Future shock with Bill Bain: Is life after death all in the mind?

Historically, medical death has been defined as the heart’s final beat, which signals cellular breakdown in the body once blood ceases to circulate. Oxygen stops being processed and electrical activity in the brain “shuts down”. This is usually viewed as the point of no return – and certainly was 50 years ago before the invention of CPR. Or CGI, if you’re Audrey Hepburn and wish to advertise a chocolate bar.

Modern resuscitation methods transformed medical perceptions of death and once again, those notions are being challenged by new revelations that the brain – or more accurately, cellular function – may take a lot longer to stop operating than previously thought. Days, even. To imagine the recently deceased as trapped in a dreamlike state unaware of their physical death – similar to John Simm’s cop in Life On Mars – is perhaps a notion too disturbing to contemplate. But it’s not stopping scientists probing the possibility in order to keep public interest – and hence research funding – forthcoming.

But, of course, such extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. And rising to that challenge, researchers at the University of Michigan have discovered that after inducing cardiac arrest in rats, their brain activity flared with indicators of consciousness – at levels that actually exceeded their waking state. And in 2016, Canadian doctors shut off life support for terminally ill patients, only to detect delta-wave bursts – electrical activity generally experienced during deep sleep – for more than 10 minutes after clinical death. They were at a loss for a biological explanation.

Despite such reports, it remains highly unlikely consciousness beyond death will ever be definitively proven – but evidence is mounting up. A recent University of Washington study on mice confirmed that more than 1,000 genes remained active following clinical death – and in some cases for up to four days afterwards. What’s even more intriguing is that their activity did not dip in intensity, but actually increased at one point.

Once over their initial bout of flabbergast, the researchers began mooting the theory that following our deaths – unless we fall into a mince grinder – some genes start regressing back to the embryonic state we experienced in our mothers’ bellies. The alpha meets the omega, the circle completes and we go back to whence we came – likely dissipating into nothingness as our consciousness spins down the plughole.
Perhaps this cellular regression is actually the biological process fuelling revived patients’ claims that their “lives flashed before their eyes”.

It’s certainly seems all the more reason to try to squeeze the best out of every precious second of existence. Watching yourself spend 70 years in front of the telly or on your phone will likely not be a particularly gratifying final vision.

THE MYSTERY OF CONCIOUSNESS

INVESTIGATING evidence of a potential afterlife can prove problematic, with the murky waters of spirituality being alien terrain for most objective, pragmatic academics.

But Dr Sam Parnia of York University Langone Medical Centre is different. Intriguing studies into her patients’ experiences recently led her to emote: “I’m saying we have a consciousness that makes up who we are – thoughts, feelings, emotions – and that entity, it seems, does not become annihilated just because we’ve crossed the threshold of death.”

Despite its taboo nature, many curious scientists such as Dr Parnia have sought answers to the enigma of near death experiences (NDEs). 
Most of the time this is simply to try to gain clarity on when “death” takes place – not much import is placed upon reported visions or voices, which doctors often dismiss as the last screams of a dying mind. Not Parnia however, whose close monitoring of numerous dying patients - all with vivid descriptions of being operated upon, as viewed from above - has convinced her some genuinely have somehow managed to perceive reality from outside their bodies.

It is commonly thought NDEs are delusions caused by reduced oxygen levels coupled with electrical spitfiring of dying neurons. But is it all just biology? Parnia warns: “Consciousness appears to keep functioning and not dissipate. How long it lingers, we can’t say.”

Perhaps we can’t say because linear concepts of time don’t exist within the quantum reality of the brain’s neural network. You’ll be familiar with a distortion of narrative flow when either dreaming or expanding your universal awareness with psychedelic hallucinogens. Or, less enjoyably, watching the movie Inception. 

So even if it takes just a few hours for brain cells to give up the ghost of consciousness, it could still mean a horrifically prolonged penalty shoot-out period is in store for us all at the end. Unless, of course, we convince our children or hospice nurses to treat us like zombies and immediately destroy the brain as soon as our hearts stop beating.

NANOBOTS WILL SOON MAKE THEIR MARK
AS Mark E Smith’s recent demise proves, cancer can happen to anyone. Yes, I’m being facetious. The grizzled Fall frontman certainly wasn’t known for treating his body like a temple – unless it was the Indiana Jones one. As an avid science fiction fan, however, Smith’s self-destructive tendencies were perhaps countered by a hope that his decrepitude may one day be fixed by technology.

Despite his unswerving dedication to destroying it, Smith always remained the owner of a keen, enquiring mind. Fans and friends knew him as an unlikely sci-fi freak, and he was undoubtedly aware of the fast-approaching technological revolution of nanobots - which may have been able to cure him if he’d held on for another few years. 

Not only would The Fall have survived to release their 69th album, but – a bit more notably, perhaps – the use of microscopic robots injected into the human body may one day eradicate all disease on Earth while also greatly extending human lifespans. This is tech that will effectively make us immortal demigods. On the other hand, this brave new world will perhaps doom the NHS quicker than a hard Brexit presided over by PM Jacob Rees-Mogg.

In an admirable display of academic unity, scientists from Arizona State University and the Chinese Academy of Sciences this week revealed how these wee machines, one-thousandth the width of a human hair, can now end a cancerous tumour’s ability to grow. Soon, a 1,000-strong swarm of nanobots inside your veins may pre-empt any disease and deliver instant treatment at an atomic level. Fat will be destroyed, bone and muscle repaired, brainpower enhanced – even lung capacities increased, allowing you to swim to the Titanic and snap off a wee bit for the mantelpiece.

Life won’t be all utopian hijinks, however. Your boss will be even more suspicious of sick days when illness doesn’t exist, especially when company nanobots continually monitor your immune system and send a live feed to central office. 

And when everyone is enhanced to be exceptional, no-one will be exceptional. In this disease-free world of unhealthy uniformity, a bit of leprosy might be seen as appealingly exotic. Pornography will get very weird with sneeze and snot fetishes. Coughs will be a major turn-on.

One major hurdle holding back the reins on this vision of the future has been finding an inexpensive way of engineering the tiny propulsion systems. Very recently, however, a breakthrough that utilises bacteria – cheap and abundant – to propel bots will potentially allow folk of any financial means a shot at eternal life. 

And we should be glad. The profound horror of only the well-heeled likes of Max Mosley and Rupert Murdoch living forever would certainly have made one Mark E Smith lyric even more prophetic: “Only the good die old…”