HOLY SHIT

[MVB]

a) how do you not realize it?
b) lucky as sin
c) in deep bullhockey cashwise

http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/01/16/nailgun.accident.ap/index.html

[stats]

Ouch. you know, they discovered which part of the brain was responsible for personality coz this american railway worker - who was a decnt chap - fell and impaled his forhead on some iorn, when he came too he was completely unable to interact with people normaly. Turned into a twat. His bro or mate or something was a clever psycologist and worked out the rest.

Also on a side note, i'd like to add it's 4.11 fucking AM and i cannot sleep and it is driving me nuts! :loco:

[tom]

Triple expressos tend to do that to people. :)

Btw: Phineas Gage is who you are thinking of. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phineas_Gage

[The Fell Hand]

that's pretty awesome. I'm wondering where it penetrated exactly? ah well, I'd pay 90 G to not die, make the news and have a good story to tell.

[Shackled Phoenix]

goes to show the force those nailguns use, that it penetrated so quickly the nerves barely sent a signal.

[amir]

Thats not right is that guy still alive?

[Critta]

You assume so.

[Ummon]

No that's actually a minor injury neurologically speaking. He's lucky no big arteria has been punctured, as for the rest, he's more stupid than lucky. They gotta make sure he doesn't develop a meningitis or an encephalitis, and he is ok.

The case stats is referring to is famous, the guy didn't become a jerk if I remember well, he became a lot more passive. Infact he had suffered an accidental lobotomy, because an iron bar (not a nail, a nail is too small to damage the brain vastly, although the emathoma might do so) had penetrated his scull. This posed the bases of the knowledge of those functions which lay in the Prefrontal Area of the cortex.

[stats]

hmm, my lecturer told me that he sort of lost the ability to see how his actions would be responded too or something-i'll look it up, but then again, that same lecturer to a two hour lecture to explain EXACTLY how many monkeys you would need randomly typing on type writers for one of them to accidently produce a 500 word shakespere sonnit. So i think he liked to be say things to impress sorta. Something like 10 times the number of atoms in the universe - i bet you know this one ummon. er, i mean (Rome Total War Division Executive Officer) ummon, SIR! :)

[Ummon]

Fear my officer's powers!

Are you going to buy RTW stats?

[stats]

I have it, havnt played it online though - and to be honest havnt played it much at all, may dig it out though - wow is a bit engrosing atm.

[Karmashock]

goes to show the force those nailguns use, that it penetrated so quickly the nerves barely sent a signal.
more likely that it threaded some inprobable path between nerves... there would only be a place like that near the brain and or eyes.

[P$Ü(||0]

looooooooooooooool laughed my ass off...how can a human be so silly?

[Karmashock]

humans are silly... glad I'm from Klandacktoo...


doesn't this belong in comedy?

[Ummon]

Truely, the reason why the person did not suffer is misterious to me. Sensitive innervation is massive in the periostium. Maybe he is a diabetic, or the nail severed the nerve. Anatomy has never been my strongpoint so I don't remember which nerve serves that region exactly, but it's quite peculiar that he didn't realize it.

Btw stats, RTW is a great game, and the division is going to rock, with most demons in it, and BAPS, all very clever players. We are going to be meeting the 19th of January, 9 om GMT, and every week afterwards. If you are interested drop me a pm.

[Karmashock]

it could be that he didn't notice because he had brain damage...

sort of like hitting someone so hard they don't remember what happened.

[Ummon]

No. 100% negative.

[stats]

Not sure, but i suspect that slight sting when the nail penetrated skin/flesh/membrane. After that, nothing, like having ur ear peirced.(had my tragus peirced - hurt for what, a second!?) Most internal area's in ur head/brain have absolutely no sensation. no reason for it, evolutionary speaking. (most ppl know how they perform brain surgery i'm sure) - and ummon it sounds like you know a hell of lot more about physiology than me - which is annoying.

