Re: On Death

[Sophus]

Frank Tipler's book The Physics of Immortality.

I have heard such horrible things about that book.

[Alenthony]

Yes, that is an interesting point - I have always found it very puzzling - the fact that in a material sense, we are, each of us, ever changing. We are composed of entirely different materials than we were x years ago, yet we still retain the same mental identity. The process of 'rebuilding the ship, plank by plank' occurs rather slowly, but I don't see why the rapidity of it really matters. If your metabolism was speeded up by 100,000x, I cannot imagine it would change. Yet if you were to lapse into a coma, and an exact duplicate of your mind was created and animated, would the sentience in it be *you*? And if it was, what happens when your body comes out of the coma? Where would "you" be?

[curiosityandthecat]

Yes, that is an interesting point - I have always found it very puzzling - the fact that in a material sense, we are, each of us, ever changing. We are composed of entirely different materials than we were x years ago, yet we still retain the same mental identity. The process of 'rebuilding the ship, plank by plank' occurs rather slowly, but I don't see why the rapidity of it really matters. If your metabolism was speeded up by 100,000x, I cannot imagine it would change. Yet if you were to lapse into a coma, and an exact duplicate of your mind was created and animated, would the sentience in it be *you*? And if it was, what happens when your body comes out of the coma? Where would "you" be?

It's a very Buddhist concept. There is no "self" from moment to moment, but we experience one via causal relation. It's akin to one candle flame lighting another and believing it to be the "same" flame.

[thiolsulfate]

[...] Yet if you were to lapse into a coma, and an exact duplicate of your mind was created and animated, would the sentience in it be *you*? And if it was, what happens when your body comes out of the coma? Where would "you" be?

Effectively, your doppelganger will, as far as the rest of the world is concerned, have assumed your identity.

It will have lived your life and filled your slot in the time between your exit and re-entry. The rest of the world will have considered it as you and all the experience it has gained will be totally absent from you when you return. Your friends and family will have developed new memories and relationships with it that you will never be aware of. In effect, it will have replaced you by the time you return.

It will have become what you once were and you will have become obsolete.

[thiolsulfate]

I'm curious about what you qualify as death? At what point in the process of dying is a person considered, for all intents and purposes, no longer?

I bring this up because a very recent but very brief acquaintance has become seriously ill. (I suppose the relative brevity that I knew her makes it easier for me to confront this idea.)

She spent two weeks in the mountains and upon returning became very rapidly ill. She developed serious breathing problems and is now breathing by respirator. I'm guessing it's some form of pneumonia followed by lung failure.

This got me thinking; not too long ago lung failure of that magnitude would have meant death. She lives because the machine is inflating her lungs for her. Things like pacemakers allow the heart to keep beating even though the heart itself has become a failed organ.

There's the wretched case of Terri Schaivo whose parents insisted that she would make a full recovery even though most of her brain had liquefied. For all intents and purposes every system of her body was functioning and alive except her brain which was almost totally gone.

Imagine the opposite, total paralysis and organ failure except for a fully functioning and totally aware brain.

What level of human body failure is enough to be considered dead?

[glintofpewter]

What level of human body failure is enough to be considered dead?

When do we legally declare someone dead? When do we medically declare someone dead? When are they dead practically?
When my daughter was in the hospital too long, I saw a child brought in from an accident. His family was not immediately available. The doctors kept his heart beating and his lungs breathing for two reasons. Families like to say good by to a breathing if comatose body rather than a corpse. Second the doctors needed permission to transplant the organs.

[AlP]

I'm curious about what you qualify as death? At what point in the process of dying is a person considered, for all intents and purposes, no longer?

I bring this up because a very recent but very brief acquaintance has become seriously ill. (I suppose the relative brevity that I knew her makes it easier for me to confront this idea.)

She spent two weeks in the mountains and upon returning became very rapidly ill. She developed serious breathing problems and is now breathing by respirator. I'm guessing it's some form of pneumonia followed by lung failure.

This got me thinking; not too long ago lung failure of that magnitude would have meant death. She lives because the machine is inflating her lungs for her. Things like pacemakers allow the heart to keep beating even though the heart itself has become a failed organ.

There's the wretched case of Terri Schaivo whose parents insisted that she would make a full recovery even though most of her brain had liquefied. For all intents and purposes every system of her body was functioning and alive except her brain which was almost totally gone.

Imagine the opposite, total paralysis and organ failure except for a fully functioning and totally aware brain.

What level of human body failure is enough to be considered dead?

Hmm. Let's say one argued that death occurs at an event that is causally linked to your undeniable death. By "undeniable" death I mean a hypothetical state of death so obvious that nobody would argue that you were dead. Lets say "undeniable" death is the point at which you have no physical remains. You might have decomposed for example. So your definitely dead at this point, right? =) Now, if you are dead at an event that is causally linked to your state of "undeniable" death, then you are dead at the moment of birth.

