Quote:
Originally Posted by tgnostic
Depends on th species of animal, no? We know when we die when the spirit becomes eternal. But is man too arrogant?
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I'd say: (1) man is always too arrogant, and; (2) from a biochemical aspect, SIND is absolutely correct. In the past, we had a non-technical definition that, say, the local country doctor would use; no apparent breathing, no audible or felt heartbeat, but..
Many cells, including those critical to sustaining healthy life and functionality, can sustain oxygen deprivation, lack of blood circulation, and some degree of cooling, and still be revived. It's possible, especially nowadays, to force the heart muscle back into sinus rhythm, force a high-oxygen tension back into the lungs, and stimulation of other key systems.
So, the more obvious systems re-start, and those death-resistant systems also re-start, and
voila, people claim to have been "dead", even technically speaking, where, in fact, those key components never were truly
dead (as in, incapable of ever being restarted).
When a person's prime biochemical systems are irrefutibly stopped for a long time, cooling down, deprived for a key period of time of an absolutely necessary nutrient or physically damaged
(like from a bullet hole in the brain), then death of the entire organism may be claimed. This is, of course, confused by the ability of modern medical technology to keep some of the more resistant systems alive
(heart, lungs, etc.) when in fact key parts of the brain that might directly afffect, say, consciousness, memory or some bodily function, are irrepairably damaged and/or quite dead. So family members agonize about thinking little Johhny might come back, when, in fact, he cannot now survive without external assistance, and parts of his once-fully-functional brain are irreversibly damaged and will forever remain non-functional.
When does the "soul" leave the body? Our overall life-force, our consciousness, "departs" (strictly a romantic definition. nothing "leaves" the body except radiant heat energy) when it can no longer function biochemically, which is it's
entire basis for being. Like poking around in the back of your old tubed-type TV set, pulling out or clipping a wire or two to see what happens. One minute, Chuck Conners is on, then , ooopppss, his voice and the sound is gone, but the picture remains. Then, you pull a few resistors off the board, and the vertical hold function is wrecked, and the picture starts spinning. Then, you pull a main amplification tube, and, sadly, Chuck's visage is also gone. TV's "DEAD". Now, TVs can be easily repaired, because those components are inanimate and disconnection does no permanent damage. But us? Not so lucky, eh?
Our arrogance is in assuming some godly intervention that bought us back from death when, of course, we never were technically "gone". Only by some old standards that a country Doc in the era depicted in "The Rifleman" series would have applied.
Of course, if there truly
were a benevolent all-powerful God, there would have been, one assumes,
at least one documented case of God bringing back someone who'd been measured at, say, 25˚ deep body temp, no artifical life-support system hookup keeping other systems alive during the "test" while awaiting God's re-insertion of the "nebulous" soul, with no hearbeat for, say, an hour or so, and/or a big 12ga hole in their brain where their frontal lobe used to be.
Sorta like God re-growing a severed and lost-to-the-dogs limb. Never happens. Never will.
We die, we rot, the world continues, but perhaps if we were memorable and did a few good things for the world, we'll have one remnant thing: a positive legacy.
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