May attend that meeting btw - but i really havnt played rtw much

[Ummon]

I am a doctor after all, it's my job! The problem to me is that the skull was punctured too. I know of no cases when this is not painful. Unless of course the nail was very small, but from the photo it looks like a big nail.

The brain has no sensitive receptors, like the liver for example, exactly as stats said.

[stats]

if it went through the nose? Thats not suppose to hurt much - is it? Ah a doctor =[ And im just a lowly scientist.

Edit(sorry)/ Like straight through the roof of the mouth and straight up the nasal passage. Thats what it looks like to me...

[Ummon]

If it went through the nose he would have had loss of cephalorachidian fluid (translation from the italian, hope it's correct) from the nose too. Through the nose, also, the risk of destroying the hypophisis or other vital structure is very high. Although it's vertical in the photo, so I'd say it passed through the hard palate, which should be painful indeed.

Scientists are never lowly. :)

EDIT: He should have had his mouth open btw.

The whole thing puzzles me more and more as I think about it.

[stats]

By hard plate do you mean the roof of his mouth? isnt there a gap in the middle of that? Then again it would he thought he had toothe ach - is that fancy word sinus fluid - if u filled a football with water and shot it with a nail gun, i bet it wouldnt leak. I dunno though - im just gonna let it remain a mystery :yech:

p.s when is rtw online? now?

[amir]

woah that gives me the creepies

[stats]

I'm not a builder, but how did the point go in first if it 'back fired' ?

[Ummon]

RTW is the 19th of January at 9 pm GMT. 8-)

[Karmashock]

well... maybe he was stunned, then the part of his brain that registered the pain was some how disconnected or his ability to notice the pain was damaged...

when the brain gets hit with something like its kind of self explanitory as to why the guy didn't notice... I mean... if you hit computer with a hammer would you be surprised if it didn't send out all the right error messages? Obviously something did get damaged.

[stats]

Karma; Your brain doesnt feel anything matey. not a thing. and sensation is mostly if not all in the back of ur head in your 'primative brain' (name please dr ummon?) ... omg human physiology text book is off the shelf and covered in dust!!! No sorry pain is controlled by the 'Primary somtasensory cortex, which is on the top of your head around the middle i think. Most parts of the brain are pretty much autonomous i believe - i could scoop large chunks of your out and it the rest of it would still function perfectly... coughcoughbutthenuareratherthickcough ehem, sorry cat on the key board :shens:. The puzzle is - Why didnt the guy feel the nail penetrate his skull and why the fuck is the nail facing that way - does anyone know about nail guns =/

[Karmashock]

Karma; Your brain doesnt feel anything matey. not a thing.
I actually know that. What I was suggesting is the brain was damaged and so he didn't feel other parts of the body communicating pain or maybe his memory was damaged.


Lots of things could happen.


The point is that <somehow> he didn't notice a giant spike in his head.

The only way I can see that happening is his thought process was damaged by the spike.

The thought process goes like this

Sensation->interpretation->decision->action

And memory is needed between each part of that... so if any of those is damaged or memory then he wouldn't notice... or not remember that he noticed.

[stats]

Karma; Your brain doesnt feel anything matey. not a thing. and sensation is mostly if not all in the back of ur head in your 'primative brain' (name please dr ummon?) ... omg human physiology text book is off the shelf and covered in dust!!! No sorry pain is controlled by the 'Primary somtasensory cortex, which is on the top of your head around the middle i think. Most parts of the brain are pretty much autonomous i believe - i could scoop large chunks of your out and it the rest of it would still function perfectly... coughcoughbutthenuareratherthickcough ehem, sorry cat on the key board :shens:. The puzzle is - Why didnt the guy feel the nail penetrate his skull and why the fuck is the nail facing that way - does anyone know about nail guns =/

i knew ur point karma and i highlighted the part where i pointed out u were 100% wrong so you can go back and read it again.

