X-Message-Number: 7143
From:  (Kenton E. Sinner)
Newsgroups: sci.cryonics
Subject: Definitions
Date: 16 Nov 1996 03:49:21 GMT
Message-ID: <56jdk1$>

A lot of argument that I have seen on this group recently seems to be
a case of conflicting definitions.  Some cryonicists define death
as *permanent* cessation of function.  So cryonics patients are not
really dead.  This leads to conflicts with legal definitions and
traditional definitions of death since people can't agree on what
is and is not permanent.  The problem is that if death is defined
in this way, we can't say if someone is dead or not because that
would require knowing what was going to happen to the person in
the future.

I suggest the following:  that we use the term "dead" to refer to
what it traditionally means, which is cessation of function, as in
a dead battery, but we sever the implied permanence into a seperate
concept.  So we will have two concepts to what might happen to a person
who suffers severe damage: death and dissolution.  Death is the cessation
of function, which implies no permanence whatsoever.  Dissolution is
what happens after death in the absence of intervention, and *is*
permenant, since it involves loss of *pattern*.

What this means is this:  when someone's vital signs stop, as in
cases of hypothermia, the person is dead, but may be revived if
proper care is given.

If proper care is not given, death is followed by dissolution, which
cannot be reversed (according to our present understanding, at least).

We must not confuse these two concepts, nor allow the general public
to equate them.  Death is reversible, dissolution is not.

On another note, how about this definition of life:  Life is a local
entropy minimum, whose structure includes mechanisms to maintain
its pattern, and possibly propogate or reproduce its information.


--
Ken Sinner =*= 
"Don't blame me, I voted for Kodos!" -- H. Simpson
"It ain't what we don't know that gets us into trouble, as much as what we
do know that ain't so." -- Will Rogers (I think)
=*=*= Please do not send unsolicited marketing email to this account. =*=*=


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