Topics Death

Question Death is widely considered to be the permanent and irreversible end to life. So would you consider someone who died in the present day and was cryogenically frozen and bought back to life to have ever been dead? What are the implications for how we define death?

Accepted:
January 14, 2006

Comments

Death is not only considered to be the permanent and irreversible end to life, it is the permanent and irreversible end to life. Thus, it is not possible for someone who died in the present day to be cryogenically frozen and bought back to life. But it is certainly possible for someone who we have considered to have died in the present day to be cryogenically frozen and later to have been shown not to have died at all, but simply to have been in a cryogenic coma.

However, if people who we have considered to have died in the present day were cryogenically frozen and and later to have been shown not to have died at all, but simply to have been in a cryogenic coma, this would have very serious implications. Reading of wills and other social practices, such as stopping social security payments, that depend on a person having died would have to be changed. It is possible that someone who was declared dead by the current criteria, would thereby be treated, for all social purposes as if he were dead, no matter whether he was cryogenically frozen and later thawed and regained consciousness.

Given the criteria we now have for death, which is not merely the stopping of cardiopulmonary functions, but the permanent cessation of the functions of the entire brain, it is not good science fiction to imagine that someone properly declared to be dead was not actually dead but only in a cryogenic coma.

Question Death is widely considered to be the permanent and irreversible end to life. So would you consider someone who died in the present day and was cryogenically frozen and bought back to life to have ever been dead? What are the implications for how we define death? Accepted:January 14, 2006

Question Death is widely considered to be the permanent and irreversible end to life. So would you consider someone who died in the present day and was cryogenically frozen and bought back to life to have ever been dead? What are the implications for how we define death?

Accepted:
January 14, 2006