Can we claim that I am still alive partly through my body parts?

Discussion in 'General Science & Technology' started by plakhapate, Sep 19, 2007.

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  1. plakhapate

    plakhapate Banned Banned

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    When I donate my various parts after my death they become active again.

    That means although I am dead some parts of my body remain alive with the help of some other existing body.

    Under such condition how can I be fully dead ?

    I am still partly alive.

    Can we claim that I am still alive partly through my body parts?

    Pls comment .

    P.J.LAKHAPATE
    plakhapate@rediffmail.com
     
    plakhapate, Sep 19, 2007
    #1

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  3. draqon

    draqon Banned Banned

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    consciousness is when you are alive or dead. Schiavo had all her body working...but had no consciousness.
     
    draqon, Sep 19, 2007
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  5. Ripley

    Ripley ⁠ Valued Senior Member

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    You're claiming various anatomical portions as representations of Self? and that Self persists within them? hence you're suggesting that Self splinters and survives for as long as those parts breath? Gory thought.

    This would also suggest that the Self is tethered to the Body, or that the Body dominates the Self (since it won't let it go). But mind you, there is a relationship between Body and Self. Yet, on the other hand, if one becomes brain-dead, the Self will no longer manifest. So I doubt that you, as an identity, will remain alive after your brain ceases to tick.
     
    Ripley, Sep 19, 2007
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  7. draqon

    draqon Banned Banned

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    brain is the only part of the body that is able to capture the essence of consciousness or self...and even brain has parts that are truly responsible for self and consciousness...
     
    draqon, Sep 19, 2007
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  8. Ripley

    Ripley ⁠ Valued Senior Member

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    Well I should think so. Lol.
     
    Ripley, Sep 19, 2007
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  9. redarmy11

    redarmy11 Registered Senior Member

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    Yes.

    http://www.newmediaexplorer.org/chr...ns_also_transplant_the_donors_personality.htm

    http://www.mountainman.com.au/news98_j.htm

    http://www.researchfellow.net/ftopic240.html

    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/li...ain.html?in_article_id=381589&in_page_id=1774

     
    redarmy11, Sep 19, 2007
    #6
  10. spuriousmonkey

    spuriousmonkey Banned Banned

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    Unless you donate your testicles you are dead meat.
     
    spuriousmonkey, Sep 19, 2007
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  11. Fraggle Rocker

    Fraggle Rocker Staff Member

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    Your body is just a collection of atoms like every other object in the universe. Your body can be kept "alive" under certain circumstances, by providing artificial life support. Generally this requires keeping the circulatory, pulmonary and excretory systems working, and providing nourishment intravenously or by intubation. This definition of "alive" merely means that the tissues retain their organization and do not become necrotic--which is a fancy-schmancy word for "dead"--allowing decomposition to begin.

    If various pieces of your body are separated and attached to other people's bodies, then those pieces can be thought of as still "alive." However, the regeneration process in the other body may begin to replace your cells with cells manufactured from the other person's DNA, so eventually there might not be much of your body left. (I'm not a cellular biologist so I may be wrong about that. Maybe the cells are reproduced from the DNA in the old cells, rather that the DNA in the blood cells that fuel regeneration.)

    However, "you" are not your body, or more precisely: you transcend your body. You are not so much the physical organization of the cells, but the chemical and electrical organization of the synapses in your brain. This is where the processes that comprise your instinct, personality, cognition, memories, dreams, etc. all take place. "You" are a virtual construct, not a physical one.

    As soon as that chemical and electrical organization is irretrievably dissipated, "you" cease to exist. This occurs within five minutes of the blood supply to your brain being interrupted--or instantly in the case of destructive head trauma like a large gunshot wound or a fall from an airplane. At that point all that is left is the atoms: the physical body. The organization of that body's brain that was "you" is dead, even if the body itself can be kept "alive" by technology.

    Primitive people who place enormous value on the body of a dead loved one--and we're almost all primitive in that regard to a certain extent, I shouldn't be picking on anyone here--are desperately hanging onto the physical construct which can be seen and {yuck) touched. This is a way of making death appear to be a gradual process, rather than being irreversibly completed in a few minutes. This gives them time to grieve, time to perform various rites of passage with the illusion that the dead person is participating.
     
