Wortfish wrote:DavidMcC wrote:The critical issues here are the cause and definition of "death", which is a process that can take time. In the early part of this period, the mind may survive, at least partially. This will obviously often be the case when, as in the interview, death is defined as "when the heart stops". It does, of course depend very much on the cause of death, so the thread title is highly misleading, IMO. For example, if death is caused by being rapidly crushed to bits under a heavy, but unseen, object, then there will be almost no time for which the mind can survive after the heart stops.
Dr. Parnia's research shows that the brain shuts down when the heart stops. But it doesn't decompose immediately. That allows people to be brought back from a state of clinical death. But. as the brain is inactive during this period, there should be no awareness....but there is.
Where do you get "the brain is inactive during this period" and what exactly does "inactive" mean? I don't think technology exists that could show that to be the case. EEG only captures coarse scale signals that make it to the scalp. FMRI doesn't measure electrical or synaptic activity and direct electrical probing covers very small areas and would not be appropriate in a CA situation.
The guy in the video talks of "not expecting" brain activity, but what is un-evidenced expectation worth in exceptional cases?
The next question would be how do you establish the timing of these experiences? How can the possibility of confabulation by the recovering functional brain be eliminated?