Uncommon Descent Serving The Intelligent Design Community

Dead patient has active brain for ten minutes?

Share
Facebook
Twitter
LinkedIn
Flipboard
Print
Email

Hmmm. From Maria Gallucci at Mashable:

The researchers said they can’t really explain what happened. Perhaps there was a human or equipment error that falsely simulated brain activity at the time of recording — though there’s no sign that either a person or machine messed up.

“It is difficult to posit a physiological basis for this EEG [electroencephalographic] activity, given that it occurs after a prolonged loss of circulation,” Norton and her team wrote.

The study is the latest effort by doctors to better understand what happens to our bodies after life support is withdrawn, which is an important question for organ donation.

Without a firm explanation, and given the tiny sample size — one patient — the doctors couldn’t make any definitive conclusions about what their findings mean, except to say that more research is required. More.

But then we really don’t know what consciousness is anyway. Keep the file open.

See also: Neuroscience tried wholly embracing naturalism, but then the brain got away

Would we give up naturalism to solve the hard problem of consciousness?

and

What great physicists have said about immateriality and consciousness

Follow UD News at Twitter!

Comments

Leave a Reply