ARE YOU BRAIN DEAD? A NEW QUIZ.
The vegetative state is not a condition that would have lasted long in our ancestors. If you couldn’t communicate, not to mention chew and swallow, your day was done. Now you can be kept alive indefinitely, whether you like it or not. Unless, of course, you’re able to imagine playing tennis.
A few years ago a neuroscientist freaked us all out by demonstrating that two questions asked of a vegetative woman elicited two different patterns of brain activity.
When asked to imagine playing tennis, her brain’s motor and planning regions lit up. When asked to tour her house, the region for “familiar scenes” activated.
She was in there. EEEEEEK!
Now a team has built on that experiment. First, they repeated it with 53 more patients in either a vegetative or “minimally conscious” state. Yup, they were in there too.
And with one young man who had been vegetative for 5 years, they harnessed this aliveness to solicit answers to very specific questions.
“Do you have siblings? If yes, imagine playing tennis. If no, imagine your house.”
They asked him six questions, and he answered the first five correctly. The sixth brought no response.
They didn’t ask him if he was enjoying himself in there. They didn’t ask if he was in pain, of body or mind. They didn’t ask him if they should pull the plug.
But they could have.
February 8th, 2010 saat: 5:40 pm
I found your blog last week soon after my dad passed away. I had googled “Hospitals Kill People” and your article on ICU deaths came up. Very well written article, by the way, and sad (at least to me). Anyway, I’ve continued following your blog and want to let you know how much I enjoy reading your fascinating topics. Thank you.
February 8th, 2010 saat: 9:30 pm
I don’t yet understand how “we” as humans find ourselves so important? Does anyone think that human “on life support” equates with “responsible and beneficial member of society”?
Here is a moral dilemma:
there is a vegetable whose “existence” is supported paying millions of dollars a year (most subsidized by tax payer money) and there is 210 million orphaned children who could be fed for $2 a day/could be educated out of poverty, crime or other danger to their lives (all at the same cost as supporting one body in “vegetative state”)
Today on the planet Earth we have an “egg meet sperm” accidents and there is 210 million potentially intelligent human lives that are already here. Yet “egg meet sperm” and “keep the woman home” promoters are calling themselves “pro-life”.
How is it that we call ourselves the most important species on Mother Earth when we can’t keep “our own” fed, educated and protected under equal rights… We managed to destroy the SOILS that feed us, AIR we breathe in and OCEANS that keep Earth balanced.
Here is something to be proud of – we are the only species on Earth who does not yet realize how little we contribute and how much we take… all 6.6 Billion of us…
one “proud” member of “homo sapien” society…
February 9th, 2010 saat: 6:17 am
Jay, I respectfully submit a few counterpoints.
- I don’t think the decision to pull the plug is typically “is this or might this person be ra esponsible and beneficial member of society, but rather does this or might this person have any quality of life. Studies such as highlighted in the post show that this isn’t so clear cut.
- Regarding feeding orphans and other hungry people, your point is correct, but it is also correct that money spent on football, TV’s, Jaguars, and Disneyworld might also be spent on feeding the poor. One might say the case is stronger for those expenditures to be diverted.
- I am fairly certain that the overwhelming majority of species do not realize how much they contribute and take.
All that said, I do agree with you for me. When my time arrives, I prefer to go naturally. However, I can’t decide that for you if there is any possibility that your awareness exists. – Mark
February 9th, 2010 saat: 2:02 pm
Thank you Mark, your points are well taken. We are all entitled to our opinions and yours are as good as mine
I have to challenge this one-
“the overwhelming majority of species do not realize how much they contribute and take”. Maybe not, we do not know that, do we? We assume and interpret but NEIL DEGRASSE TYSON said it right “absence of evidence is not the same as the evidence of absence”.
Funny enough other species have a tendency to self control their number better than we. When their food source is destroyed they fall dead, decompose and benefit to the soils.
When “we”
#1 are running out of food (2/3 of the population is going to bed hungry every day, millions of children are going blind due to inadequate nutrition)
#2 have planned parenthood (condoms, abortions, planB, pills), have “pull the plug” option
we tend to oppose our own giving back to the Earth (turning into compost) as if “we” in any shape or form of “human” were so very very important.
We do not give other species a chance like we do to ourselves. We exist at tremendous cost to other species because we find that even human in “vegetative state” is more important kind of species than sharks, which are one of most important links in the biodiversity chain and of great importance to human survival. Yet we do not even pretend to keep them on “life support”. Please read The World Is Blue: How Our Fate and the Ocean’s Are One by Sylvia A. Earle
No matter how much some of us try to escape Death, it’s coming.
While watching EVOLUTION series (David Espar, Susan K. Lewis…) humans were named as “weed species”. Invade, overwhelm, destroy. That, according to me, is an insult to the weeds. In my gardens weeds have a great value of covering up the soils to establish habitats for diverse citizens of world society (bugs, earthworms, slugs…), create oxygen, decompose and become soil for food I eat. Plus chasing after them makes me fit.
HOW DO WE BENEFIT THE OVERALL HEALTH OF EARTH?
Have a great day!
J.
February 9th, 2010 saat: 2:20 pm
UNRELATED: Hannah, do you realize that when most google your name and hit “Image results for Hannah holmes” along with other photos comes up one with truck nuts. I am easily entertained i guess. Truck nuts are by far the most intelligent human design/work.