the perspective of information, just as almost everything else can be viewed from the perspective of information. Music and sound can be digitized. Paintings and images can be digitized. Videos can be digitized. The human brain can be digitized. We, ourselves, at any moment in time, can be fully described by bits, by 0s and 1s, by information. We are not merely physical objects, we are also abstract entities of information. As long as that information persists, we continue to live. If that information ceases to exist, then we are truly dead.

And now, David, will you please desist in your persistent vandalism of this entry?

RMerkle (talk) 20:45, 21 August 2015 (UTC)Reply

Nobody dies because physics conserves information ?

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Latest comment: 9 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion

I deleted the passages that include the claim "resuscitation is not specifically ruled out by the laws of physics, unless information critical to that resuscitation passes beyond the event horizon of a black hole." This assumes that burning a book doesn't erase its contents because in some bizarre sense the text is still contained in fire light photons racing away from Earth. That may be an interesting academic debate for physicists, or even theologians (Omega Point), but it has nothing to do with any use of "information theoretic death" in medical literature, which refers exclusively to technologically accessible information. Cryobiologist (talk) 23:36, 21 August 2015 (UTC)Reply

Reverted edits

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Latest comment: 7 years ago3 comments2 people in discussion

I made an edit that simply expresses the fact that the current view of physics is that information is conserved, meaning information-theoretic death is not possible in the absolute sense. A vandal has repeatedly reverted this edit, claiming "there's no proof that's how it works in the brain". I'm not quite sure what this even means, it seems he is quite confused as to what this article is discussing. If information is conserved, then the information in the brain is conserved, and "information-theoretic death" is not possible. If the vandal in question would like to explain what he's talking regarding "how it works in the brain", that would be good. If there are no arguments given I will put my edit back. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 110.175.159.167 (talk • contribs)

Please review WP:OR. There is such a thing as conservation of quantum information, but asserting that this happens in brains in any useful or practical sense, such as that discussed in the article, is a novel claim that is in no way supported by the cites. And it really doesn't happen in any useful way in a brain at 310 Kelvins - David Gerard (talk) 07:50, 4 April 2016 (UTC)Reply
The brain is a physical entity, and ALL physical information is conserved. What part don't you understand? The temperature of the brain is not relevant at all. If you could show that the brain was not subject to any of the known laws of physics, then you may have a point, however that would be a heterodox view. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 110.175.159.167 (talk • contribs)
Indeed, physics works. But does this usefully or practically reflect upon what this page is discussing?
Put it this way: if this is actually generally-accepted, you should be able to find multiple high-quality sources saying so. If you can't find said sources, this suggests your conclusion is not backed up - David Gerard (talk) 14:35, 4 April 2016 (UTC)Reply
Hi David, I somewhat agree with the original poster. One inevitably comes to this conclusion after asking the question "where do we draw the line" between recoverable and irrecoverable? There appears to be no such line; the amount of mangling suffered by the information only determines how advanced of a technology you'd need to recover it. Let's say we have a piece of paper with text on it. Is the info lost after ripping it to shreds? No because you could put it back together. What about after burning it? Still, a sufficiently super-advanced technology could theoretically analyze every single particle involved in the burning process and trace it back to its original state (like our weather prediction models but billions of times more powerful and run backwards). Theguyi26 (talk) 17:36, 17 October 2017 (UTC)Reply

unsourced bit

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Latest comment: 8 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion

This bit is unsourced: moving here til it can be sourced

The use of information-theoretic criteria has formed the basis of ethical arguments that state that cryonics is an attempt to save lives rather than being an interment method for the dead. In contrast, if cryonics cannot be applied before information-theoretic death occurs, or if the cryopreservation procedure itself causes information-theoretic death, then cryonics is not feasible. Exactly when complete and total information-theoretic death might occur with respect to different types of preservation and decomposition might also be relevant to the speculative field of mind uploading.

- Jytdog (talk) 15:45, 4 April 2016 (UTC)Reply

Obsolete scientific information

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Latest comment: 8 years ago4 comments3 people in discussion

Reverted edits by Jytdog to the version a few days ago, as the material introduced was obsolete (source dated 2005) and scientifically inaccurate. It is now known that cell damage is (primarily, during short periods) caused not by withdrawal of oxygen, but by the rapid uncontrolled re-introduction of oxygen, and that this process can be delayed or stopped with medically-induced hypothermia. Survival after cardiac arrest can now be extended (in some cases) well after a traditional five-minute or ten-minute window, and skiier Anna Bågenholm survived for over an hour without circulation after falling through ice into frozen water. Links to some of the research in this area:

To be clear, none of this means that cryonics will work, or that science or any particular scientist support cryonics. (To my knowledge, most of the researchers in this field are not cryonics supporters.) All the temperatures involved in all of this research were well above the freezing point. However, it's trivial to find reliable mainstream sources (as the above, plus tons of others not mentioned) to support the basic conclusions that:

  • biological death is a continuous process, rather than a single binary event, as in the case of clinical death or legal death
  • the process of death can, in some cases, be reversed by current medical technology well after the onset of clinical death
  • the process of death, in general, happens more slowly under colder temperatures
  • cells, including brain neurons, do not automatically undergo apoptosis after a few minutes without oxygen

In addition, I should note the following smaller inaccuracies:

