Clinical Death and the Afterlife

P

Prince_James

Plutarch (Mickey's Dog)
Registered Senior Member
There are situations where a person can be clinically dead for significant lengths (far more than the normal "a couple of minutes") of time and be revived. This can be even as long as an hour for people who drown in cold water. Now, in many situations people report near death experiences, but in many of the longer ones no such thing occurs. In fact, they quite report that there was nothing, like a dreamless sleep.

Now whereas NDE can be considered at least a circumstantial reason to suggest an afterlife may be possible, if in these significantly longer death-states no such NDE appears, does not this imply that at least for some people, there is no life after death? That there is just a "dreamless sleep" for eternity?
 
What would be the practical difference between an eternal dreamless sleep and non-existence?
 
The length of time for the likelyhood of recovery after clinical death depends on the degree of decay of vital functions and cells. We know that low temperatures slow down decay. The claim to death though is misleading since all that has really occured is that all the metablic processes have slowed down and will be able to speed up if the cause of injury can be repaired and the degree of decay is minimal. So would such a person really be considered dead. In these cases death has clearly not occured. I would say real death should perhaps be redefined as a state where vital functions and cells have become irrecoverable.

Contrast that with someone in a state of cryopreservation where their cells and metabolism have been halted in a non decayed state, with the hope they can be re-animated at a later date. This is perhaps an unusual case, but interesting.
 
Death isn't always binary. There are shades between dead and alive.
 
Kron:

Death isn't always binary. There are shades between dead and alive.
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Puzzling. What do you mean?

Cris:

What would be the practical difference between an eternal dreamless sleep and non-existence?
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Nothing. I was using a poetic term, a paraphrase of Socrates, to address a death with no afterlife.

The length of time for the likelyhood of recovery after clinical death depends on the degree of decay of vital functions and cells. We know that low temperatures slow down decay. The claim to death though is misleading since all that has really occured is that all the metablic processes have slowed down and will be able to speed up if the cause of injury can be repaired and the degree of decay is minimal. So would such a person really be considered dead. In these cases death has clearly not occured. I would say real death should perhaps be redefined as a state where vital functions and cells have become irrecoverable.
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I'm fairly certain in these instances the heart has stopped and the brain has all but shut down (if not shut down completely). It is simply that the system "reboots" as it were, once the blood and body is warmed.
 
Prince_James said:
Now whereas NDE can be considered at least a circumstantial reason to suggest an afterlife may be possible, if in these significantly longer death-states no such NDE appears, does not this imply that at least for some people, there is no life after death? That there is just a "dreamless sleep" for eternity?
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Does this not merely provide support for the fact that NDEs are nothing more than brain-activity e.g. most likely during the closing down of the brain, leaving some impact that becomes interpreted during its last stages as "corridor of light" etc?


NDEs can only "be considered at least a circumstantial reason to suggest an afterlife may be possible" to people who do not follow rational thinking and who do not first eliminate all other likely causes before jumping on the supernatural.
 
Prince_James said:
There are situations where a person can be clinically dead for significant lengths (far more than the normal "a couple of minutes") of time and be revived. This can be even as long as an hour for people who drown in cold water. Now, in many situations people report near death experiences, but in many of the longer ones no such thing occurs. In fact, they quite report that there was nothing, like a dreamless sleep.

Now whereas NDE can be considered at least a circumstantial reason to suggest an afterlife may be possible, if in these significantly longer death-states no such NDE appears, does not this imply that at least for some people, there is no life after death? That there is just a "dreamless sleep" for eternity?
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Given the entirely fallible nature of human senses, its not clear how the reality/unreality of an event can be established according to the reports of a person's recollection of it - just like some people can remeber being 3 years old and some people cannot - does that mean that not everyone was a 3 year old?
 
Prince_James said:
Puzzling. What do you mean?
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I mean that the exact moment an organism ceases to function isn't very well-defined. Especially in micro-organisms; they can be repaired after 'death'.

lightgigantic said:
Given the entirely fallible nature of human senses, its not clear how the reality/unreality of an event can be established according to the reports of a person's recollection of it - just like some people can remeber being 3 years old and some people cannot - does that mean that not everyone was a 3 year old?
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Yet NO-ONE remembers being a pizza, does that mean we should ignore their lack of memory due to 'the entirely fallible nature of human senses' and assume that all humans were pizzas???
 
lg,

Given the entirely fallible nature of human senses, its not clear how the reality/unreality of an event can be established according to the reports of a person's recollection of it
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Agreed, especially in the case where the brain has sustanined substantial truama. Under those conditions anything recalled can never be considered credible.

