Lumifer comments on Open Thread, Apr. 20 - Apr. 26, 2015 - Less Wrong

3 Post author: Gondolinian 20 April 2015 12:02AM

You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.

Comments (350)

You are viewing a single comment's thread. Show more comments above.

Comment author: Lumifer 22 April 2015 02:44:28PM 3 points [-]

People that got heart injuries tend to die instantly, too :-/

A better clue would be that you can knock someone out by hitting him on the head, but not on any other part of the body.

Comment author: [deleted] 22 April 2015 03:47:13PM 2 points [-]

If you hit someone hard in the region of the heart, they die.

Comment author: Lumifer 22 April 2015 03:59:02PM 0 points [-]

You're missing the point. There is only one part of the body that you can apply physical shock to in order to make someone lose consciousness for a time.

Comment author: [deleted] 22 April 2015 08:20:54PM 3 points [-]

But you could also say that death is a more permanent form of losing consciousness. To someone who doesn't know better, I could certainly see someone thinking "If something happens to the brain, you get seriously messed up. But if something happens to the heart you die, period. So perhaps the heart is more important than the brain since even the slightest injury or malfunction means instant death. Therefore, our life force must reside in the heart, not the brain." This could even lead you to thinking that the brain's purpose is in someway indirectly related to the heart, e.g. blood cooling, such that damage to the brain can cause damage to the heart, which is why some but not all damage to the brain is deadly.

I get what you are saying, but I think that connection is only obvious in hindsight.

Comment author: Lumifer 22 April 2015 09:14:02PM 1 point [-]

Therefore, our life force must reside in the heart

For the purposes of this subthread we should distinguish "life force", "soul", and "mind". They were commonly thought to be separate concepts and not necessarily residing in the same body part.

Comment author: [deleted] 22 April 2015 09:55:57PM 3 points [-]

Depends on the culture.

Comment author: VoiceOfRa 26 April 2015 11:08:18PM 2 points [-]

You can pass out from serious injuries, even if they're not in the head.