Commentary thread for tim's "NDE's" thread

"It's impossible to know if every single person that has actually died from a cardiac arrest and not come back, couldn't have been brought back if some machine had been available to assist. Therefore it stands to reason that there is no absolute point of death providing the body hasn't been destroyed."

Of course there's no knowing if medical intervention might have prevented a death had it been available.  But when cardiac arrest has resulted in the death of an individual then it's final - that's death.  Anything not terminal might be termed as "near to death" or whatever form of words you prefer.

  Death is simply the outcome of an event the individual didn't survive.

Leadville said >  Death is the irreversible end of life in-the-body.  If life doesn't end then the former condition wasn't death.

That's the semantics I'm referring to. It's impossible to know if every single person that has actually died from a cardiac arrest and not come back, couldn't have been brought back if some machine had been available to assist. Therefore it stands to reason that there is no absolute point of death providing the body hasn't been destroyed.

Leadville said > Clinical death is the best current guide but it may not be infallible and the parameters could change in future as techniques improve.

The definition of clinical death is met by the stoppage of the heart. Van Lommel's patients were all clinically dead. That's the point.

 Leadville said >A state of on going life that wasn't detectable doesn't mean that death had taken place. 

Are you referring to patients in cardiac arrest ? There is no detectable life after 10-20 seconds (30 max) that's the whole point of the matter.  You aren't making any sense.

Isn't 'clinical death' defined also by there being no discernible activity in the brain stem? 

I'm not trying to put any limits on detectable life signs.  In extremely cold environments a body may also be cold and appear without life but that's not the same as it being dead.  Restoration of function may come about when gradual warming is brought about but that's not bringing someone back from the dead.

It would seem like you are...


That's not how it is defined. Wikipedia provides a decent overview:



According to that quote I posted, the girl's body had been in the pool for at least 17 minutes! "Appeared dead"? I'm sorry, but you're definitely not more qualified than that doctor to claim what death is. Her heart wasn't beating for 45 minutes, either. She was, for all intents and purposes, dead, dead, dead, clinically-defined or otherwise.

You're the one trying to define what death is and isn't. Death doesn't imply that it is irreversible. "Had appeared to be dead" ~ yeah right.

Isn't it YOU who's trying to say that death has occurred based on observations made?  Doctors use their judgement but aren't infallible. I don't question anyone's abilities, though, or doubt the accuracy of the their observations.   Only the conclusions drawn.

What I'm saying is that death is irreversible but not I'M not trying to define anything.  I leave definitions to scholars.  If an individual shows all the signs of being dead but live on then they may indeed have been 'close to death' or 'near death' if you wish. 

When they are revived it's because they weren't dead.

"It's impossible to know if every single person that has actually died from a cardiac arrest and not come back, couldn't have been brought back if some machine had been available to assist. Therefore it stands to reason that there is no absolute point of death providing the body hasn't been destroyed."

Of course there's no knowing if medical intervention might have prevented a death had it been available.  But when cardiac arrest has resulted in the death of an individual then it's final - that's death.  Anything not terminal might be termed as "near to death" or whatever form of words you prefer.

  Death is simply the outcome of an event the individual didn't survive.

Leadville, cardiac arrest is the only way a person can die, that is that their heart has stopped beating for whatever reason, other than being instantly vaporised (by a bomb)  

I've bolded the line above because I'm afraid you've completely lost me. Cardiac arrest is the death of an individual (the first stage) but it can be reversed nowadays if resuscitation is successful. Prior to the early 1960's, everyone who had a cardiac arrest.. died permanently.

I think I'll leave it there before the green van comes for me, thanks for the debate.

I hesitate to muddy the waters and apologies if I have missed the point but, if i understand it correctly it does seem to me an argument of semantics. That is, the meaning and application of the language used. Personally I think it's a pointless argument and it's at cross-purposes. 

Leadville seems to be taking the position that if a person can be revived, then they were not dead. Whilst I can understand that, and of course if one cannot be resuscitated then one would definitely be dead, it appears to me that the only way one could be certain a person was dead if we adopt that perspective, is if decomposition has set in. 

Apologies if the following is a bit of a ramble...

What do doctors mean when they say a person is dead? I wouldn't have thought decomposition was one of the criteria that is usually used to declare a person clinically dead. Certification of death doesn't, as far as I know, include the words "probably dead". So when a clinician declares a person dead, legally that's the position. 

It may be that a doctor makes a mistake or the signs of life are so weak as to be undetectable, then the patient may spontaneously wake up in the morgue or if they're really unlucky, in a coffin underground or at at the crematorium. I'd think that was vanishingly rare in the western world. 

Why does a doctor declare someone dead? I may be wrong here but in my limited experience death is declared when the heart stops for most people and they are deemed to be beyond recovery for some reason. The key point for me is that the declaration is made when the heart stops (if there is to be no resuscitation attempt).  At that point resuscitation attempts cease but the physical processes continue for some time I would think (not sure how long before decomposition would start but I would imagine that depends on the condition of the body and the environment). 

