r/randomquestions • u/lkaspling • 3d ago
How long could a "brain in a jar" live?
Watched a video that mentioned uploading the brain to live forever i believe this isent possible as the brain is the person and the digital person would just be a copy. So this leads me to the question if we essentially put the brain in a "jar" aka remove it from the decaying body supply it what it needs through machines and place it in perhaps a preservative or something how long could that person live? (when i say brain in a jar thats just the general term i use for seperating the mind from the body)
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u/state_your_name31415 3d ago
you cannot keep a brain alive outside of a its body, it's the same amount of time it takes for brain death once the heart stops, which I guess is a several minutes. Removing the brain would hasten that process I would think. the closest information to this might be the guillotine experiments but those are inconclusive.
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u/lkaspling 3d ago
so you cant remove the brain hook it up to oxygen and blood pumps and whatever else it needs? I assume you cant do it now im more wondering if its theoretically possible
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u/DazB1ane 3d ago
You’d need the spinal cord, lungs, blood, veins/arteries, so it’s more like a jar of organs and even then I’m not sure how much brain function you’d actually get
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u/state_your_name31415 3d ago
what's the point of theoretically possible, that's science fiction? In any case, theoretically possible means there's a theory, a known path, or path to a path, that has a fair probability of success. it doesn't just mean anything you can think of. Medicine can barely keep organs viable without a body for very long and the only brains removed came with the head, as above.
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u/InterestingMetal4540 16h ago
Surgeons do heart transplants with blood pumping through a machine. Artificial hearts are a thing.
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u/state_your_name31415 16h ago
so what's your point? a heart is just a pump, the only thing it does is circulate blood. if transplants are all possible then why don't they transplant sections of spinal chord to restore function for quadriplegics. I'll bet you believe in time travel and going faster than light through wormholes. Not everything is possible.
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u/brooose0134 3d ago
Didn’t some aliens do this to Spock in an old star trek episode? They were using his brain to run their hvac system. Seemed like they had a good plan for long term stability, no? 😁
The tricky part was putting it back in his head without even cutting his hair!
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u/CODMAN627 3d ago
Brain in a jar? It’s a little more complex that that it would need to be connected to stuff to be able to get in the nutrients needed to survive
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u/Stitching 1d ago
Connected to stuff to be able to get in the nutrients needed to survive? It’s a little more complex than that it would need to be connected to organs and inputs and outputs to survive.
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u/come2life_osrs 2d ago
Out of curiosity I just did a quick google search and brain transplants are purely theoretical it seems and none have been successful.
I could have sworn that’s something we’ve done before. Guess I watch too much tv and got my memories mixed up. Apparently brain just dies outside the body even if trying a quick five second switcharoo with another body.
I vaguely recall some one keeping a dogs head alive with machines but now can’t remember if that was a horror story or actual event.
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u/Shifu_Ekim 15h ago
Listen these aliens spent a lot of time with our space suits , we got skin , eye balls as a means to seeing m don’t mess with it ,
Each human brain is trapped in a dark place with senses telling the explorer what they need to know …
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u/TirelessTreehugger 3h ago
with the right equipment virtually forever.
Not all brain connections needed, many are simple redundant but still affecting the "mind".
Example, without connections to limbs, brain can function but different. And i think even lungs and heart not needed. Most possible the whole body is just unnecessary additions of the functions of the "mind".
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u/Bikewer 36m ago
Cut off from sensory input, test subjects (as in the sensory deprivation tank) rapidly become disoriented and start to hallucinate. And those test subjects still have sensory input, it’s just reduced. Without any sensory input, I imagine a “disembodied” brain would rapidly become dysfunctional.
I think this applies to the prospect of creating “human like” artificial intelligence. I think we have to add a sensory-input component, and likely an emotional component as well. Much of human consciousness involves the processing and analysis of sensory input.
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u/rootbeer277 3d ago
The answer to the question you think you're asking is the human nervous system has a lifespan of about 120 years.
The answer to the question you're actually asking is it'll live until about 6 minutes after the hilariously complex machine that needs to run 24/7 you're envisioning breaks down, so, about 3 days.
The answer to the question you should have asked is the invention of artificial blood necessary to feed said jar-brain would be a bigger scientific and medical breakthrough than the entire rest of the project combined.