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I dissected the dead in med school, and I've worked as a TA in anatomy class afterwards. Several close family members have died recently. I cared for my mother
by Udo 11y ago
I dissected the dead in med school, and I've worked as a TA in anatomy class afterwards. Several close family members have died recently. I cared for my mother when she became terminally ill, and ultimately had to watch her die. I had my share of contact with death, and I'm only prefacing this to show where I'm coming from.
When a person dies, what made them a person is suddenly gone. What remains is a lifeless shell. I never saw a dead body that looked like it was "just sleeping". It may sound callous to some, but dead people are not people. It's a little bit different in the US though, compared to the EU, where I come from. Over here, funeral homes do not go to heroic lengths in order to cosmetically make a dead body appear lifelike again. But overall I stand by my opinion that it takes an extraordinary effort to look at the dead and not see that the person who lived there is not inside anymore.
Contrast this to the article, where dead people are being talked about as if they were still alive. I suspect these wishes of taking care of dead bodies of loved ones comes from an inability to recognize what death actually is. To me, passages of this article read as if the dead somehow required nursing and comfort.
There are many good reasons why it's a good idea to use the services funeral homes provide. First off, I am very suspicious that following such a huge loss, handling the dead body of a relative is a good idea psychologically. I am very grateful I did not have to do this when family members died. Even in cultures where families are expected to take care of their own dead, usually outside people from the village come in to help with the actual process.
Most importantly though, a lot of dead bodies pose a public health risk, especially those of older people with a history of hospitalization. I would be very concerned about multiresistant infections such as MRSA. It's not safe for family members to handle these bodies.
- anonmeow 11y ago>When a person dies, what made them a person is suddenly gone. What remains is a lifeless shell This is a quite convenient thought conforming to our current pro-death culture. Information that is stored in the cell connection structure of the mammal brain isn't irreversibly destroyed at the moment of death, as one of the many similar studies shows [1] . There are existing methods to preserve some (possibly large) part of this information lots of HN readers have probably heard about. Knowing these facts and being really honest with ourselves we will have to conclude that the final death of the individual occurs when this information-storing fine tissue structure of him disintegrates into unstructured matter. The question becomes then - who, by his indifference or by his profession lets this disintegration process run to its end. Perhaps future generations will look down on us for perpetuating such barbaric customs that lead to rotting of uncountable millions of people into nothingness. 1. http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v521/n7552/full/nature14225.html http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v521/n7552/full/nature1...
- hobarrera 11y ago> Information that is stored in the cell connection structure of the mammal brain isn't irreversibly destroyed at the moment of death, as one of the many similar studies shows That's irrelevant. We cannot access that information, so it's presence makes no difference. Once I die, all that's left to humanity at that point is a bunch of meat which I used to control. I can no longer do it, and while most of who I was is probably still stored there, nobody can access it, so either burning the body, or eating it, or whatever makes no difference. IMHO, bodies of the dead should be treated as resources. People need to learn to cope with death, since we're not cavemen any more, and we can't still believe treating the body differently will change that (at least not until we have a lot more tech).
- Udo 11y agoBoy am I the wrong person to attack on this. I'm absolutely with you on the idea that we should be working harder on preserving, restoring, and - where possible - functionally reconstituting viable brains (of people who wish it). As a tangent, because the context applies: I would be totally fine, in fact I would prefer it, to wake up one day having changed substrate from biological matter to living in silico. However, most people would absolutely not be. I know for a fact that my mother and grandmother would have been horrified by the mere suggestion. It's not for everybody, but at the same time I believe it's exceptionally important to have that option as an individual.
- astazangasta 11y agoOn the other hand, we know that just a few minutes of hypoxia produces irreversible brain damage. The brain is a delicate organ and begins decaying immediately at the point of death, with massive loss of information.
- Udo 11y agoYes and no. Most hypoxic brain damage occurs in the form of re-perfusion injuries. If that cascade could somehow be halted, prolonged anoxic episodes would not necessarily lead to the cell death landslides we see today after strokes and cardiac arrests. While anoxia most certainly depolarizes the whole structure, leading to the loss of whatever is currently in short term memory, the more permanent structures of the brain should survive episodes of maybe an hour or more, if we could only stop the apoptosis triggers from happening as soon as blood flow is restored.