[amir]

i got to things
1.if he sneeked would it come out his nose or mouht or something.
2.if your brain can;t fell pain how come it hurts when you bump your head ?

[Karmashock]

i knew ur point karma and i highlighted the part where i pointed out u were 100% wrong so you can go back and read it again.
read again

Sensation->interpretation->decision->action

all you're talking about is sensation... what about interpretation?

maybe he was 'feeling' the pain, but didn't understand it?

Maybe his memory was damaged...



Here is the point.

SOME HOW he didn't know. Explain that.

[stats]

As far as i know the part of his brain it hit was mainly responsible for emotion (most of the front is, some of it is devoted to sensation in ur feet though - a minute area is devoted to ur penis :) )- if you really want to know then i suggest u sit back and wait for ummon coz he will have forgotten more about this sort of thing than i ever knew - certainly more than you.

'Sensation->interpretation->decision->action'

And that is a horrific over simplification - brains do not work like machines matey, there are 101 different vaiables... Simply put Karmashock - and i do mean this with 100% certainty (And very limited neurology know how). Your theory is wrong. so enough already

Amir ur skull hurts!

p.s: Ummon: I'm worried that my doctor may have enough time to play video games... as such will be thinking about blowing shit up when perscribing my piles cream =/ ... He might give me the wrong thing and i'll end up burning my anus!

[Karmashock]

Stats,
sensation->interpretation->decision->action is a simplification, but it is also the only way to come to any reactive decision. This is something that works for all intelligences. Aliens on Klandacktoo function like that. AIs at MIT works like this. All intelligences that make reactive decisions must go through that procedure. Now you can have thousands of sub processes and billions of sensations... lot and lots of things can interfere.


However, it is likely that he didn't know because he was damaged. There is no other way you could miss a spike like that in your head. The brain doesn't feel, but the skull and skin do feel. To not feel that is impossible unless there is something wrong with you.

So either he had a preexisting condition or it was the result of the shown damage.






Oh and about humans and machines. Scientific medicine actually does tend to view life as a machine. A very complex and disorganized machine but a machine nonetheless. The heart is a pump, the kidneys are filters, the skin is an enclosure and sense organ (all simplifications, but give me a break.).

on and on... I'm simplifying but modern medicine does in fact take the human body apart and try to figure out how it works. This is largely why the church didn’t want dead bodies to be dissected. They saw it as treating the human body as a machine… disrespect for the soul. Medicine doesn’t recognize the soul. You are a device.

Folk medicine on the other hand would likely take the human body to be vessel for some spiritual force… so look to them if you want someone to back you up.


I have never and will never pretend to know more then someone that actually does whatever we’re talking about for a living… the only exception being if I do the same job.

[Ummon]

You mean reptilian or mammalian I CNS I guess, stats.

The brain in general, and the human brain in particular, is a highly redundant system. To block the perception of a vital sensory input like pain, the damage to the brain should be horribly vast. Since the damage done by a nail penetrating your skull is transmitted both by slow fibers and fast fibers, vast Thalamus damage would be required to completely block nocireception (the perception of suffering, literally).

The brain is not a computer. Infact the brain is infinitely superior to a computer, because it is a quantum-molecular living computing system, capable of bypassing any damage which is not affecting one of it's areas largely. Futhermore, the brain is made by two emispheres processing in parallel, and linked by a sort of "bus system", the "corpus callosus". Isolated one-emispheric damage like that done by a nail is SURE not to affect vital functions.

Scientific medicine does NOT see the human body as a machine. Scientific medicine did that in 1910, but this vision has been disproved completely. The human body is a biological system where the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.

I think it's far more likely that the photo is a fake and the nail was very small.

[Ummon]

Oh and the nail hit the frontal cortex, which is related with voluntary motricity and not perception.

[MVB]

The photo is not fake; right after I posted this, I watched the report on TV and got a number of different looks at several X-rays, before and afters, etc. It was funny, but really fuckin' sad ... the guy sounded like a total stoner, to be honest ...