  • the version by Jytdog says that "speculates about a future in which people could be preserved with cyronics", but (in addition to the misspelling) this is inaccurate; it is indisputably true that people are being preserved with cryonics, the speculative part is whether cryonics patients can be revived
  • "information-theoretic death" is not a theory, but merely defines a term. Falsifiability is necessary for an idea to be considered a theory, and "information-theoretic death" is not falsifiable, any more than clinical death or legal death are falsifiable; they're just definitions
  • "information" should not be in scare quotes, as it's undisputed (I hope) that the brain does in fact contain information; "Barack Obama was born in 1961", for example, is obviously information contained in the brain
  • "[Merkle's] theory opposes itself to clinical death and legal death" is unsourced, doesn't seem to be anywhere in Merkle's papers, and doesn't make much sense; one wouldn't say that #1122FF and #2211FF were "opposed", even though they're different definitions of the color "blue", they're just different descriptors for different things. Merkle opposes the idea that everyone who is clinically dead or brain dead is "gone for good" and can never be brought back, but (per everything above) no one seriously disputes this; see also eg. here or here or here or here or here
  • the sentence beginning "Merkle further suggested" is cited to Merkle's paper, but is also cited to someone else named Wowk; it's not clear how this supports "Merkle further suggested", presumably any of Wowk's claims are his own and should be attributed to him

Essentially, the semantic question of how to define the word "death" is mixed up with the factual question of whether certain people do or don't meet certain definitions of death, which is mixed up with the scientific question of how likely people in various states are to return to normal life, which is mixed up with speculation about how those odds might change in the future. I'd tentatively suggest trying to merge this mess into the article at Medical definition of death. It's clear that (for whatever reason) few or none of the scientists in this area are using Merkle's term, so it might be impossible to keep an article on information-theoretic death up-to-date without doing original research. If, eg., tomorrow scientists discovered that people could be taken to 5 C body temperature and survive, this would prove that such people were not "information-theoretically dead" as Merkle defines it, but the article couldn't say that because (almost certainly) none of the sources would actually use that term. NeatGrey (talk) 04:41, 5 April 2016 (UTC)Reply

Thanks for pointing out some of those issues. I just worked on most of them. I like the idea of merging this article into medical definition of death. that is a much better option than what we have here. shall we? Jytdog (talk) 05:28, 5 April 2016 (UTC)Reply
Done, I've merged and redirected. Actually, that article itself could use quite a bit of work. I'll start by breaking up that huge paragraph under brain death... NeatGrey (talk) 05:57, 5 April 2016 (UTC)Reply
The redirect heads to Legal death which this topic obviously doesn't fall under. Changing back. Not sure why you thought the redirect to Medical definition of death would have made sense anyway.Lsparrish (talk) 14:09, 23 May 2016 (UTC)Reply

New web page on information-theoretic death

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Latest comment: 8 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion

It is with sadness that I have observed the systematic degradation of Wikipedia's web page on information-theoretic death. By deleting relevant references that clearly meet Wikipedia's standards for references, by violating Wikipedia's NPV, and generally by ignoring the core concepts behind Wikipedia, intellectual vandals have brought us to the point where the Wikipedia web page on this subject is no longer useful. As a consequence, I have created a new web page on my own web site on information-theoretic death: http://www.merkle.com/definitions/infodeath.html. I would recommend that anyone who wishes to link to a stable and reasonable web page on information-theoretic death link to my page. I would encourage Wikipedia editors to revert this page to an earlier (less damaged) version, and then update it. There will, however, have to be some watch kept on the vandals. RMerkle (talk) 16:48, 4 June 2016 (UTC)Reply

History - WP:SYN

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Latest comment: 8 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion

This is SYN

History

Focus on the brain for defining death under certain conditions began in the mid 20th century when it became possible to artificially replace functions of the heart and lungs. By the 1960s, it was possible to artificially maintain circulation and breathing even while the brain decomposed.[1] This led to a new kind of death called brain death. Brain death came to diagnosed by neurologic examination noting clinical absence of brain functions[2] without presence of confounding factors known to reversibly inhibit brain activity.[3]

Early in the history of brain death, there was recognition that clinical findings of brain death were accompanied by alteration or loss of the physical cell structure of the brain.[4][5][6][7][8] However the nature and extent of the physical change or "destruction" were highly variable, especially in later decades when delays between brain death diagonses and removal from ventilator support became shorter because of organ donation.[9] By the late 1970s it was suggested by some that brain death should be defined in terms of "structural destruction" or "total brain destruction" because it was the only obviously sufficient physical condition to eliminate the possibility of brain function returning "now or in the future,"[10] Others advocated "irreversible loss of anatomical brain structure at the cellular level" as a definition of death,[11] without elaboration of "irreversible."

