Why do people keep saying no air = dead?

[Mello Penelo]

What? How can lack of air not be a physical obstruction? What, is it magical or something?

[Yoshua]

Originally posted by Mello Penelo
What? How can lack of air not be a physical obstruction? What, is it magical or something?

If you are in a room of carbonmonoxied and no oxygen your lungs still take in the chemical and you slowly die. Lack of oxygen can take up to 7 mintues to cause death, more if you are trained to hold your breath for extended time without breathing.



If you are in a vacuum where it does not allow you to suck in any gasses then that could be considered an obstruction, however that wouldnt stop you from waking up when your brain has healed itself.



Lack of oxygen is not a physical obstruction to the brain. And it takes minutes to kill your brain without it.


How long do yout hink it takes to kill someone with a bullet in their brain? That is a physical obscruction, but one they can probably heal from..... look at HRG.

[The_Frag_Man]

Why don't they heal around the obstruction in their brain then, and walk around as retards, if you believe that Adam would heal and die constantly in this situation.

[Yoshua]

Originally posted by The_Frag_Man
Why don't they heal around the obstruction in their brain then, and walk around as retards, if you believe that Adam would heal and die constantly in this situation.

Because there is an obstruction to the brain. The brain cannot function until it is healed.


The wouldnt walk around as handicapped people because their brains would heal when the obscruction is removed and not until.



Not to mention this question has nothing to do with the actual circumstances that the people with this ability have been put through.


I have backed up what I thought with on screen scenes that indicate that the body heals without oxygen to the brain or blood flowing through the veins so long as the brain is intact enough to heal itself. And once it heals itself regardless of the condition of the rest of the body or the situation the body is in (Claire on the table completely cut open) it wakes up instantly.

[ibecj83]

Could be several possibilities, here are a couple from other fictional sources.

There was a time where Wolverine actually started cutting pieces of flesh off his body and ate them to survive, and then his body would regenerate the flesh. Talk about determination to stay alive.

Stargate Atlantis actually had something concerning this. Experimental Nanites were used to cure a girl of cancer, but then she died. Shortly she came back to life. She had an un-related heart murmur which the nanites moved onto *they were supposed to shut down after curing the cancer*.

Here's where the Air thing comes into play.

"That doesn't make any sense shutting down the heart and starving the brain of oxygen would cause severe brain damage."

"Damage they could technically fix."

"They could repair the tissue yes but the patient would lose their memories their language skills, any sense of self."

"They don't care about that, they were designed to fix the body of any physical malaties, i mean preserving a sense of self isnt one of their directives".

Now here we go. We know that Adam has this capability, his cells will preserve "sense of self" for a fact. Remember how Peter lost his memories to the Haitian, he told Peter "You can do what I can do, the brain needs to heal itself". Same goes for Claire and Peter, they had severe damage to their brains with shrapnel and when they pulled out. There were healed with no damage. Adam ain't going to die in there, his body could temporarilty shut down. Who knows what 400 years has done for his power to constantly regenerate besides immortality.

[The_Frag_Man]

'heals without oxygen to the brain' is incorrect in this instance. Lack of oxygen is not what killed the others, and the state of torpor prevents normal decay, it's a 'paused' state. They aren't healing without oxygen, but because the obstruction was removed.

[Yoshua]

Originally posted by The_Frag_Man
'heals without oxygen to the brain' is incorrect in this instance. Lack of oxygen is not what killed the others, and the state of torpor prevents normal decay, it's a 'paused' state. They aren't healing without oxygen, but because the obstruction was removed.

Claire was dead for hours with no blood pumping oxygen to her cells.

The oxygen that was IN her blood would have been used by her living cells within 20-30 minutes before being depeleted.


There was no oxygen in her system when her brain healed itself.

[The_Frag_Man]

I disagree. The state of torpor would preserve whatever oxygen was in her blood, thats why they can come back.

[Yoshua]

Originally posted by The_Frag_Man
I disagree. The state of torpor would preserve whatever oxygen was in her blood, thats why they can come back.

The body would not be attempting to breath during this period you describe. There would be NO way for the body to know what the atmosphere outside of it is unless it attempted to breath.


In every case on screen the body does not attempt to breath until it awakes from its coma state. Adam would awaken from his coma state each and every time his cells regenerated to test the atmosphere and breath, and then promptly die 7 minutes later for lack of oxygen and repeat the process.