He was like, "man, you know, it's like, awful, I had a nail in my head." Afterward, he goes "I feel lucky, it's not like, every day that you get a nail in your head and survive it, you know?"

[Ummon]

If he is an alcoholic that may explain why he didn't notice.

[Ummon]

Oh and stats, I am into psychoanalysis now: after I graduated, I followed clynical psychology and then got into the field of my dreams. I work for my own interest and I depend on no one. Surely a REAL doctor wouldn't have so much time.

[Foree]

Oh and stats, I am into psychoanalysis now: after I graduated, I followed clynical psychology and then got into the field of my dreams. I work for my own interest and I depend on no one. Surely a REAL doctor wouldn't have so much time.

I was always wondering why you are so free when it comes to play games :)

[Critta]

I have hear reports before of people who have been bitten by a shark and not feel any pain until they notice they are swimming in pink water and look to see where the blood is coming from.

Could it be that the pain was so brief due to the very sharp nail moving at high speed that he didn't register it? I believe this was the reason given for the people who suffered the shark bites.

[Ummon]

Yeah but the nail went through bone, and stayed there, so it remains quite mysterious how he didn't realize. Also, as the photo seems to be taken from his clinical papers, he must have been using a nail-gun with his mouth open and his head reclined backwards... Bah... I guess we will never know. :P

EDIT: I re-read the article, and it says the nail went through this guy's mouth infact. The photo being "true" you'll notice that the nail didn't penetrate the cranium deeply, but went through the palate and trespassed the nasal cavities in the etmoid, the ocular cavity, finally entering the frontal bone and puncturing the brain from below. He risked remaining blind, but his brain functions were never in peril. If the nail had caused a fracture in the palatine bones and dislodged the frontal nasal spine, he might have died on the spot though. So in the end, as I was wrong in my assumption that the photo was a fake, he was very lucky.

[Karmashock]

The brain is not a computer. Infact the brain is infinitely superior to a computer, because it is a quantum-molecular living computing system, capable of bypassing any damage which is not affecting one of it's areas largely. Futhermore, the brain is made by two emispheres processing in parallel, and linked by a sort of "bus system", the "corpus callosus". Isolated one-emispheric damage like that done by a nail is SURE not to affect vital functions.
I won’t tell you your business… but if you reread that, the brain does sound like a computer… an extremely sophisticated one that we couldn’t hope to imitate… but a computer nonetheless… a thinking machine.


You also brought up a point that I didn’t consider. That the picture is fake. That’s possible as well. Though it is also possible that the individual in question could just be atypical… somehow not have feeling in an area or be easily knocked out.

also... as you said... he was lucky.

[Ummon]

Not a computer, a quantum computer. There's a difference in quality and not in quantity.

[Shackled Phoenix]

There are so many nerves in/around your mouth that it couldn't have missed them all. basically it was quite similar to piercing your ear, like someone referanced earlier. The nerves most assuredly sent a signal to the brain registering pain, but probably only for a brief instant, which the shock from the backfire probably covered. because the nails used in a nail gun are relativly small, the wound would not have exposed very many nerves, therefore making the residual pain relatively low.

The pic isn't fake, it's been on several new broadcasts, several different doctors, and Xrays have been examined, and a medical study was conducted by some college (i forget which).

[Ummon]

The pic IS X-rays...

The problem here is that such sort of injuries produces cronic suffering. I don't know what the college guys and doctors said there, but this case remains puzzling.

[Shackled Phoenix]

oh, no doubt it's amazing, and the guy's a lucky SOB there. But there is a medical explanation for it, even if it was a 1, 100,000,000,000 chance of actually happening.

Pain from wounds like this is caused by 1, the breaking or hitting of nerves which creates the initial and greatest pain. this tends to last but a moment. and 2. Residual pain caused by pinched, pierced, or exposed nerves.

