On 28 October 2010 04:17, William H. Fite <omniryx@gmail.com> wrote: > In the United States, cessation of heart beat, for all its problems and > ambiguities, continues to be recognized as the legal definition of death, > cold water resuscitations and the like notwithstanding.  The term "brain > dead" has no clear legal meaning, as evidenced in the conflicting and > ambiguous lawsuits involving Terri Schiavo here in Florida.  In the end, > Schiavo was not adjudged by the court to be dead because her brain was > "dead" but rather beyond any reasonable expectation of improvement or > recovery.  She did not legally become dead until her heartbeat stopped a > number of days after feeding and hydration were terminated. > > In the case of organ harvesting, the patient is similarly not considered > dead because the EEG is isoelectric.  Rather, the conclusion is drawn that > the individual is without hope of recovery.  The organs are not harvested > until the heart stops because it is not until that (ambiguous) moment that > the person is dead. I believe this form of death determination is now being adopted for circumstances where the pump and bellows work but the brain is too badly damaged that it is theoretically impossible to recover the personality and memories of the person and is called information-theoretic death. "The exact timing of information-theoretic death is currently unknown. It has been speculated to occur gradually after many hours of clinical death at room temperature as the brain undergoes autolysis. It can also occur more rapidly if there is no blood flow to the brain during life support, leading to the decomposition stage of brain death, or during the progression of degenerative brain diseases that cause extensive loss of brain structure." Further evidence to suggest that the exact timing of "real" death is not easy to determine in many cases. Steve > It is the cold water resuscitations and similar events that lead medical > professionals to be comfortable with the extremely vague concept I stated > earlier.  The lawyers fairly often wrangle after the fact but that > discussion takes place over an embalmed or cremated body. > > For the foreseeable future, this picture will not become any clearer.  In > the meantime, adopt the posture of the 19th century melodramaticists and > have a bell installed in your coffin, just in case... > > > > > On Tue, Oct 26, 2010 at 6:40 PM, Magnus Danielson < > magnus@rubidium.dyndns.org> wrote: > >> On 10/25/2010 04:21 PM, William H. Fite wrote: >> >>> Mike is correct.  Brain activity does not screech to a halt but peters out >>> over a period of minutes once the heart stops beating. >>> >>> When we (I'm in the medical field and not, by any stretch of the >>> imagination >>> an engineer) speak of someone being "brain dead" or "flat line EEG," we >>> don't really mean that there is no electrical activity in the brain at >>> all, >>> only that there is no purposeful activity. >>> >>> That is why, in most jurisdictions--not all--death is defined as cessation >>> of heartbeat.  In the eyes of the law, that's a dichotomous variable; it >>> is >>> or it ain't.  Which means, from a legal perspective, at least, that when >>> lay >>> people say that so-and-so was dead for a time and then brought back, they >>> are correct, cornball as it sounds. >>> >>> Actually, heart beat doesn't cease like snapping a light switch but trails >>> off into meaningless blips and wiggles that can go on for a while. >>> >>> Clinical death, to physicians and other health professionals is when the >>> machine has quit and it can't be fired up again.  Vague, yes, but >>> perfectly >>> adequate. >>> >> >> For several reasons this definition is not usable for all cases anymore. >> There are cases when the brain can be considered dead, but the rest of the >> patient is relatively healthy. For the purpose of making organ >> transplantation possible, brain death is clinically being used, with the >> good old ticker and breath as a rough indication and subsequent failures of >> restoring those has failed. >> >> There is one case in which a Swedish medical student was out skiing in >> Norway and went through the ice and was being held there by the strong >> water. It took them 45 min just to get her out of the water. Her heart had >> stopped. Her respiration had stopped. She have had no pulse or breath for >> over an hour when they finally started working on her at the hospital. She >> survived and is almost completely restored. She works at that very hospital. >> Cooling patients down causes less brain-damage and is now an established >> treatment for certain trauma cases. The heart-compressions being done helps >> a lot to keep brain-damages down. We keep learning more and more about >> reducing damages on heart attack patients. >> >> So that definition has become less and less meaningful for that very >> reason. Not all legal systems reflect this thought, but as I recall the >> Swedish legal system did change this a few years back. >> >> >> So.....I see no way in which one could determine with precision when life >>> ends.  At least not with the precision that this group would consider even >>> minimally acceptable. >>> >> >> Agreed. We might agree on day. Maybe hour. Then it becomes kind of >> difficult. >> >> Cheers, >> Magnus >> >> >> _______________________________________________ >> time-nuts mailing list -- time-nuts@febo.com >> To unsubscribe, go to >> https://www.febo.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/time-nuts >> and follow the instructions there. >> > _______________________________________________ > time-nuts mailing list -- time-nuts@febo.com > To unsubscribe, go to https://www.febo.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/time-nuts > and follow the instructions there. > -- Steve Rooke - ZL3TUV & G8KVD The only reason for time is so that everything doesn't happen at once. - Einstein

Richard H McCorkle wrote: > Time-Nuts, > > New members to the Time-Nuts list may wonder if the Time-Nut disease > has infected them just by joining the list. A clear indication that > someone has been infected with the Time-Nut disease is they own a > reference that provides accurate time to better than 1us and > frequency to better than 1e-9. This is a mild form of the disease, > but as the infection progresses multiple standards appear, each > having greater accuracy than the last... > > P.S. This was written for enjoyment and should not be taken > seriously as an indication of a true medical condition. > > I guess I'm a mild case. I bought a rubidium standard/clock "movement" and I'm slowly building my own atomic clock. I have a WWVB wall clock and a WWVB wristwatch. I first got the time bug discussing the Chicago parking meter deal on a Chicago-specific blog. I bought the watch to use as my car's "chronometer" for parking purposes. I was always vulnerable to the time bug since childhood and New Year's Eve. I got my Efratom Rb movement and a frequency divider chip on eBay, of course. If I were to hit the Lottery, I'd love to get one of those Agilent 5071A Cs movements!