Re:What Does It Mean to Die?
by semi-extrinsic on Thursday February 01, 2018 @04:36PM
(#16286144)
Somehow related to this, I came across today the very curious case (from 2007) of the normally functioning man who was discovered to be missing most of his brain.
https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn12301-man-with-tiny-b...
But this is a case where brain tissue is killed/removed over the course of decades, giving neuroplasticity time to work.
There's research that goes on for cryonics, the Wait But Why [0] article on it was interesting.
(EDIT: I'm just reacting/responding to the last sentence of your post, btw. I'm generally pretty stoic about the process of life, so.)
I think the 'scientific understanding' would be that there's no such thing as 100% metaphysical certainty. However, that doesn't mean that all bets are suddenly off.
So, we should probably use statistical reasoning and evidence, science-based reasoning of the sort that tells us if there's at least a minimally plausible mechanism where X could possibly work. That sort of thing.
... and, if you're hungry enough for the answers to these -- and many considerably more niche questions -- become a scientist!
I have to wonder if our conception of death as a strictly one-way street is mistaken. When death meant cardiovascular death, this was reasonable — within minutes, the heart tissue itself dies from lack of oxygen perfusion, and thus this form of death is self-reinforcing.
For brain death, however, are we 100% certain that, given life support over a long enough period, the brain cannot heal from ischemic damage? At least enough to bring basic elements of consciousness back online? If so, it would be possible to be “dead”, and then subsequently “not dead”.
Is there any scientific understanding one way or the other on this?