X-Message-Number: 6133
Date: Tue, 30 Apr 1996 21:07:32 -0700
From: Tim Freeman <>
Subject: Causeless comas

I was reading Tech Heaven recently, a science fiction novel.  In
passing, the novel mentioned an attempt to revive a cryonics patient
that failed for no reason that was understood; the body and brain had
been repaired fully, but nevertheless the person just laid there and
didn't do anything.  The person who is successfully revived in the
story has a long violent dream sequence while he was frozen where he
is never quite defeated.  I presume the author wanted us to conclude
that the person who just laid there had been defeated while frozen,
and had no living soul left to occupy the repaired body.

In a conversation with a Catholic who will surely die and rot some day
(this is a shame, since I like the guy), he opined that by the time
the relevant technology comes the souls will be gone from the cryonics
patients, leaving all of the repaired cryonics patients in the same
state of the failed revival described in Tech Heaven.

I personally don't believe in souls.  However, it would be comforting
to be able to prove these people wrong.  If souls can be separated
from living bodies leaving a living body that is in a coma for no
medical reason, then this must happen occasionally nowadays.

Do people ever go into comas where there is no detectable medical
cause?

Tim Freeman


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