“A ludicrous statement.”
No. A definition. The problem is determining IF a person is in fact in a vegetative state since we have no psychic powers to see into their minds.
“The problem is determining IF a person is in fact in a vegetative state since we have no psychic powers to see into their minds.”
Which makes it a definition with no practical application, so it’s ludicrous. We could define all sorts of conditions that may or may not exist, which are completely unverifiable. They’d be just as useful as this “vegetative state” nonsense.
Either a person is responsive and communicative to the point where we can ascertain they are aware and conscious, or they are not, in which case we can’t ascertain much of anything one way or the other.