In 1992, in a paper about the controversial field of cryonics in the then non-peer-reveiwed journal Medical Hypotheses, cryptography pioneer and molecular nanotechnology researcher Ralph Merkle argued that brain destruction need not be total for resuscitation of a person to be impossible by physical law. Merkle propsed that loss of brain detail encoding long-term memory and personality in an information-theoretic sense was both necessary and sufficient for permanent death of a person. Loss in an information-theoretic sense meant that the state of a brain had been so disturbed that it was theoretically impossible to infer a preceding brain state corresponding to a unique individual. He called such a criterion for death, the information theoretic criterion of death.[12] Unlike definitions of death that evolve with changing technology, Merkle intended his conceptual definition death to be timeless; a threshold of neurological damage beyond which no possible future technology could recover the original person who died.[13][14]

References

  1. ^ Towbin A (December 1973). "The respirator brain death syndrome". Human Pathology. 4 (4). Elsevier: 583–594. doi:10.1016/S0046-8177(73)80067-X. PMID 4750823. The syndrome, as manifested in the cases studied, is characterized by irreversible deterioration of nervous system function, with deepening coma and loss of electroencephalographic activity and, pathologically, by severe brain edema and softening, often with diffuse liquefaction necrosis.
  2. ^ van der Lugt A (November 2010). "Imaging tests in determination of brain death". Neuroradiology. 52 (11): 945–947. doi:10.1007/s00234-010-0765-7. PMID 20820765. There is uniform agreement on the clinical neurological examination to evaluate absence of brain function. This examination includes the assessment of coma, the absence of brain reflexes, and the assessment of apnea.
  3. ^ Wilson, William C.; Grande, Christopher M.; Hoyt, David B. (2007). Trauma: Critical Care (1st Edition ed.). CRC Press. p. 133. ISBN 978-0824729202. However, barbiturate coma, metabolic dysfunction (e.g. hepatic encephalopathy), severe hypothermia (temperature < 18°C), and other confounding factors may also produce cerebral electric silence on EEG. {{cite book}}: |edition= has extra text (help)
  4. ^ Veith FJ, Fein JM, Tendler MD, Veatch RM, Kleiman MA, Kalkines G (October 1977). "Brain Death I. A Status Report of Medical and Ethical Considerations" (PDF). Journal of the American Medical Association. 238 (15): 1651–1655. doi:10.1001/jama.1977.03280160045026. PMID 578252. These validations include the substantial morphologic evidence that, when the (Harvard) criteria (for brain death) have been fulfilled, there is widespread destruction of the brain. Richardson has found that the brains of 128 patients meeting Harvard criteria showed extensive destructive changes (oral communication, March 1976). In a larger series of autopsy studies, however, the extact nature and distribution of these fatal morphologic lesions in the brain were also shown to be dependent on the etiology and on the interval between fulfillment of the Harvard criteria and pathologic examination.
  5. ^ Jennett B, Gleave J, Wilson P (February 1981). "Brain death in three neurosurgical units" (PDF). British Medical Journal (Clinical Research Ed.) (. 282 (6263): 533–539. PMID 6780117. The safeguards in diagnosing brain death include establishing irreversible structural brain damage, excluding the effects of drugs, and allowing enough time to elapse to establish the diagnosis beyond doubt.
  6. ^ Guerit JM (2004). "The Concept of Brain Death". In Machado C, Shewmon A (eds.). Brain Death and Disorders of Consciousness, Advances in Experimental Medicine and Biology, Volume 550. Springer. pp. 15–22. ISBN 030648482X. Interestingly, even if this philosophical debate leads to two different answers-- one that defines death exclusively on the basis of brain criteria, and one that defines it as the loss of all critical vital functions, including consciousness-- both answers agree on one point: the brain must be, at least partially, destroyed to consider an individual dead. The second, medico-philosophical, debate concerns whether brain destruction must be total or partial and, if partial, which brain structures must be destroyed to consider the individual dead as a human being.
  7. ^ Guerit JM (2004). "The Concept of Brain Death". In Machado C, Shewmon A (eds.). Brain Death and Disorders of Consciousness, Advances in Experimental Medicine and Biology, Volume 550. Springer. pp. 15–22. ISBN 030648482X. The issue of which parts of the brain must be destroyed before considering an individual as dead gave rise to 3 different approaches: *The whole-brain formulation requires the irreversible destruction of the whole enephalon... *...the higher brain formulation defines death as "the irreversible loss of what constitutes the essence of a being" and considers the criterion that fulfills that definition to be the irreversible loss of consciousness and all cognitive functions following the destruction of the neocortex. *The brain-stem formulation... considers that the total and irreversible destruction of the brain stem is a necessary and sufficient condition for death,..."
  8. ^ Guerit JM (2004). "The Concept of Brain Death". In Machado C, Shewmon A (eds.). Brain Death and Disorders of Consciousness, Advances in Experimental Medicine and Biology, Volume 550. Springer. pp. 15–22. ISBN 030648482X. The diagnosis of individual death is subject to a triple debate: philosophical, medico-philosophical, and medical. Whatever the accepted definition of death, it must be associated with a degree of cerebral destruction that is irreversibly incompatible with consciousness.
  9. ^ Miller FG, Truog RD (2011). "Death and the Brain". Death, Dying, and Organ Transplantation: Reconstructing Medical Ethics at the End of Life. Oxford University Press. pp. 52–79. ISBN 019973917X. Nevertheless, if a particular constellation of clinical signs could be identified that invariably correlated with total brain destruction at autopsy, then this set of criteria could be used as a reliable surrogate for determining brain death. However in a study of 503 cases involving both coma and apnea (including 146 autopsies studied for neuropathological correlation), "it was not possible to verify that a diagnoses made prior to cardiac arrest by any set of subset of criteria would invariably correlate with a diffusely destroyed brain" (Molinari et al. 1980). More recently, this finding was confirmed in an autopsy series of 41 patients who fulfilled clinical criteria for brain death. Only "mild" changes of neuronal ischemia and necrosis in one-third of the cerebral hemispheres and about one-half of the brainstems were reported. In other words, in this modern study of the brains of patients diagnosed as brain dead, in many parts of the brain the majority of the neurons still appeard to have been alive at the time of death. They concluded that "Neuropathlogic examination is therefore not diagnostic of brain death" (Wijdicks and Pfeifer 2008).
  10. ^ Miller FG, Truog RD (2011). "Death and the Brain". Death, Dying, and Organ Transplantation: Reconstructing Medical Ethics at the End of Life. Oxford University Press. pp. 52–79. ISBN 019973917X. Complete destruction of the brain could refer to either structrual or functional destruction. Some have insisted that it should refer to structural destruction, since only then could the possibility of brain function (now or in the future) be eliminated (Byrne et al. 1979). Indeed the idea of brain death first arose in the context of the brain liquefaction that often occurs in severely brain-injured patients receiving mechanical ventilation, a phenomen referred to as "respirator brain" (Dagi 1992).... Because the loss of function associated with loss of structure is so unpredictable, some authors have insisted that brain death be defined in terms of "total" brain destruction.
  11. ^ The Definition of Death: Contemporary Controversies. Johns Hopkins University Press. 2002. p. 142. ISBN 0801872294. This conclusion seems even more inevitable when one realizes that there are not just two or three plausible definions (cardiac, whole brain, and higher-brain definitions); there are literally hundreds of possible variants. Some insist on irreversible loss of anatomical brain structure at the cellular level; others only on irreversible loss of function. Some insist on loss of function at the cellular level, while others insist only on irreversible loss supercellular functions or integration of bodily function. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |authors= ignored (help)
  12. ^ Merkle R (September 1992). "The technical feasibility of cryonics". Medical Hypotheses. 39 (1): 6–16. doi:10.1016/0306-9877(92)90133-W. PMID 1435395.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: extra punctuation (link)
  13. ^ Merkle R (September 1992). "The technical feasibility of cryonics". Medical Hypotheses. 39 (1): 6–16. doi:10.1016/0306-9877(92)90133-W. PMID 1435395. In this one instance (cryonics), we must ask not whether the person is dead by today's criteria, but whether the person is dead by all future criteria. In short, we must ask whether death by the information theoretic criterion has taken place.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: extra punctuation (link)
  14. ^ Whetstine L, Streat S, Darwin M, Crippen D (October 2005). "Review: Pro/con ethics debate: When is dead really dead?". Critical Care. 9 (6). BioMed Central: 538–542. doi:10.1186/cc3894. PMID 16356234. This approach to defining death, which is rooted not in relative, changing technology and vitalistic worldviews, but rather in the fundamentals of physical law, is known as the information theoretic criterion of death.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: unflagged free DOI (link)