If you've ever been in a car accident, or omething similar you've likely experienced shock where 20 seconds, a minute, or whatever passes without even registering on the brain. The backfire from the gun is quite capable of causing this, which would block realisation of the initial pain. The nail is again, quite small and probably did not cause much nerve damage, which would result in the man experiencing relatively minor pain after the initial damage. Add that such a shock as the backfire would cause an adrenaline rush, which is in effect a pain killer (and the reason why no marine/SEAL/ranger would ever kick a guy in the balls. It's pointless.) and the man wouldn't feel the first bit of pain for an hour. And if the gun backfired, and you felt nothing, wouldn't YOU assume you were okay since you would think it would hurt more?

Edit: before anyone asks, the reason adrenaline isn't ever used as an actual pain killer is because it's bad for the heart, and adrenal glands.

[Karmashock]

Not a computer, a quantum computer. There's a difference in quality and not in quantity.
A difference in quality but not in nature. We may well make a quantum computer in the next hundred years... And it will be just as much a computer as the old over grown calculators that we used in WWII to plot blast patterns.


I know that there are many things that a quantium computer can do that a normal computer couldn't do even with a damn near infinite amount of time... I'm talking about the nature of the thing. It's still a computer.

[Ummon]

No, a computer is a machine, it's incapable of self-consciousness, equal to the total of its parts, and limited to a 1-0 language. A quantum computer is not limited to a 1-0 language, it's more than the sum of it's parts, and with the appropraite algorithms for calculation (like with the human brain), ceases to be a machine.

[Karmashock]

Computer engineers would say that they're catching up.


When they develop a computer that can do those things, does it cease to become a computer?


The Artifical life people at MIT think they can make a computer form of life... they just don't think they're very close yet.

[Ummon]

When a class B star goes nova and leaves a black-hole behind, does it cease to be a star? Uhm, yes.

Same here. I'll explain myself clearly, although I will use simplifications because I cannot write an essay.

First and foremost quality and nature are synonims. You have two sets (Set Theory, something every scientist should know, because it's fundamental for logics): one contains 5 apples, the other 4 apples and 1 pear. Despite the fact that the two sets are numerically equivalent (have the same number of members) they are not equal, because pears and apples are fruits of different quality. Or to use another expression, they are different in nature.

Second, let's imagine we have a computer. The microscopic transistors of this computer can be in two different states: 1 and 0. You add a second transistor, that too can be 1 and 0. So with 2 you have 4 possibilities, or 2^2:

11
10
01
00

You add a 3rd transistor, again limited to 0 and 1, and your possible states increase to 8, or 2^3.

111
110
101
100
010
011
001
000

And so on until you have 8, which compose a bit, which can be in 2^8 or 256 possible states.

A quantum computer is made of molecules. Scientists of that field approximate a quantum computer to a cup filled with a solution of organic molecules. It's exactly what a cell is. Cells are roughly little phospholypide pockets filled of water, proteins, nucleic acids, mineral ions etc. etc.

Now, a quantum transistor can be any state comprised between 1 and 0, with an interval 0.0000...00001 where the ... is for infinite. As the number of states is consequently infinite, two quantum transistors do not increase the number of states the system can be in (infinite^infinite is always infinite), but the number of problems that can be handled simultaneously. What increases is not the computational power, but the parallel elaboration. A qu-bit can elaborate 8 different single operations simultaneously with infinite computational power.

Third. Now, let's consider circuitry. A digital computer has fixed circuitry. It's programmed by a technician which sets the values of some particular bits to a specific pre-defined state. Once assembled and programmed to change it's circuitry in a limited fashion you have to physically add peripherals, and to change it's program you have to manually or digitally add code. The system is the sum of its parts.

A living organ like the brain does not have fixed circuitry, but self-evolving circuitry. The neurons form new synapses, dendrites grow, some links between cells die out. The whole process is self-regulated by a backwards reinforcement (a circuit which proves useful is reinforced, one which proves useless progressively disappears). This system can actually be self-programmed to a significant extent, and is more than the sum of its parts.