    Fraggle Rocker, Sep 19, 2007
    #8
  12. river-wind

    river-wind Valued Senior Member

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    The classic question: is a ship, which has over the years had every plank replaced with a new plank, still the same ship? There is no point where you can say "as of this second it is no longer the old ship", but there is also no material from the original ship in the final version.

    Are you that which makes you? Are you your design? Are you the continuity of the shape/idea in space/time? Are you, as Fraggle Rocker suggests, the chemical and electrical pattern that is unique to your personality?
     
    river-wind, Sep 19, 2007
    #9
  13. Fraggle Rocker

    Fraggle Rocker Staff Member

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    But the materials that make up my physical body are irrelevant to who I am. Only a small subset of the population like actors, singers and athletes have a major part of their identity invested in their physical attributes such as appearance, voice or musculature. I daresay the rest of us would quickly get used to having our cognitive functionality--both conscious and unconscious--transfered to a different body, within broad parameters of comfort and familiarity such as gender, state of health, and vocal muscles toned for a specific language.
    Ask yourself! If I downloaded your personality, memories, volitions, etc. to a storage device and uploaded those of someone else into your brain, where would "you" be? In your former body, or in the storage device waiting for a new one?

    Our culture allows for various levels of "life." Without having to buy in to religious folderol, it is valid to say that "Beethoven's spirit lives on" in his music. But the actual person, Beethoven himself, is long dead.
     
    Fraggle Rocker, Sep 19, 2007
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  14. river-wind

    river-wind Valued Senior Member

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    Are the electrical and chemical patterns all that determine Self?

    If so, then aren't those forms just as physical as a person's nose, or bicep?
     
    river-wind, Sep 19, 2007
    #11
  15. cosmictraveler

    cosmictraveler Be kind to yourself always. Valued Senior Member

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    No because your body has died as a whole and its parts can't be any longer a part of your dead body to carry out anything that your body as a whole once did.
     
    cosmictraveler, Sep 19, 2007
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  16. Ripley

    Ripley ⁠ Valued Senior Member

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    Throwing a wrench into this:

    Personality is an extension of self, correct? I live quite harmoniously as a messy person; my home has a distinguishable impromptu feel to it, capricious but not aimless, subdued but not colorless. When I'm not in, there's no doubt that who ever lives there is anybody but me—yet, my body is much more intimately involved as an extension to my personality. So likewise, personality is also residue.
     
    Last edited: Sep 19, 2007
    Ripley, Sep 19, 2007
    #13
  17. draqon

    draqon Banned Banned

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    just have sex, get a baby...with your dna in it...die and you will be that baby and will feel as though it was your consciousness, and baby will feel like it is his/her consciousness, and your wife/husband will feel like it is their consciousness. Number 3...comes from this...3 souls in one.
     
    draqon, Sep 19, 2007
    #14
  18. Baron Max

    Baron Max Registered Senior Member

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    Anyone can "claim" anything that they want any time they want, but that doesn't make it true or factual.

    Baron Max
     
    Baron Max, Sep 19, 2007
    #15
  19. Avatar

    Avatar smoking revolver Valued Senior Member

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    Depends on your definition of I, i.e., what do you associate yourself with.
     
    Avatar, Sep 19, 2007
    #16
  20. draqon

    draqon Banned Banned

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    self recognition in the world and free will from choices unique to me
     
    draqon, Sep 19, 2007
    #17
  21. river-wind

    river-wind Valued Senior Member

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    so you assume free will as a core feature of your own existence?
     
    river-wind, Sep 19, 2007
    #18
  22. spidergoat

    spidergoat pubic diorama Valued Senior Member

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    I would say that you do live on through your body parts, including ovaries and sperm. In that sense, we are immortal.
     
    spidergoat, Sep 19, 2007
    #19
  23. draqon

    draqon Banned Banned

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    and yours and everyone else's
     
    draqon, Sep 19, 2007
    #20
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