[It's an draft copy, v. 0.2. Totally unwritten sections has been tagged in {...}]
[disclaimer: I am not an surgeon, doctor, ethicist, philosopher, or any sort of expert, and I am a fan but not affiliated with National Geographic Society. Except all quoted from the documentary, all other comments reflect my own current thinking]
I just watched a National Geographic documentary "Moments of death". I am just describing its idea & my thought.
what is death? whom you will call 'dead'?
A man with stopped heart-beat, a man with non-functioning brain, a girl who can't response to any physical/worldly impulsion or a man who is totally out of his mind? Our understanding of the definition or the process of 'being dead' is pushing the boundaries...
Do you acknowledge 'soul'? Why?
The 'simple' physical process of cardio-vascular death is as follows. The heart stops pumping blood, the organs get shut-off one-by-one, at last the brain-cells, being deprived of Oxygen, raise 'panic' alarm, every element of brain-cell start fighting to save own-self and start producing toxic waste enormously, then each cell get self-destroyed.
Now, if you 'shock' back the heart-beating, give external oxygen quick enough, then the brain-cell 'may' stuck in 'somewhere-in-middle'. The patient is now seems breathing, and heart is beating; but he can't sense or response to anything, even you cut-off any organ without anesthesia. Its called 'coma'. In this state, the patient is may be thinking, dreaming, or just 'nothing'. Why not he is dead ?
{ purpose of Germany's 'house of dead' was to avoid live-burial }
{ the case of the girl who totally went out-of-mind and parents wanted to declare her dead }
{ why peoples, 'visited' around death, see light or tunnel of light }
Is 'soul' really exists?
{experience of a 'unconscious-and-tapped-eye' open-heart-surgery patient who saw every steps of his surgery, even his own body and an unusual habit of the surgeon}
{ the medical & ethical boundary of the definition of 'death' }