-- Jytdog (talk) 15:00, 10 June 2016 (UTC)Reply

Usage - more SYN

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Latest comment: 8 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion

This is too is created here in WP in a work of synthesis

Usage

Information-theoretic death is not a term used in clinical medicine because it is a concept, not a diagnosable state. It has been used in philosophical and ethical discussions of organ donation, brain death,[1][2][3][4][5][6][7] and controversial brain preservation technologies such as cryonics[8][9][10][11] and mind uploading.[12]

The first occurrences[13][14] of information-theoretic death in peer-reviewed scientific literature were in discussions of a type of organ donation called Donation After Cardiac Death (DCD), also called Non-heart-beating donation (NHBD). In DCD, organs are removed from terminally-ill people declared dead based on stopped heartbeat (cardiopulmonary death) rather than brain death. In DCD, organ retrieval is begun after heartbeat and blood circulation are stopped for 75 seconds to 5 minutes.[15] This waiting period is for the heart to become damaged enough by lack of oxygen to not be able to spontaneously restart within the donor(autoresuscitation), but undamaged enough for the heart and other organs to later resume function inside the organ recipient. The implied possibility of restarting cardiac and brain activity[Note 1] within the donor after such cardiopulmonary death declaration has generated ethical debate about whether DCD might violate the Dead Donor Rule of organ donation[16] A key issue in these discussions has been whether the word irreversible in the cardiopulmonary death definition of the United States Uniform Determination of Death Act should be interpreted to mean not spontaneously reversible (autoresuscitation) or interpreted to mean not reversible by intervention.[17] In DCD debate, "information-theoretic death" as defined by Merkle has been mentioned as an attempt to craft a definition of death that is rigorous rather than utilitarian,[18] and as a "third" type of irreversibility, beyond impossibility of autresuscitation and beyond impossibility of active cardiac resuscitation, rooted instead in laws of physics.[19]

Information-theoretic death has also appeared in some discussions of brain death,[20][21][22][23][24] a type of death in which brain structure has long been part of bioethical discussion, even if not useable for clinical diagnosis. A particular context in which the question of information-theoretic death has been raised is the potential use of neuroremediation and regenerative medicine technologies on end-stage dementia or even "brain dead" patients to restore normal neurological function. Such technologies raise complex questions, such as whether restored minds would be those of the same people as before the brain disease or injury that had been treated.[25][26]