- just like some people can remeber being 3 years old and some people cannot - does that mean that not everyone was a 3 year old?
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No that doesn't work. We have alternative evidence to say they were 3 at one point, but there is no alternative pointers to anything claimed during an NDE.
 
Cris said:
lg,

No that doesn't work. We have alternative evidence to say they were 3 at one point, but there is no alternative pointers to anything claimed during an NDE.
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Once again, since what constitutes the parameters of evidence (the reductionist model of neurons and electrons) cannot determine the ultimate cause of life even when a person is embodied, it is not surprising that it draws up a similar blank card when a person is unembodied
 
LG - the issue was one of simple logic. Please try to pay attention and stop introducing irrelevant issues.
 
Cris said:
LG - the issue was one of simple logic. Please try to pay attention and stop introducing irrelevant issues.
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Its about evidence

This brings into the focus of the parameters of investigation (the means by which evidence is arrived at)

If the lifeforce of a living person cannot properly be ascertained when they are alive its no mystery why its also mysterious after they are dead.

At the moment the premises are existing something like this

P1 - when a person is alive we cannot determine the exact nature of their living force
P2 - when a person dies, whatever evidence we had of their living force (ie the metabolism of th e gross body) expires
C - therefore when a person dies there is no cognitive experience that carries on

the premises are disparate and the conclusion is illogical
 
But is your definition of lifeforce is the body's metabolism, then that can be ascertained quite easily.

The notion of an amorphous life force only made sense when the body's processes were less understood. Today, you can see the brain's activity on an MRI. The necessity of a life force as an explanation is obsolete. Hence, there is little likelihood of a soul.
 
spidergoat said:
But is your definition of lifeforce is the body's metabolism, then that can be ascertained quite easily.

The notion of an amorphous life force only made sense when the body's processes were less understood. Today, you can see the brain's activity on an MRI. The necessity of a life force as an explanation is obsolete. Hence, there is little likelihood of a soul.
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metabolism is a symptom of consciousness not the cause - if metabolism (mechanistic proceedures of energy transformation in the gross body) was the cause it would be possible to invest life in dead matter
 
Lg,

There is no problem. You have created a strawman argument.

Once you remove your fantasy creation of a living force then the problem vanishes.
 
Prince_James said:
There are situations where a person can be clinically dead for significant lengths (far more than the normal "a couple of minutes") of time and be revived. This can be even as long as an hour for people who drown in cold water. Now, in many situations people report near death experiences, but in many of the longer ones no such thing occurs. In fact, they quite report that there was nothing, like a dreamless sleep.

Now whereas NDE can be considered at least a circumstantial reason to suggest an afterlife may be possible, if in these significantly longer death-states no such NDE appears, does not this imply that at least for some people, there is no life after death? That there is just a "dreamless sleep" for eternity?
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this doesn't imply that there were no experiences after the clinical death, this implies that one does not remember these experiences. Just as one can have many dreams and wake up thinking they had no dreams, it was all dreamless sleep.

SB 11.22.41: Just as a person experiencing a dream or daydream does not remember his previous dreams or daydreams, a person situated in his present body, although having existed prior to it, thinks that he has only recently come into being.

SB 11.22.39: When the living entity passes from the present body to the next body, which is created by his own karma, he becomes absorbed in the pleasurable and painful sensations of the new body and completely forgets the experience of the previous body. This total forgetfulness of one's previous material identity, which comes about for one reason or another, is called death.
 
Cris said:
Lg,

There is no problem. You have created a strawman argument.

Once you remove your fantasy creation of a living force then the problem vanishes.
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Just leaves you with the problems of explaining how dull matter is animated in the form of life, which hinges on premises that are of the same (apparent) fantastic nature
 
lg,

Not when you understand science. I assume you have never studied science and perhaps never took science classes at school, correct? Try taking at least a biology class and some basic chemistry and then we'll chat again.
 
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