I don't think when a doctor declares a person 'dead' it means all their biological functions have ceased. In fact that is, I suspect, rarely the case. I think the doctor is saying 'this person is dead and is to be allowed to complete the process'. Their cells are alive, there is oxygenation for a period at least. I would guess some people even hear the doctor pronouncing their own death as apparently the sense of hearing is one of the last to cease. So death is, as mentioned by a previous poster, a process. I guess it starts when the key mechanisms for supporting life - breathing and heart activity end, and ends when we decompose or the body is destroyed. 

Do doctors really bring people back from the dead or is it that they resuscitate them from a stage in a process that, if left uninterrupted, would result in final death? It occurs to me that 'dying' is the process preceding the process called death. When a person is certified as 'dead' the medical staff don't say 'he/she is dying', that happened earlier. They say they are 'dead'. So when we describe a person as dead are we referring to the final station on the journey to death, or are we saying they are now in the process called death? I think possibly people use both.

One often reads of people 'dying on the operating table' and then being revived. Whether they were actually dead (clearly not if we apply Leadville's criterion), or had simply entered the process of death, is I think, a point of semantics. I don't think arguing about it helps us all.

For me, the key is not the language used, but what is meant by it. When people survive an NDE and report it, I don't think anyone is claiming it's as a result of some sort of miracle or that the medical staff resurrected them. 

Where there is veridical evidence, from a person who could not have possibly obtained the information by normal means given their confirmed medical state, as far as I can see it is irrelevant as to whether there was x millijoules of electrical activity (or whatever they measure it with) in their cortex.

Where the experiences don't contain veridical information, I think one is at liberty to accept or not to accept the  testimony. What I think is wrong is to discount it because that means taking up a definite position about the experience which, frankly, no one is in a position to do. 

Hope this makes sense.

Leadville, cardiac arrest is the only way a person can die, that is that their heart has stopped beating for whatever reason, other than being instantly vaporised (by a bomb)  

I've bolded the line above because I'm afraid you've completely lost me. Cardiac arrest is the death of an individual (the first stage) but it can be reversed nowadays if resuscitation is successful. Prior to the early 1960's, everyone who had a cardiac arrest.. died permanently.

I think I'll leave it there before the green van comes for me, thanks for the debate.

We appear to approach the subject of what constitutes death from understandings very different from each others.

This whole point of contention is so purposeless

One could even say its dead.

I'll show myself out.

It may be that a doctor makes a mistake or the signs of life are so weak as to be undetectable, then the patient may spontaneously wake up in the morgue or if they're really unlucky, in a coffin underground or at at the crematorium. I'd think that was vanishingly rare in the western world. 

One can even today from time to time read accounts of people waking up in the morgue, or as the autopsy is taking place, or as the funeral is taking place. Rare, yes, but these are not mere old wives tales, they do happen.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-30048087
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-42609239
... there are more, these are just the tip of the iceberg, as it were.

In today's compensation culture, it's easy to take the view that the doctors were incompetent and demand that someone should take responsibility for the mess. However, personally I take the view that in most such cases there was no error, the assessment that death had occurred was correct - at the point in time when it was made. It's just that, as has been mentioned, until decomposition or other physical destruction of the body has taken place, death is a reversible process. Dr Sam Parnia makes the point that doctors may be able to restart the heart, and if there is not too much irreparable damage, the person may be returned to life. But if the body is damaged, such as by advanced illness, though the heart may be restarted, there is no value in doing so, it merely prolongs the process with no real benefit, the decision to resuscitate or not may be a simple pragmatic choice.  

There is another viewpoint, that of the patient themselves. What do they report during such episodes? It seems to be varied. Perhaps the most common reaction is the person experiences a state of great well-being, and is puzzled by the commotion, why are the doctors so concerned when they are already completely alive and well, the body is just like a bundle of old clothes, of no consequence. Such people often express great annoyance and disappointment on being resuscitated, they wanted nothing more than to be left undisturbed to continue their journey. Another reaction sometimes reported takes a different attitude, the person hears the doctors declare the patient dead, and further resuscitation attempts  are to be discontinued. The person on hearing this may desperately try to communicate, to have the body resuscitated so they can return to this life. Thus even from the experiencer's own perspective, there is still ambiguity, at least with regard to how the physical body should be treated. Though there is no ambiguity over the person's consciousness itself, it is only the body which raises questions.

A little addition to the thread but a skeptic made this suggestion awhile ago: 

 I happened to be sitting in a conference lecture today delivered by a neuroscientist. He was talking about the systems in our CNS that are there to limit and suppress our experiences. The thinking is that these systems are there to conserve energy (as it is our CNS chews through 20% of our calories consumed)

It maybe that under certain circumstances (obe, drug states) these are the systems that fail (or at least FAIL FIRST) creating experience overload. This could explain quite a bit.

If anything, this doesn't suggest a materialist explanation if it's true. If powerful experiences like this aren't happening during brain power spikes but rather when the brain is down, then this is true in a different way: kind of a "reducing valve" sort of model of consciousness.