References

  1. ^ Whetstine L, Streat S, Darwin M, Crippen D (October 2005). "Review: Pro/con ethics debate: When is dead really dead?". Critical Care. 9 (6). BioMed Central: 538–542. doi:10.1186/cc3894. PMID 16356234.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: unflagged free DOI (link)
  2. ^ Crippen DW, Whetstine LM (February 2007). "Ethics review: Dark angels – the problem of death in intensive care". Critical Care. 11 (1). BioMed Central: 202. doi:10.1186/cc5138. PMID 17254317.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: unflagged free DOI (link)
  3. ^ Doyle DJ (2011). "Life, Death and Brain Death: A Critical Examination". Ethics in Biology, Engineering and Medicine. 2 (1): 11–31. doi:10.1615/EthicsBiologyEngMed.2011003293.
  4. ^ Ali Afzali M (December 2013). "Brain death from the perspective of shia and modern medicine" (PDF). Journal of Mazandaran University of Medical Sciences. 24 (113): 221–233.
  5. ^ Wowk B (December 2014). "Special Section. "Death by Neurologic Criteria 1968-2014: Changing Interpretations": The future of death". Journal of Critical Care. 29 (6). Elsevier: 1111–1113. doi:10.1016/j.jcrc.2014.08.006. PMID 25194588.
  6. ^ David Crippen (2011). "The problem of death in critical care medicine". In Singh, Mamta B; Bhatia, Rohit B (eds.). Emergencies in Neurology. Byword Books. pp. 396–404. ISBN 8181930673. {{cite book}}: External link in |chapterurl= (help); Unknown parameter |chapterurl= ignored (|chapter-url= suggested) (help)
  7. ^ Hughes JJ (2004). "The Death of Death". In Machado C, Shewmon A (eds.). Brain Death and Disorders of Consciousness, Advances in Experimental Medicine and Biology, Volume 550. Springer. pp. 79–88. ISBN 030648482X.
  8. ^ Merkle R (September 1992). "The technical feasibility of cryonics". Medical Hypotheses. 39 (1): 6–16. doi:10.1016/0306-9877(92)90133-W. PMID 1435395.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: extra punctuation (link)
  9. ^ Lemler J, Harris SB, Platt C, Huffman TM (June 2004). "The arrest of biological time as a bridge to engineered negligible senescence". Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences. 1019 (1): 559–63. doi:10.1196/annals.1297.104. PMID 15247086.
  10. ^ Shaw D (November 2009). "Cryoethics: seeking life after death" (PDF). Bioethics. 23 (9): 515–521. doi:10.1111/j.1467-8519.2009.01760.x. PMID 19788649.
  11. ^ Moen OM (August 2015). "The case for cryonics". Journal of Medical Ethics. 41 (8): 677–681. doi:10.1136/medethics-2015-102715. PMID 25717141.
  12. ^ Cerullo MA (March 2016). "The Ethics of Exponential Life Extension Through Brain Preservation" (PDF). Journal of Evolution and Technology. 26 (1): 94–105.
  13. ^ Whetstine L, Streat S, Darwin M, Crippen D (October 2005). "Review: Pro/con ethics debate: When is dead really dead?". Critical Care. 9 (6). BioMed Central: 538–542. doi:10.1186/cc3894. PMID 16356234.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: unflagged free DOI (link)
  14. ^ Crippen DW, Whetstine LM (February 2007). "Ethics review: Dark angels – the problem of death in intensive care". Critical Care. 11 (1). BioMed Central: 202. doi:10.1186/cc5138. PMID 17254317.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: unflagged free DOI (link)
  15. ^ Veatch RM (June 2010). "Transplanting Hearts after Death Measured by Cardiac Criteria: The Challenge to the Dead Donor Rule" (PDF). Journal of Medicine and Philosophy. 35 (3): 313–329. doi:10.1093/jmp/jhq020. PMID 20439354.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: extra punctuation (link)
  16. ^ "Some find donor protocols "extremely troubling"". AHC Media. 1 January 2013.
  17. ^ Controversies in the Determination of Death: A White Paper by the President's Council on Bioethics. bioethics.gov. 2008. pp. 83–84. It is often possible, however, to cause circulation and respiration to return by adminstering cardiopulmonary resusctiation (CPR). If this were attempted after the "declaration of death" in controlled DCD, some patients would indeed regain-- for a brief time, at least --a heartbeat and some capacity to breath. If this were to occur, the patient would certainly not have been "resurrected," but instead would have been (according to the cardiopulmonary standard of death) resuscitated, i.e. prevented from dying. Thus, the prior "declaration of death" would turn out to be questionable. The patient was, it could be argued, no more dead than a person who collapses in his or her home, loses heartbeat, and is resuscitated by paramedics who arrive moments later.... In reality, attempting to revive such a patient woud be ruled out ethically because the practice of controlled DCD is premised on... a "do not resuscitate" order. For this reason, many have argued that the word "irreversible" in this context should be understood... to mean "cessation of circulatory and respiratory functions under conditions in which those functions cannot return on their own and will not be restored by medical interventions."
  18. ^ Whetstine L, Streat S, Darwin M, Crippen D (October 2005). "Review: Pro/con ethics debate: When is dead really dead?". Critical Care. 9 (6). BioMed Central: 538–542. doi:10.1186/cc3894. PMID 16356234. The utility of the information-theoretic criterion of death to this case and this discussion is to point out that few if any patients pronounced dead by today's physicians are in fact truly dead by any scientifically rigorous criteria.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: unflagged free DOI (link)
  19. ^ Crippen DW, Whetstine LM (February 2007). "Ethics review: Dark angels – the problem of death in intensive care". Critical Care. 11 (1). BioMed Central: 202. doi:10.1186/cc5138. PMID 17254317. One caucus says that death is irreversible when the patient cannot "spontaneously" resuscitate.... Another caucus says that death is irreversible when the patient cannot be resuscitated by any means or when (cardiac) resuscitation fails.... A third caucus says that irreversibility occurs when the inherent order of the atoms that make up the brain are irrevocably destroyed. If the atomic structure of the brain is disturbed but the structural integrity of the brain is maintained, there is no fundamental barrier, given our current understanding of physical law, to recovering its information content, however labor-intensive that might be. However if brain ultrastructure is physically destroyed, the laws of thermodynamics say that the information is irreversibly destroyed.... Some believe that any meaningful definition of death must take into account such an information-theory criterion. Because the definition of death hinges on irreversibility and the brain is a material system governed by physical laws, physics may provide the ultimate definition of irreversibilty.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: unflagged free DOI (link)