I'm not sure if that's what you mean?

It would take more than a causal relation to convince me that someone is dead. I prefer criteria such as their not breathing for an extended period of time, no pulse, etc; I prefer things that demonstrate convincingly that there is no possibility of them returning to consciousness.

[Kylyssa]

I've wondered about this quite a bit.  I was in a coma for nine days and had a space of time of which I have no recollection which extended substantially beyond the actually coma.  I experienced a personality change, which may have had an organic cause or may have had to do with the psychological trauma I was undergoing.  Much later, I discovered that parts of my self were missing.  I had forgotten things, big things.

Is the person who lived before the injury really still alive?

[AlP]

I've wondered about this quite a bit.  I was in a coma for nine days and had a space of time of which I have no recollection which extended substantially beyond the actually coma.  I experienced a personality change, which may have had an organic cause or may have had to do with the psychological trauma I was undergoing.  Much later, I discovered that parts of my self were missing.  I had forgotten things, big things.

Is the person who lived before the injury really still alive?

I'm tempted to go a little further. To what extent is the person I was 3 minutes ago still alive? In a sense, he isn't alive at all. He is no longer free to act because he no longer exists. My consciousness has moved on. I guess the question is to what extent my present consciousness identifies with my past consciousness. I don't identify strongly with it because I cannot be it, I can only reflect on it. It is not my consciousness but rather a memory of consciousness.

So to combine this with my previous post, it isn't because I will inevitably die that I am dieing. I am alive. It is the I that preceded me that is dead. And when I eventually die in the future, it is the same kind of death I die in every moment.

Lol, I bet that makes no sense.

[JillSwift]

A personality is not an event, it's a continuum. We're an ongoing series of events connected only by the illusion of a single body (which is itself constantly changing and replacing bits of itself, making it a continuum, too).

Even the demarcation of when that series ends is fairly vague, and essentially a construct borne of the human need to classify and put things into a hierarchy.

I've found no clean line between "alive" and "dead", every attempt to draw one ends up being unfair to someone who comes close to death in some way. Saying it's the cessation  of activity in the prefrontal lobes dooms those in a coma, something that can be recovered from. Saying it's the cessation of metabolism doesn't quite work, as someone with no breathing, no heartbeat, and no brain function will have metabolic functions days later in other organs.

Because of the fuzziness of it all, I always recommend to people that they have  "living will" which defines where you draw the line. Otherwise, who knows where others will decide. People can go utterly nuts about death. (As in Terri Schiavo's case.)

[thiolsulfate]

Thanks for all the responses, that's some awesome input.

Hmm. Let's say one argued that death occurs at an event that is causally linked to your undeniable death. By "undeniable" death I mean a hypothetical state of death so obvious that nobody would argue that you were dead. Lets say "undeniable" death is the point at which you have no physical remains. You might have decomposed for example. So your definitely dead at this point, right? =) Now, if you are dead at an event that is causally linked to your state of "undeniable" death, then you are dead at the moment of birth.

I'm not sure if that's what you mean?

It would take more than a causal relation to convince me that someone is dead. I prefer criteria such as their not breathing for an extended period of time, no pulse, etc; I prefer things that demonstrate convincingly that there is no possibility of them returning to consciousness.

I don't have a clear definition of death, I can say, however, that I'm not speaking of death in the philosophical/transcendental sense -- that every new things signals the death of the old. I'm getting at dead as in no-longer-a-person.

(Just an aside, the woman I was writing about I do not and did not consider to be dead. She's still totally aware, I suspect her condition, though serious, is entirely curable and she will very likely return to normal health.)

I guess the best way to go about this is to present the two poles and see where in the middle each of us will fall:

Imagine two individuals, totally immobile, except--

One body is entirely maintained artificially, except having a functioning brain, is that one still alive? Consciousness but no chance of homeostasis.

The other body is fully functioning, but the brain is entirely absent? Total homeostasis but no hope of consciousness.

Which is dead? Are either? Are they both?

[Zeru]

I can't say I'm quite certain about defining death either beyond the obvious.  I can say though that the emotional ramifications of it are much bigger for me as an atheist than they ever were as a theist.  That's pretty obvious as well I suppose.  

Sidenote: there's a series of lectures from a Yale course on death on youtube... has anyone here watched them?  I admit I haven't yet gotten past the first one, but it looks very interesting. the professor seemed to be taking it in a more naturalistic direction... sans afterlife I think.  link

[ilovegodalot]

I think true believers don't die, which is why people die painfully, like Billy Mays and Micheal Jackson did.

[Alenthony]

^ I honestly cannot figure out what on Earth that means.

[Heretical Rants]

I think true believers don't die, which is why people die painfully, like Billy Mays and Micheal Jackson did.

????