Death

I’m not sure why you brought up the idea of keeping the body cold in order to avoid decomposition.

Does this discussion of death depend on preserving the body or not?

The issue of keeping in the cold comes only because pilgrim seeker tom said that the body will start decomposing afetr three days.

As i said above, preserving the body is a not a issue here. The only issue e\relevant here is whether one is declared once dead according to our establish medical/scientific benchmarks or not.

with love,
sanjay

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Sanjay … thanks for addressing my question. Body decomposition is not universal … apparently there are numerous exceptions to the norm … Ste Bernadette comes to mind. I observed her corpse in Nevers France … while some cosmetic work has been acknowledge it remains a wonder/mystery.

Recovery from “Clinical Death” is not new … though the time frame between death and recovery is always only a few minutes. Your story mentions “since several weeks” … an example in a league of it’s own.

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huffingtonpost.co.uk/2014/10 … 50582.html

While I can’t say I ‘know’ it is possible … I believe it is possible.

2 Kings 2:11

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The Biblical chatter about Elijah’s return to life on earth are too many to mention.

zinnat

Are you referring to the yogis who claim to be able to stop the heart beating? I recall something about this when I visited India.

Nevertheless, the scientific evidence is slim to none that yogis can voluntarily stop their heart.

No, i am not talking about yogies.

By the way, there is no such yogi who can stop breathing, lose the pulse and heartbeat even for one hour and becomes alive again. If anyone claims so, he is simply lying.

with love,
sanjay

I think i have waited enough for replies. I will present my argument tomorrow.

with love,
sanjay

Sorry for the delay. Next post follows in an hour.

with love,
sanjay

There is a breed of frog found in Alaska which is called woodfrog. Its botanical name is Rana sylvatica. We all know that frogs go into hibernation in winters. Woodfrog does the same but it goes far beyond normal hibernation.

I accidentally came to know about this while searching on the net for something else. I became curious and looked into the reasons. The survival of the woodfrogs happens due to a very special chemical procedure. When ice touches the skin of a woodfrog, it starts increasing the sugar level into some cells, which goes as high as 13 times than the normal. This high level of concentration of sugar in some cells save those from freezing. in other words, one can say that these cells remain alive during hibernation.

So, does they not become clinically dead before coming to life again?
Does that not mean that the death of mere brain is not enough to be dead forever?
Does that also not mean that there must be something else other than heartbeat and brain which keeps them alive?

with love,
sanjay

But humans don’t have the same physiology as frogs.

When I asked if preserving the body was significant to this discussion, you said “no”. So now I’m confused because freezing clearly prevents bacteria and other agents of decay (molds and fungus) from destroying the frog’s body.

No. There is still heartbeat and brain activity.

No.

That is different from what you have asked in your opening post.

There is in fact “something else other than heartbeat and brain which keeps them alive” but that doesn’t answer your three questions.
If the process of keeping a living being alive is very economical, very spare, then this doesn’t mean that this living being is dead.
Your example says something about how economically a body can work, but it doesn’t answer your three questions.

the most relevant definition of death for me is that I will no longer think or feel.

with love,
sanjay

with love,
sanjay

I guess that I don’t follow the reasoning which connects determination of death and the element of time.

On the one hand there is the idea of “confirm death in real-time” and on the other hand the idea that the person is “dead for days”, “dead forever” and “dead permanently”.

Time is not an element in death, because if there is death, then there, which is nowhere, there is no time

In no time, there cannot be death ,unless death be conceived as an absolute.

Death can be only described in terms of a process of dying, the absolute can only be understood as change from this to that. Once ‘this’ to ‘that’ is severed, there is no one to account for bones and other remains as belonging to whom,
THEN no one identifiable is dead. There is an indisputable connection with identity and death, as is with identity and life

Therefore it may safely be said, that identity is the key in recognizing life and death. The idea of absolutes are.applicable to both, therefore minimizing the difference between them. Time only progresses to be only a quantum of difference between life and death, implying the functional difference approaching zero

Actually, it is me who is not able to follow what is there which is difficult to follow. My reasoning is as simple as it can be.

I asked how we decide clinically/scientifically that one becomes dead permanently and would never be alive again. And, you have seen the answers. But, woodfrogs defy those answers for sure. It is not me who is claiming that but scientists who studied woodfrogs for years say so. It is not about how much time has been passed since death. The real issue is that one once successfully has met the scientifically set benchmarks of death or not.

I am merely using the observations of science to challenge the benchmarks of death decided by the science itself. I am saying that absence of pulse, heartbeat and brain activity is not enough to declare death. And, that begs further questions like what is actually that causes death or happens at the time of death and what should be right benchmarks of death.

Is that still confusing!

with love,
sanjay

I disagree with that.

There may be a process of dying. I do not deny that but there has to be one certain point/moment when it occurs.

As you said that there must some zeroing point. A process has to complete at some point, otherwise you have to accept that it is an unending process, which means that one starts dying right from time since he become alive. And, in that case, both becoming alive and becoming dead would lose their meaning.

with love,
sanjay

But frogs are cold-blooded and those specific frogs change their cell chemistry in preparation for the freeze cycle. They have evolved for that environment. If they lose heartbeat, breath and brain activity in some other way, then the frog won’t be revived. Right?

So the frog hibernation findings don’t seem to be directly transferable to humans.

One could similarly ask : If your limb is cut off, then is it permanently gone?

If you are a human then it’s permanently gone but if you’re a lobster then it will grow back.

The definition of “cut off” is the same for both human and lobster.

And then there are planarians.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planarian