You can simulate a similar process with a computer, but this is infact a simulation. You are using a digital machine to simulate a living process, but you don't possess any quantum computation. Will the simulated brain act like a brain? Sure. A small brain. Will it BE a brain? I disagree.

So in the end, I suggest the following divulgational reads: Roger Penrose, The Emperor's New Mind. Jaques Monod: Randomness and Necessity. Douglas R. Hofstadter: Godel, Escher, Bach.

[Ummon]

Oh and Shackled, I don't know what's your profession, but adrenaline's half-life is mere minutes (20 if I properly recollect). Sensitive innervation of the periostium is one of the most dense you can find. And when you are in a state of shock you realize something has happened, even if sometimes you can't realize what, because shock is in itself a fisiopathological state: you don't feel normal.

This guy had a nail in his mouth, nose, behind his eye, and inside his meninges and brain, for a long period of time. The fact that he didn't notice, remains a mistery to me. Probably, the reason is psychological: he didn't want to. Some patients deny the risk implied by wounds and illness by simply forgetting or refusing to acknowledge the existence of the above. I guess he feared that a nail had penetrated his skull, but since he felt well enough, he tried to think that it wasn't so. And both suggestion and self-suggestion are powerful analgesics.

Finally, I have been in a car accident, where my car was completely destroyed, while my fiancée of the time and I emerged completely unscathed. We both remember everything of that accident. I have also had a broken clavicula, nose, and ribs, due to intense physical activity during my first youth. I remember all the traumas precisely. The cause here is, as I said, likely psychological, not physiological.

[shutupandshave]

I think a quantum computer is still a computer. It's going to be called a computer, because it will be used for the same applications as a computer currently is.

Steam car, electric car - both cars.

[Ummon]

Infact my point is: a brain, being a LIVING quantum computer is not a machine. You know that the problem with quantum computation is the decay of the system after the first data are elaborated. Cells, being homeostatic in nature remedy to this problem, restoring the circuit continuously to it's working status. The self-regulating formation of neural circuitry adds another fundamental touch.

It's an entirely different "technology" the one which is required to make a brain and the one which is required to make a computer. The distinction between digital computing and quantum computing was instrumental to show the first big difference in power between a brain and a 2005 status-of-the-art computer. The second big difference is the ability to self-program.

These are the thresholds which have to be surpassed to make a conscious AI. A computer as we know it today, cannot perform this feat. Hence, the brain is not a computer, at least not a computer we can build today. Since the only computers we know for sure are the ones we can build, for now stating that a brain is a computer is false. When someone will come with a computer which possesses the above attributes and functions exactly like a brain we will say that the brain is just a computer.

[shutupandshave]

I think it will be interesting to find out if a computer as powerful as a brain does develop a consciousness... I also think that the definition of conciousness is something that is going to get very very scrutinised when this technology is going to be in reach.

The thing is, the definition of a machine is something that is so vast, that both a brain, a person and a calculator fit into the category, without doubt I think.

When peopel talk about a machine though, they are referring to an unfaced mechanical or electrical device.

I go back to my point that these definitions are going to need to be revised.

Machine:
An intricate natural system or organism, such as the human body.

[Ummon]

Well, you know, the latin "machina" indicated something made by men. That's why I prefer system, which doesn't imply any specific origin. Although it's just a matter of terminology.

As far as I can understand, consciousness is, to loosely paraphrase R.E. Howard (I'm in a cultural spree today, the original sentence was referrred to civilization and barbarism) "the foam on the waves of neural activity". There's an incredible buzz of activity going on below the threshold of consciousness.

Zen Buddhism states that consciousness itself is an illusion, and the mind does not in truth exist. This theory is similar to the ones of whom I deem the most powerful thinker in the field of cultural psychology, Julian Jaynes.