Unless his body could regenerate faster then the lack of oxygen could damage, in which case he would never pass out or die.

[The_Frag_Man]

There isn't anyway way for them to tell if there is a stick in their brain if they are dead either.

I assume an incredibly small awareness of the cause of the damage as part of the state of torpor, or how could they possibly return when the cause was removed?

[Yoshua]

Originally posted by The_Frag_Man
There isn't anyway way for them to tell if there is a stick in their brain if they are dead either.

I assume an incredibly small awareness of the cause of the damage as part of the state of torpor, or how could they possibly return when the cause was removed?

I've said multiple times. They awaken when the brain is whole again. As in, no holes in it. They don't wake up as soon as the stick is removed, they heal and then wake up.


Step 1-
Stab claire in the head with a stick
Step 2-
Claire goes into a deathlike coma, if not death itself we don't really know.
Step 3-
Claire has stick removed from head
Step 4-
Autopsy technician leaves room
Step 5-
Claire's head heals
Step 6-
In the time it took for the tech to remove the stick, head to heal and claire to wake up the technician was no where in site.




They do not wake up as soon as the the obstruction is removed, they wake up as soon as the brain is whole.

[The_Frag_Man]

The healing process begins when the cause of death is gone.

That's why for instance, Claire didn't heal while the autopsy lady was poking around until she pulled the stick out, and why she didn't heal around the wound and become a retard.

[Yoshua]

Originally posted by The_Frag_Man
The healing process begins when the cause of death is gone.

That's why for instance, Claire didn't heal while the autopsy lady was poking around until she pulled the stick out, and why she didn't heal around the wound and become a retard.

Healing process is continual otherwise they would die of old age. They can't wake up because there is an obstruction in their brain, not a cause of death.


Technically they are very hard to kill because they regenerate so fast unless a vital organ is punctured like the heart or the lungs are removed and then the body needs to regenerate those organs first.



The body doesn't 'think' or have an 'awareness' as you seem to think it does. It just repaires the damage that is done. If there is a vital organ that needs to be replaced, then it does it.



However if the brain is punctured then it doesnt repair itself until the obstruction is removed. The body doesnt CARE what the cause of death is, or what the damage is, it just heals it. And obviously if the brain is punctured, damaged or obliterated it doesnt continue the process until the obstruction is removed.


The healing process STARTS when the body is damaged, this includes daily cell loss, which is why Adam didnt age and why they do not grow old. They are repaired instantly.


She didn't heal around the wound because the wound stopped the function of the BRAIN to heal itself. And they wouldnt become a retard as you say offensively enough because they wouldn't heal if the brain is damaged and the cause of that damage is still impailed in the brain. If the damage was a single gun shot wound as it was in HRG then the brain would heal itself. IMO the brain will heal itself unless you cut out the specific portion that controls these abilities.



Having your torso cut open and organs removed is enough to KILL you, however she woke up well before her chest was healed. It doesn't wait until the cause of death is removed. It wakes you up as soon as your brain is capable of being active, the rest gets healed as you go.



You are arguing and ignoring what they show on the screen, and I think it is because you have a pre conceived notion of how healing is 'supposed' to work, instead of how in the Heroes universe it DOES work according to what is on screen.

[The_Frag_Man]

Originally posted by Yoshua
It doesn't wait until the cause of death is removed. It wakes you up as soon as your brain is capable of being active, the rest gets healed as you go.

Exactly.

Except your brain is only capable of being active if the cause is removed.

[Yoshua]

Originally posted by The_Frag_Man
Exactly.

Except your brain is only capable of being active if the cause is removed.

Thats not true. There are many documented cases where people have nails, sticks, forks, knives impailed into their brain and are fully functional to the point of callin 911 or getting themselves into the emergency room to have them removed, and sometimes having minimal ill effects afterwards. Having something stabbed into your brain is not an instant death, however it seems that with this ability it instantly removes the ability to heal.


When the obstruction is removed from the head the healing can happen. And because the way this is portrayed I would bet that there is only a portion of the brain that is important, and if that portion is completely removed then chances are there is no coming back. A shotgun blast to the face would remove the brain and cause this.




A lack of oxygen would not stop the brain from healing itself, in fact you would pass out, the healing would heal you and you would wake up. Over and over again until someone let you out of your airless cell. Unless of course your healing ability heals you faster then you are damaged in which case you would never pass out or die.



IE: He is going to be awake a long time, or will be awake for 7 minutes at a time for a very long time.