[paul.fr]

where should this go, no idea.

oh well, look in the mirror and you can see the image in your eye. if then, when we die does or could the image of the last thing we looked at somehow be locked in our eye?

[dentstudent]

What do you mean by "locked in our eye"?

[paul.fr]

What do you mean by "locked in our eye"?

hard to explain, but say when we "go" the last image we saw is somehow preserved. like a camera, the last thing we saw is the last image on the roll of film

[dentstudent]

As far as I know, we're not really "seeing" at all, or rather what we see is the brain's interpretation of the light falling onto the retina. If the brain is incapable of processing this information, then I would imagine that the image becomes lost. I think it's different to a roll of film because your not making a hard copy.

[DoctorBeaver]

Some kind of image may be briefly preserved. If you look at an object for a while & then close your eyes, you can still see the shape of the object; usually in a different colour. That is due to rods and cones still sending signals to the brain.

How long that image would persist after death depends on how quickly the rods & cones lose their vitality.

[paul.fr]

Some kind of image may be briefly preserved. If you look at an object for a while & then close your eyes, you can still see the shape of the object; usually in a different colour. That is due to rods and cones still sending signals to the brain.

How long that image would persist after death depends on how quickly the rods & cones lose their vitality.

If someone was given some form of life support, to keep the organs viable, would that keep the rods and cones going? would that keep the last image, or replace it with another?

[DoctorBeaver]

The effect is only temporary anyway so you'd have to be quick to catch it.

[paul.fr]

i was thinking of two possible applications if this was possible.
Firstly, if this was a murder victim, the police could have the last image the person saw which could possibly help in solving the crime.
Secondly, greiving relatives could get some sort of photo of how their now lost relative saw them.

[DoctorBeaver]

I would say no chance.

[Bored chemist]

It's a myth that has led to murderers cutting the eyes out of their victims or otherwise destroying them. The only real effect of this is to leave the victim's fammilies rather more upset than they would otherwise be (which is, obviously, pretty upset to begin with).
Even if there were a plausible mechanism for it to work it couldn't do better than thenormal persistance of vision ie about 1/16 sec. The last image the eye "saw" would typically be the sky (if the victim was on his back) anyway so it would be no use to the police.

[another_someone]

i was thinking of two possible applications if this was possible.
Firstly, if this was a murder victim, the police could have the last image the person saw which could possibly help in solving the crime.
Secondly, greiving relatives could get some sort of photo of how their now lost relative saw them.

Applications, yes - plausible mechanisms, no.

As others have said, sight is a function of the brain more than the eye (and people with certain brain injuries can see nothing, despite having fully functional eyes).  So the wider question is whether one can record the last thoughts of a dead person.  since death theses days is defined as brain death, so if the brain is dead, then it is no longer able to process information.

Even if one could, after death, somehow map the wiring of the brain that store long term memory, this will probably do nothing to retrieve short term memory that has to be stored in some more volatile form (rather like losing the power on your PC - even if you can later read the contents of the hard disk, you will have lost whatever was in RAM as soon as the power was lost).

[paul.fr]

BC, is or was this practice more of an African or south american thing?

George, this passage "rather like losing the power on your PC - even if you can later read the contents of the hard disk, you will have lost whatever was in RAM as soon as the power was lost"

describes my own working RAM (brain) to a tee, the power loss i would equate to sleep.

[DoctorBeaver]

describes my own working RAM (brain) to a tee, the power loss i would equate to sleep.

or alcohol?  [)]

[Lynda]

I believe that, to use the camera idea, the eye is the equivalent of the camera lens and the brain the film.   

Upon death the "film" is no longer able to retain images or anything else so the image will be lost - same as a film being "fogged" by undue exposure to light when removing from a camera or exposed to X-rays in an airport for instance.

[sparroweye]

Actually this new television show which is very out there,  called appropriately "Fringe"  just had their premiere show about something similar.  They kept this dead CIA agent alive and hooked his brain up to his co-worker's brain  and she saw the last images that were recorded in his brain and saw his killer.  It was very fascinating.  And the whole show delves into such impossible theory's.  And everyone has seen that science fiction often becomes reality.  So, yes the brain records things and what if the brain is kept alive.  When does death occur.  How long can the brain live on life support anyway?  Assuming that it i getting oxygen.    Sparroweye

[Bored chemist]

You need to learn the difference between science fiction and reallity.