  20. ^ Doyle DJ (2011). "Life, Death and Brain Death: A Critical Examination". Ethics in Biology, Engineering and Medicine. 2 (1): 11–31. doi:10.1615/EthicsBiologyEngMed.2011003293. Regardless, with such issues in mind, some thinkers have argued that it is helpful to distinguish between the definition of death based on cessation of the heart beat and a "more substantial" form of death, such as exists following cremation. In the later case, sometimes called "absolutely irreversible death" or "information theoretic death" destruction of the brain has occurred to such an extreme that any information it may have ever held is irrevocably lost for all eternity.
  21. ^ Ali Afzali M (December 2013). "Brain death from the perspective of shia and modern medicine" (PDF). Journal of Mazandaran University of Medical Sciences. 24 (113): 221–233. The theory of information-theoretical death was introduced, stating that the human brain cell arrangement at one point in time loses its stored information and experiences brain death (translate.reference.com)
  22. ^ Wowk B (December 2014). "Special Section. "Death by Neurologic Criteria 1968-2014: Changing Interpretations": The future of death". Journal of Critical Care. 29 (6). Elsevier: 1111–1113. doi:10.1016/j.jcrc.2014.08.006. PMID 25194588. One possible answer is a definition of death that is independent of technology, no matter how advanced. Such a definition is the Information Theoretic Criterion for Death.... This definition is consistent with the definition of death as the irreversible loss of the capacity for consciousness, with the understanding that this capacity ultimately depends upon information encoded in the physical composition of the brain.
  23. ^ David Crippen (2011). "The problem of death in critical care medicine". In Singh, Mamta B; Bhatia, Rohit B (eds.). Emergencies in Neurology. Byword Books. pp. 396–404. ISBN 8181930673. Any meaningful definition of death is then suggested by an information-theoretic criterion. In other words, does that patient contain enough undamaged structure (information) to infer his healthy working state from his current non-functional one? Granted, the technology to transform one state to another may not (yet) be available, but this says nothing about what is theoretically possible.(29) According to this definition, the death of an individual person is different from the death of a generic human because of the issue of identity. Like death, identity is a variable continuum, but with binary features in which the difficult and yet unresolved issue of 'how much' and 'what kind' of information loss constitutes destruction of personal identity. In the analogue version of our current concept of brain death, the difference between tearing up a book and burning it is a clear delineation. In the torn up book, there is no fundamental barrier in physics to recovering its information content. However, burning the book invokes the laws of thermodynamics to irreversibly destroy information. Since the very definition of death is irreversibility and the brain is a material system governed by physical law, you have to look to physics for your ultimate definition of irreversibiltiy. {{cite book}}: External link in |chapterurl= (help); Unknown parameter |chapterurl= ignored (|chapter-url= suggested) (help)
  24. ^ Hughes JJ (2004). "The Death of Death". In Machado C, Shewmon A (eds.). Brain Death and Disorders of Consciousness, Advances in Experimental Medicine and Biology, Volume 550. Springer. pp. 79–88. ISBN 030648482X. We will soon need to scrap the brain death standard in favor of a much more tentative, probabilistic, information-theoretic understanding of death as the loss of identity-critical information.
  25. ^ David Crippen (2011). "The problem of death in critical care medicine". In Singh, Mamta B; Bhatia, Rohit B (eds.). Emergencies in Neurology. Byword Books. pp. 396–404. ISBN 8181930673. However, in the digital version of identity-defined death, letters sequentially removed from a book alter its readability (identity). Quite a lot of removal is tolerable because it is usually easy to infer what a missing letter should be. However, removal of whole strings of letters, or in some cases even a few critical letters can change the meaning of the book. At some finite point, the book is not readable, or is transformed by attempts to restore it because there are too many possible substitutions and it ceases to be the same book. This is not an academic exercise. It is a vey real issue that will become more acute as medicine advances. Consider a future, hypothetical end-stage dementia patient who has a functionally obliterated cortex and is 'rescued' by embryonic stem cells that regerate a new cortex within the framework of the old one.(30) This person remembers nothing of who he was, even though he had continuous brain stem function and even persistence of consciousness throughout the whole process of illness and 'recovery'. Is he 'dead', going by the criteria of identity? Should we await future technology capable of redefining brain death before we irrevocably act on our current definitions? {{cite book}}: External link in |chapterurl= (help); Unknown parameter |chapterurl= ignored (|chapter-url= suggested) (help)
  26. ^ Hughes JJ (2004). "The Death of Death". In Machado C, Shewmon A (eds.). Brain Death and Disorders of Consciousness, Advances in Experimental Medicine and Biology, Volume 550. Springer. pp. 79–88. ISBN 030648482X. Neuroremediation technologies and advances in intensive care will make it increasingly possible to keep alive the bodies of patients who would currently be classified as brain dead, and recover much of the memories and capabilities that we currently consider irrecoverable.... Second we need to develop a thorough predictive model of the destruction of personality and memory in the patient's brain, and the likely results of remediation, before initiating therapy.
Notes
  1. ^ Brain activity stops after only 30 seconds of cardiac arrest, but the brain can still be resuscitated with long-term recovery after several minutes of stopped circulation at normal body temperature.


