Posted on 10/14/2014 9:48:40 AM PDT by Enza Ferreri
True science is always a friend of the Bible. The best it can do is discover what the Bible has said all along.
Problem is, it’s not after death.
If one “comes back” he was not dead.
Dead is when you don’t come back m
We have assurance, we don’t need this pseudoscience.
and some people though alive have no thoughts at all...
We need to ask Sheldon Cooper about this.
The article used the term, 'clinical death', which is the cessation of circulation and breathing. It goes on to say that the brain typically stops functioning within 20-30 seconds of the heart stopping.
The dead-dead you're describing is the persistence of the condition which began as clinical death.
Yes. Clinical death.
Clinical death is not death so this has zero bearing whatsoever on life after death.
It is of interest in terms of levels of consciousnesses under conditions of minimal brain function.
I'm not sure that's right. Dead is dead. The pronouncement of death occurs because there were no signs of life apparent to the outside observer. Your argument for the patient not being dead depends on future events, which cannot be known at the time of the observation.
If, for example, the patient were dropped into a vat of liquid helium, all electrical and chemical activity would stop. There would be no question that the man in the vat would be dead to any observer. If we adopt your interpretation of death, whether the man were actually dead or not would depend on whether future medical science advances to the point where someone could be revived from being deep frozen, and then whether this particular person was.
Then, if you decide that the person is not dead because he is later revived, you have to ask where was he in the meantime?
“Your argument for the patient not being dead depends on future events, which cannot be known at the time of the observation.”
That’s right.
Are you suggesting a seance to determine the difference in experience between those who come back, don’t die, and those that actually die?
That would be a great study design, but in a practical sense it might be hard to do, or trust the data.
On a broader level, your argument and example of the frozen suspended animation is interesting, but it is philosophical, or semantic, only peripherally related the the question trying to be answered by this study.
Yes, the argument is semantic. We have to first define “death”, or at least the outer the boundary of life, before we can answer the question is there life after death. One of the problems I am pointing out is that under your definition, death occurs only when the subject does not ever recover, we have to know what is going to happen in the future. Since we cannot know what is going to happen in the future, do we then define the state of the subject as 98% dead, based on a probability of 98% that he will not be revived? That argument seems pointlessly academic to me. Then, the other problem is, where is the consciousness located? If the brain is not functioning during the gap between clinical death and the subject’s revival, how can consciousness reside there and yet function?
To do the study the subjects must be alive.
Dead people can’t be interviewed.
There is no percentage or chance, they are alive and can be interviewed or they died.
I am addressing the study. Only people who it turned out weren’t dead can be interviewed.
You seem to have the mistaken impression the subjects are interviewed during their near death experience.
We were all dead before we were alive, so in that sense it’s true.
Obviously, the people are alive when they are interviewed. What you miss (or resist) is that they were dead when they had the experiences they later describe. So far as I understand the article, there was no evidence of life apparent to the observer for an extended period, no brain activity, no heartbeat, nothing. That’s what we would agree to as being “dead”. You want to argue that the state of being dead depends on unknowable future events, whether or not the subject is later revived, and not the state of the subject at the time of the observation.
I don’t miss it.
They weren’t dead. Or they’d be dead.
Dead people don’t come back to life. That’s the definition of dead.
“So far as I understand the article, there was no evidence of life apparent to the observer for an extended period, no brain activity, no heartbeat, nothing. That’s what we would agree to as being “dead”.”
No.
Do not agree and this study proves it.
When there is an assumption or understanding that is proven wrong, here that observable brain activity or heartbeat can define death, then scientifically the understanding is changed.
The definition of no measurable heart activity nor brain activity is shown to not be sufficient for determining death, at least over the short time frame examined here.
Simple and no big deal, and not surprising.
So, only a subject who is clinically dead but later revived can have the consciousness event reported in the article? Does that exclude those who by some chance are not revived? Imagine two heart attack victims in separate rooms. In one room the defibrillator is working, and in the other it is broken. You do not know which is which until you try to revive the victim. By your definition, although both subjects have the same state of clinical death, only the one in the room with the broken defibrillator is actually dead.
Clinical death is not death. That’s why there is the qualifier “clinical”.
In your example, both are alive. One later dies, one is revived (not from being dead).
This addresses the limitations of clinical death assessment, it does not change what death is.
In death, there is a point of no return and that is death.
Of course by this definition Lazarus must be excluded, who by witness accounts was dead for several days and had begun to stink from it, by saying he was not dead. Nor would Christ fit this criteria. So this definition by its very declaration expressly excludes any possibility of life after death.
One could never even consider the possibility of the truth of either of these events, nor any resurrection event due solely to this definition. Even if the witnesses to any such events could be absolutely proven to be both truthful and correct, the definition presupposes the result.
This in itself is a violation of the scientific method. No amount of proof could satisfy, no matter how long the person had been dead, they would not have been dead after arising.
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