There’s rather a lot of reports of heads remaining concious for up to 30 seconds or so after being separated from their body.
Given the rather precipitous drop in blood pressure going to the brain, this claim seems pretty dubious. Twitching and motion would certainly be possible as autonomic functions go haywire, but actual consciousness seems far fetched.
At the same time
A shotgun to the back of the head doesn’t have that issue, although it does make a bit more of a mess.
If I had to choose, I’d probably pick this over the guillotine as well. Seems like a lot less setup time and general anticipation.
Overall, inert gas axphixiation might be the better choice (assuming one is forced into it).
This is a fairly high level overview of some of the claims. Whilst none of them seem to be recorded with the rigour we’d expect of scientific observation now-a-days, the case of Languille, in particular, strikes me as at leadt somewhat persuasive. They conclude with a note which says:
neuroscientists now believe that it is possible for severed heads to experience a short period of consciousness – perhaps as much as 15 seconds – before death.
Whilst there’s no source provided for that, and that’s not 30 seconds, I think it suggests that the stories of heads remaining consious and reacting are, at least, plausible.
If I had to choose, I’d probably pick this over the guillotine as well.
If someone is making me choose how they kill me, you’d better believe I’m going to pick the quickest way that leaves them with the most clean up possible!
If you want to humanely kill someone, an overdose of morphine or similar will do it. The problem is that it’s too pleasant a way to go out to qualify as capital punishment; no society with the death penalty will give its traitors and child-murderers the kind of death reserved for a beloved old dog.
If you’re in the business of executing those condemned on the direst charges, you’d typically want it to be as unpleasant as your values still count as civilised rather than barbaric. Of course, values drift, and as we have seen large parts of the world reject capital punishment altogether, it’s conceivable that societies that currently execute criminals by, say, lethal injection or something similarly clinical are an episode of mass psychosis away from bringing back medieval ordeals.
Given the rather precipitous drop in blood pressure going to the brain, this claim seems pretty dubious. Twitching and motion would certainly be possible as autonomic functions go haywire, but actual consciousness seems far fetched.
At the same time
If I had to choose, I’d probably pick this over the guillotine as well. Seems like a lot less setup time and general anticipation.
Overall, inert gas axphixiation might be the better choice (assuming one is forced into it).
This is a fairly high level overview of some of the claims. Whilst none of them seem to be recorded with the rigour we’d expect of scientific observation now-a-days, the case of Languille, in particular, strikes me as at leadt somewhat persuasive. They conclude with a note which says:
Whilst there’s no source provided for that, and that’s not 30 seconds, I think it suggests that the stories of heads remaining consious and reacting are, at least, plausible.
If someone is making me choose how they kill me, you’d better believe I’m going to pick the quickest way that leaves them with the most clean up possible!
I find it funny that we refer to them as severed heads. As if they were no longer people.
If you want to humanely kill someone, an overdose of morphine or similar will do it. The problem is that it’s too pleasant a way to go out to qualify as capital punishment; no society with the death penalty will give its traitors and child-murderers the kind of death reserved for a beloved old dog.
If you’re in the business of executing those condemned on the direst charges, you’d typically want it to be as unpleasant as your values still count as civilised rather than barbaric. Of course, values drift, and as we have seen large parts of the world reject capital punishment altogether, it’s conceivable that societies that currently execute criminals by, say, lethal injection or something similarly clinical are an episode of mass psychosis away from bringing back medieval ordeals.