-- Jytdog (talk) 15:02, 10 June 2016 (UTC)Reply

WP:OR with primary sources

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Latest comment: 8 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion

This is commenting/interpreting primary sources in a way that is not valid in WP

Physical correlates

Information-theoretic death is a definition, not a hypothesis. The definition of information-theoretic death is silent about what physical brain attributes encode memory, personality, or any other information upon which personal identity depends.[1] The definition is similarly silent about circumstances under which this information is lost. The only assumption is that a unique personhood, or personal identity, is reflected in a brain with uniqueness that becomes theoretically impossible to recover after sufficient damage.

Like other brain criteria for death, information-theoretic death is not coincident with cardiac death.[2] Types of brain damage that have been speculated to correlate with information theoretic death have included a few hours, or possibly "many hours," of stopped blood circulation (ischemia),[3] clinical brain death,[4] connectome loss,[5] advanced or complete autolysis of the brain,[6] and, trivially, cremation.[7]

References

  1. ^ Sebastian Seung (2012). Connectome: How the Brain's Wiring Makes Us Who We Are. Houghton Mifflin. p. 271. ISBN 9780547678597. Merkle's definition of death is of more philosophical than practical importance. To apply it, we need to know exactly how memories, personality, and other aspects of personal identity are stored in the brain.
  2. ^ Calixto Machado (207). "Brain Death and Organ Transplanation: Ethical Issues". Brain Death: A Reappraisal. Springer. p. 201. ISBN 1489993630. If we apply in these cases a brain-oriented concept of death, as I have affirmed, a patient does not die in the moment when the heart stops, but rather when anoxia and ischemia are prolonged enough in time to destroy brain structures.
  3. ^ Merkle R (September 1992). "The technical feasibility of cryonics". Medical Hypotheses. 39 (1): 6–16. doi:10.1016/0306-9877(92)90133-W. PMID 1435395. Present evidence supports but does not prove the hypothesis that information theoretic death does not occur for at least a few hours following the onset of ischemia. It is very possible that many hours of ischemia are required to produce information theoretic death.
  4. ^ Wowk B (December 2014). "Special Section. "Death by Neurologic Criteria 1968-2014: Changing Interpretations": The future of death". Journal of Critical Care. 29 (6). Elsevier: 1111–1113. doi:10.1016/j.jcrc.2014.08.006. PMID 25194588. For patients maintained on ventilators for days with little or no cerebral blood flow in hope of natural recovery, today's determinations of total brain failure may sometimes be information-theoretic death.
  5. ^ Sebastian Seung (2012). Connectome: How the Brain's Wiring Makes Us Who We Are. Houghton Mifflin. p. 271. ISBN 9780547678597. To apply it (Merkle's definition of death ), we need to know exactly how memories, personality, and other aspects of personal identity are stored in the brain. If this information is contained in the connectome, then information theoretic death is nothing more than connectome death.
  6. ^ Whetstine L, Streat S, Darwin M, Crippen D (October 2005). "Review: Pro/con ethics debate: When is dead really dead?". Critical Care. 9 (6). BioMed Central: 538–542. doi:10.1186/cc3894. PMID 16356234. Rigorously defined, death is a slow process and can only be assured when autolysis of the brain is far advanced or completed. Both the stability of brain ultrastructure and the recovery of viable neurons after hours of cardiac arrest are well documented [16].{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: unflagged free DOI (link)
  7. ^ Merkle R (September 1992). "The technical feasibility of cryonics". Medical Hypotheses. 39 (1): 6–16. doi:10.1016/0306-9877(92)90133-W. PMID 1435395. An effective method of insuring such destruction is to burn the structure and stir the ashes. This is commonly employed to ensure the destruction of classified documents. Under the name of 'cremation' it is also employed on human beings and is sufficient to ensure that death by the information theoretic criterion takes place.

-- Jytdog (talk) 15:04, 10 June 2016 (UTC)Reply

From criticisms section...

