How Long Were People Alive After the Guillotine?

[Jonn]

MSN

It's fast, it's final—but not instant. Eyewitnesses and doctors claimed victims blinked, reacted, even tried to speak. Was it just reflex… or something more?

 

[Outdated]

I'd prefer to not find out.

 

[thejuice]

Guillotine is probably the most human way to be executed, its just too gory for the witnesses and it not good for the government that wants to look civilised. A lethal injection has a faux humane, medical respectability to it and they do the dirty work during the midnight hours instead of it being a public spectator sport. They use a drug to make the condemned unconcious, a second to paralyse and a third to stop the heart, so they usually suffer on the inside only. Although with drug shortages, concealing the real brutality has become more difficult. The longest ever execution took 3 hours. 15 seconds of conciousness as your head rolls around the floor doesnt seem so bad in comparison!

 

[Jonn]

The longest ever execution took 3 hours. 15 seconds of conciousness as your head rolls around the floor doesnt seem so bad in comparison!

But what about if you have an itch and need to scratch your nose?
This would be unconscionable punishment!

 

[Jumpinbare]

But what about if you have an itch and need to scratch your nose?
This would be unconscionable punishment!

You use your telepathy to ask a bystander to scratch it

 

[Alexej]

But what about if you have an itch and need to scratch your nose?
This would be unconscionable punishment!

no I think it would be a "cruel and unusual" punishment

 

[Judge]

I suppose that depends on one's definition of being "alive", particularly after the fact. My understanding is that despite any bodily movement based on nerves, that in the absence of brain activity there is still zero consciousness.

So when a chicken has it's head lopped off, it isn't consciously thinking about wildly flapping its wings and running around. It isn't thinking at all. When the body just hasn't caught up with the termination of its mind quite yet. Whether in seconds or minutes. No matter how it may look to mortified observers.

The same could be said for onlookers at such an execution, even when Charles-Henri Sanson held high the severed heads of his victims for the Parisians' reaction. Though it was a revolution that eventually "devoured its own children".

Ironic to think that it was on the advice of King Louis XVI that the blade used be at an angle so that it cut more cleanly. Perhaps his one positive contribution to France's Revolution. And that his most ardent opponent (Maxim Robespierre) would eventually suffer the same fate. Stranger than fiction?

Viva la France...

 

[Outdated]

A lethal injection has a faux humane...

I've had a lethal injection. Turns out I have an allergy. I never felt so weird or so ill in my life before, but it only lasted a few seconds and then I was dead. For a minute and 17 seconds the doctor said when he revived me.

So when a chicken has it's head lopped off, it isn't consciously thinking about wildly flapping its wings and running around.

I did the same after I was given that needle. When I revived the doctor asked me if I had a history of epilepsy in the family, I don't. It took a neurologist to explain that to me, what I had is called a Neural Ceasure. My brain shut down, switched off. I was brain dead. My body behaved exactly as it would if I was decapitated.

There's nothing medical science can do to restart a brain, it's just pure luck that in roughly 50% of these ceasures the brain will restart itself after a short while as long oxygenated blood flow has been maintained.

 

[thejuice]

I've had a lethal injection. Turns out I have an allergy. I never felt so weird or so ill in my life before, but it only lasted a few seconds and then I was dead. For a minute and 17 seconds the doctor said when he revived me.


I did the same after I was given that needle. When I revived the doctor asked me if I had a history of epilepsy in the family, I don't. It took a neurologist to explain that to me, what I had is called a Neural Ceasure. My brain shut down, switched off. I was brain dead. My body behaved exactly as it would if I was decapitated.

There's nothing medical science can do to restart a brain, it's just pure luck that in roughly 50% of these ceasures the brain will restart itself after a short while as long oxygenated blood flow has been maintained.

Factory reset!

 

[Outdated]

Factory reset!

Best sleep I ever had in my life. I woke up feeling so happy and relaxed. I thought I was at home in my own bed, but then I noticed that the ceiling was white and in my bedroom the ceiling is yellow. Then a man in a white coat leant over me and he was talking at a million miles an hour. I couldn't understand a word he was saying and I couldn't understand what he was doing in my bedroom but he seemed like a really nice man.

Yes, factory reset indeed. I've also had some severe injuries in my life, this was the first time since I was 12 years old that I woke up with no pain. That is a very strange feeling. A sense of euphoria and a lack of pain lasted for several hours.

 

[thejuice]

Best sleep I ever had in my life. I woke up feeling so happy and relaxed. I thought I was at home in my own bed, but then I noticed that the ceiling was white and in my bedroom the ceiling is yellow. Then a man in a white coat leant over me and he was talking at a million miles an hour. I couldn't understand a word he was saying and I couldn't understand what he was doing in my bedroom but he seemed like a really nice man.

Yes, factory reset indeed. I've also had some severe injuries in my life, this was the first time since I was 12 years old that I woke up with no pain. That is a very strange feeling. A sense of euphoria and a lack of pain lasted for several hours.

Damn, thats crazy!

 

[Outdated]

Damn, thats crazy!

It took a good 5 minutes for all of my memories to return and for me to start making sense of where I was and what was going on. Did I se a white light? Yes, it's the standard flouros they use in all hospitals.

 

[Jumpinbare]

I've also had some severe injuries in my life, this was the first time since I was 12 years old that I woke up with no pain. That is a very strange feeling.

Yeah, I have wondered what being without pain would be like. I learned young to tune out pain, but I'm still aware of it in the background. As long as it's steady pain that is. Sudden increase in pain (like moving the wrong way), or intermittent pain pops through the filter though. I was diagnosed with osteoarthritis at 14, and haven't been truly pain free since.

 

[Jonn]

So when a chicken has it's head lopped off, it isn't consciously thinking about wildly flapping its wings and running around. It isn't thinking at all. When the body just hasn't caught up with the termination of its mind quite yet. Whether in seconds or minutes. No matter how it may look to mortified observers.

But chickens are descendants of dinosaurs, aren't they, ergo they have a second brain in their tail area.

Spoiler: Mythbuster

AI Overview

No, dinosaurs did not have a second brain in their tail area. The idea of a "butt brain" in dinosaurs is a popular myth, but it's not supported by scientific evidence. While some dinosaurs did have a noticeable expansion in the spinal cord near their hips, this area is now believed to have housed a glycogen body, an organ that stores energy, not a brain.

 

[Jonn]

I've had a lethal injection. Turns out I have an allergy. I never felt so weird or so ill in my life before, but it only lasted a few seconds and then I was dead. For a minute and 17 seconds the doctor said when he revived me.


I did the same after I was given that needle. When I revived the doctor asked me if I had a history of epilepsy in the family, I don't. It took a neurologist to explain that to me, what I had is called a Neural Ceasure. My brain shut down, switched off. I was brain dead. My body behaved exactly as it would if I was decapitated.

There's nothing medical science can do to restart a brain, it's just pure luck that in roughly 50% of these ceasures the brain will restart itself after a short while as long oxygenated blood flow has been maintained.

I am tempted to make a joke, but I won't.