Dying: How science ruined a perfectly acceptable philosophical framework for dealing with mortality

The article only takes into account those who have a medical death, in a state where the heart is kept pumping through mechanical means.  After switch off the person is labelled clinically dead, but evidence shows that consciousness remains for a few more minutes - with hearing being the last to go.   Nothing new there.

Thank you Toby. That clarification certainly satisfies the "biological reductionist in me"!

Cheers

I heard the same report, haven't read the specifics. It certainly opens up a can of worms on how to treat a corpse immediately after death. Do we now give them some respectful time before zipping them into a body bag? In a hospital/hospice situation should family members remain for a period after death and continue to give words and touches of comfort?

What type of sensations, thoughts or cognition is the corpse capable of during this limbo? Are they hearing what's said in the room after death and thinking "I should have updated my will", or simply slipping contentedly into a happy oblivion?  Do they suddenly feel cold and wish someone would put an extra blanket on them, or think "oh shit, it's suddenly getting very, very hot in here"?

One fact remains; there'll be no reports from the beyond to confirm or refute the reality.

Please, what's NYU SoM? I arrive until New York University, but the rest escapes me. I am interested in such a research.

If someone else is interested in ideas and researches on unusual (not that death can be considered very unusual) topics, may I suggest the online site Aeon?

I've always heard rumours about the brain working for some time after 'death'; it's something they reported at the times of guillotine, when the head, falling into the basket, still gave signs of life. The Tibetan book of the dead speaks of a survival lasting a few weeks, then complete dissolution into the void or re-birth. In any case, to be aware of being dead and then dissolving sweetly doesn't sound so bad to me.

Its the same old questions.  What was before big bang, what comes after death:  No-thingness, is probably a good answer, yet, it hardly consoles

SoM = School of Medicine.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guillotine#Living_Heads

Kevin Richardson posted:

 Your brain continues to function after death and you know when you are dead.

 

What about an alzheimer patient?

joerand posted:

What type of sensations, thoughts or cognition is the corpse capable of during this limbo? 

 

I'm no biologist but anything that doesn't rely on the immediate use of circulatory system would allow sensation after clinical death.

Pretty much all external sensors. Feel, sight, hearing, smell, taste. Cognition would be normal for a few minutes. It's only when oxygen deprivation starts to have an effect will our senses diminish. Anything hormonal? Forget it.

Im surprised this is news. Did the publishers just ask for research funding?

s.

DrMark posted:

SoM = School of Medicine.

Ciao Mark, thanks.

I remember sitting with my mother who had alzheimers  and was in a nursing home for 12 years and watching her breathing get slower and slower until it eventually stopped. I was overcome with tears and cried "thank God You're free now".

I hope she heard.

.sjb

that's a very tough 12 years you had.... Hope you are making up for it now.

So we're all a bit like a Naim amp. Turn it off and the music continues for a few seconds (as the capicators discharge).

I watched my mum die of thirst in a nursing home over three months with vascular dementia. If you did that to a dog you'd end up in jail. I'd gladly have eased her exit if I could. I feel some guilt that I didn't. I hope someone can do so for me when the time to "discharge my capicators" comes.

Willy.

I would think that those few minutes would be some trip. What with a flood of dopamines and other brain chemicals going bat shit crazy. Not so much a light at the end of the tunnel, more multi coloured, multi dimensional and multi everything you can imagine and multi everything else you can't.

I would think for most people on their death bed are loaded with opioids or tranquilizers and are pretty much out of it. At least that was how it was for my sister and a friend as they passed at the end of their battle with cancer.  Having been through a couple of major surgeries the mind was not too clear in the early hours after waking from anesthesia, I'm not to sure if the at the time of death most of us may be in the very same state. 

One thing for sure we are all going to have some sort of experience, no one gets out alive.

Simon C posted:

joerand posted:

What type of sensations, thoughts or cognition is the corpse capable of during this limbo? 

 

I'm no biologist but anything that doesn't rely on the immediate use of circulatory system would allow sensation after clinical death.

Pretty much all external sensors. Feel, sight, hearing, smell, taste. Cognition would be normal for a few minutes. It's only when oxygen deprivation starts to have an effect will our senses diminish. Anything hormonal? Forget it.

Im surprised this is news. Did the publishers just ask for research funding?

s.

Digging deeper in the article, it appears it's based on legal issues. What with some recently who were in an induced coma state with respiratory and heart support - for several years - made a full recovery. !!

As this more serious thread has run out of steam,  if I may be permitted to take it down to earth.

I've been to a few more funerals in the last year than many years before combined,  my mother a few weeks ago & today an aunt,    both making it well into their 90's so both were more celebrations of a life than a mourning of a passing.  Meeting up again with the same people, family & friends,  a group of us,  brothers & old drinking buddies,  got to discussing mortality & that turned into quips about our impending final journeys.    "whenever I come to this place (crematorium) I make sure I have a return ticket"  "do you think we could get a group discount"   "we are all circling the same plug hole"   We all left the wake after a few excellent pints with a a mix of happy memories & a chuckle in our hearts.   

darwins theory of Evolution has been contested many times by more spiritual usurpers.

Darwinism can't explain cultural evolution. Or even religion. Death in the mind of a biological reductionist must be a very one dimensional fact of life.  Other than that - we will all experience it at some point in time.  Could be worth extrapolating scientific theories to sublimate existence and provide value.

Proof. I just put those words down, and I don't even know what I was  Saying. Another has taken over and communicated through me...

Yeh. And the cynics think that I've lost MY mind.

even god has lost his mind since recently discovering that one is not the only one in the infinite oneness of infinity and that one could really be just a quark of quantum otherness in an infinite other of others without really being itself unless something else remembered it as being really oneself and not something other.

Please can I have some of what you are drinking/smoking?

TOBYJUG posted:

Proof. I just put those words down, and I don't even know what I was  Saying. Another has taken over and communicated through me...

Yeah man it was some other transcendental cats philosophical musings flowing through me.

Death is a strange concept. We are all when alive having feelings, thoughts, dreams etc....and then at once you don’t exist anymore, a quite scary thought. Makes me ask myself if this would be the end, what’s the sense of us being alive.

Bob the Builder posted:

TOBYJUG posted:

Proof. I just put those words down, and I don't even know what I was  Saying. Another has taken over and communicated through me...

Yeah man it was some other transcendental cats philosophical musings flowing through me.

I used to be the domestic staff for two cats...  I don't think either of them was transcendental!