But it's undeniable that consciousness is a powerful evolutionary tool. The ability to watch oneself as an external object, foresee the future and plan a line of action in response to stimuli are unique to the human mind, and are a very powerful attribute. If a machine will ever be able to do the same, we will have a strng answer to the problem of the existence of the soul, for example. That would not be bad.

[MVB]

Machine has always meant something made by man; defining a machine as a natural organism is ridiculous, and certainly not a mainstream definition. Machina, Machinations, etc. all refer to invented devices of man, and Machine derived from them. I'm ignoring any other points here simply b/c I'm amazed at how the topic must have gone slightly off-track when it hit the section missing a big iron (the one which went through that poor man's head).

[shutupandshave]

Are you disagreeing with the dictionary MVB?
Although I primarily think that a machine is what you think it is...
I agree with the dictionary that it can be used to describe organisms as well.

[Karmashock]

Will the simulated brain act like a brain? Sure. A small brain. Will it BE a brain? I disagree.

So in the end, I suggest the following divulgational reads: Roger Penrose, The Emperor's New Mind. Jaques Monod: Randomness and Necessity. Douglas R. Hofstadter: Godel, Escher, Bach.
When we make TRUE quantum computers they'll have just as much computational power as our evolved tissue. It might take us hundreds of years to get there, but we will.


Will these artificial thinking machines be computers? Call them what you like... "computer" engineers and scientists are calling them computers.


Your field is medicine, theirs is computers. I am not an expert on either... and you are but an expert of one.

To have this debate we'd need a computer engineer... probably one that specialized in experimental technology or heavy RnD.

Either way, this is just symantecs. We both understand each other. My point was originally and before that human processes can be very clearly understood. I was saying that something was wrong with his thought process or he would have realized the nail.


you said he might be drunk... that would be an interference on his thought process and therefore agrees with what I was saying.





Oh and as to 'self programming' MIT already has some machines that can do that... at least they can learn... They're very simple... but they're trying to mimic simple life... not humans.

I hope we understand each other, Karmashock.

[shutupandshave]

Will these artificial thinking machines be computers? Call them what you like... "computer" engineers and scientists are calling them computers.
Precisely.

[Shackled Phoenix]

Finally, I have been in a car accident, where my car was completely destroyed, while my fiancée of the time and I emerged completely unscathed. We both remember everything of that accident

I did not say it was a guaranteed sydrome in a car accident, it is merely a place where shock is likely to occur. I myself have been involved in a car accident, and although i had absolutely no head injuries, i cannot remember from the point of impact up til 2 minutes later my brother and some other guy outside the passenger door shouting my name. Nor do i remember feeling any pain from my slight neck injury

I don't know what's your profession, but adrenaline's half-life is mere minutes (20 if I properly recollect)

My statement of an hour was not intended to to be a quotable time, but merely to show how the man could have felt no pain at first, Shrugged and said to himself "i'm okay" and then developed a "toothache" at a later time.

Also, the man may have gotten himself into quite a state of excitement, which could send the adrenaline glands working harder for a period of time, and not just one instant injection of adrenaline.

[JADezimar]

My dad had an accident at work one time. He works at a mine and anyone that knows the size of the shovels that work there, know that they are huge and the cables that hold them are huge. One came down and nailed him in the back of the head forcing his head into a shovel. It was a miracle he survived, and that he came out with so few injuries. Everyone says his head should have been flattened like a pancake. Point being though, is that he does not remember a thing about the accident even up to minutes before, or a couple days after, this you can blame on shock or whatever. What shackled says is true that the body more often than not will send you into a form of shock or a defensive mechanism will delete the memory. My Fathers doctors even said so it is more often the case than not. Or why else would he forget a memory which happend in 2-3 seconds that he did not even see coming? Those that remember everything and do not go into shock are actually the more rare of the case.

[shutupandshave]

JAD, bearing in mind there are many holes in what you say - your point is also good here. All kinds of shit goes on in stress situations.