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Latest comment: 8 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion

Not sure what this is trying to say. Some of these sources are not about information-theoretic death

While information-theoretic death is not unique in focusing on brain structure loss as a philosophical criterion for death, the criterion is unusual for its origination in the context of an argument that anyone who is not information-theoretically dead could actually be revived. Although some ethical thought experiments involving information-theoretic death utilize emerging medical technologies, such as stem cells,[1] others envision highly advanced molecular nanotechnology.[2][3] It is suggested that the detailed molecular state of a brain and stored memories is not just something to ponder philosophically,[4] but that in the future it may be possible to know and repair this state literally, making possible actual resuscitation of anyone who isn't information-theoretically dead.[5] Not everyone in the scientific community takes such ideas seriously, and the possibility and practicality of such future technology has been questioned.[6]

References

  1. ^ David Crippen (2011). "The problem of death in critical care medicine". In Singh, Mamta B; Bhatia, Rohit B (eds.). Emergencies in Neurology. Byword Books. pp. 396–404. ISBN 8181930673. Consider a future, hypothetical end-stage dementia patient who has a functionally obliterated cortex and is 'rescued' by embryonic stem cells that regerate a new cortex within the framework of the old one.(30) This person remembers nothing of who he was, even though he had continuous brain stem function and even persistence of consciousness throughout the whole process of illness and 'recovery'. Is he 'dead', going by the criteria of identity? Should we await future technology capable of redefining brain death before we irrevocably act on our current definitions? {{cite book}}: External link in |chapterurl= (help); Unknown parameter |chapterurl= ignored (|chapter-url= suggested) (help)
  2. ^ Merkle R (September 1992). "The technical feasibility of cryonics". Medical Hypotheses. 39 (1): 6–16. doi:10.1016/0306-9877(92)90133-W. PMID 1435395.
  3. ^ Doyle DJ (2011). "Life, Death and Brain Death: A Critical Examination". Ethics in Biology, Engineering and Medicine. 2 (1): 11–31. doi:10.1615/EthicsBiologyEngMed.2011003293. Speculation that future developments in nanotechnology may permit repair and rejuvenation of organ tissue that is either dead or nearly dead by classical criteria is now emerging.... In James Hughes' book Citizen Cyborg,(37) the author speculates that in the future clinicians may be able to launch nanobots (nanorobots) into patient's bloodstreams and that these nanobots would be able to enter into cells just as viruses do today, and, just like today's viruses, would be able to reconstruct damaged internal cellular machinery.
  4. ^ Carl Sagan (1979). "Broca's Brain". Broca's Brain. Random House. p. 11. ISBN 0345288238. Is Paul Broca still there in his formalin-filled bottle? Perhaps the memory traces have decayed, although there is good evidence from modern brain investigations that a given memory is redundanty stored in many different places in the brain. Might it be possible at some future time, when neurophysiology has advanced stubstantially, to reconstruct the memories or insights of someone long dead?
  5. ^ Merkle R (September 1992). "The technical feasibility of cryonics". Medical Hypotheses. 39 (1): 6–16. doi:10.1016/0306-9877(92)90133-W. PMID 1435395. In general, for cryonics to fail, one of the following "failure criteria" must be met: 1. Pre-cryopreservation and cryopreservation injury would have to be sufficient to cause information theoretic death. In the case of the human brain, the damage would have to obliterate the structures encoding human memory and personality beyond recognition. 2. Repair technologies that are clearly feasible in principle based on our current understanding of physics and chemistry would have to remain undeveloped in practice, even after several centuries.
  6. ^ Doyle DJ (2011). "Life, Death and Brain Death: A Critical Examination". Ethics in Biology, Engineering and Medicine. 2 (1): 11–31. doi:10.1615/EthicsBiologyEngMed.2011003293. Should these developments actually eventually come to pass, we will be required to rethink our notions of death once again, since what was once irreversible damage would become reverible, at least in some cases. On the other hands, not everyone in the scientific community takes such matters seriously. For instance, since cells contain thousands upons thousands of components that may be damaged, some authorities argue that developing the required nanobot for each conceivable type of cell damage may be impossible, or least highly impractical.

--Jytdog (talk) 15:09, 10 June 2016 (UTC)Reply

Improper synthesis

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Latest comment: 5 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion

I removed a section of text which appears to me to be a novel synthesis. Example: "Information-theoretic death has propagated into some mainstream bioethical, biophilosophical and religious discussions of death," but the actual sources appear to be talking about the ethical impact of differences in brain death criteria between countries. Additionally, many of the sources don't meet WP:MEDRS. This gives the appearance of having trawled the internet for every single mention of the term and cramming them into a sentence. I'm not seeing any high level review articles about it, as MEDRS would require. Books published by minor publishers are not really the thing. The most we can say is that a small number of minor publications have discussed this, but really we need an independent source even for that. Guy (Help!) 13:25, 24 January 2019 (UTC)Reply

section just added and removed

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Latest comment: 4 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion

This is a lengthy section that was sourced to (a) Merkle's web page (b) an apparent pseudojournal https://jetpress.org/ that says it's "peer reviewed" but is actually a transhumanist advocacy site run by the IEET. I'm pretty sure neither of these is suitable for an article under WP:MEDRS - David Gerard (talk) 07:56, 5 December 2019 (UTC)Reply

Restored article

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Latest comment: 9 months ago1 comment1 person in discussion

This article was redirected to Cryonics without discussion. Since this article has been kept in AfDs twice, and the target does not directly mention the subject, I am restoring the page. ilmaisin (talk) 21:06, 27 January 2024 (UTC)Reply

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