A brain dead body isn’t a person, but that doesn’t make it a corpse. All the biological functions continue. The ATP cycle continues. The body takes in nutrients and uses them to maintain their normal biological functions. Corpses don’t do that.
Actually we do have a pretty solid biological definition for life.
That which takes in nutrients, processes them to support itself, and expells waste products. Anything that dose those things is life. That’s why viruses aren’t considered alive. They don’t do those things.
The person part you’re right, is more philosophical. I only mention it because it seems to better fit what people are calling “dead” in this case.
which takes in nutrients, processes them to support itself, and expells waste products.
Is fire alive? it takes in nutrients (Hydro carbons+oxygens), reacts them to support itself, and expells waste products (CO2+water), in fact, that’s the same input and output as many organisms. Is fire a living organisms?
you missed growth (also fire)
and reproduction (also fire, but also problematic as it means a single rabbit isn’t alive but a couple are)
BTW, not an appeal to authority, just a notice that I might know what I’m talking about. I have a PhD in biology.
there are more interesting candidates for life definition, Dawkins considered that maybe the question is a waste of time and what matters is the genetic unit, “living things” are just things that spread genetic material.
Others theories are based on chaos theory, thermodynamic cascades,matter/energy waves…
“Is brain death death” and “is a brain-dead person a corpse” are two different questions. The answer to the first is yes, the second is no. You can be dead, but until your body starts decomposing it’s not a corpse.
That’s simply not correct. A corpse would have more rights to autonomy. You can’t force a corpse to donate life saving organs, but you can make a woman.
brain dead is considered dead.
no matter if cells still have atp.
it’s a corpse.
there’s no biological definition for human death. besides a vague “is it curable”
death used to be cardiac death, but we figured out how to save people who had cardiac death, so we move the goalpost to brain death.
If brain dead is dead bacteria are dead.
A brain dead body isn’t a person, but that doesn’t make it a corpse. All the biological functions continue. The ATP cycle continues. The body takes in nutrients and uses them to maintain their normal biological functions. Corpses don’t do that.
that isn’t biology, it’s philosophy.
we don’t have a good definition of What’s alive either
Actually we do have a pretty solid biological definition for life.
That which takes in nutrients, processes them to support itself, and expells waste products. Anything that dose those things is life. That’s why viruses aren’t considered alive. They don’t do those things.
The person part you’re right, is more philosophical. I only mention it because it seems to better fit what people are calling “dead” in this case.
OK, spores aren’t alive. dissecated watebears aren’t alive
the highschool definition isnt used by biologists because it’s oversimplified and doesn’t hold up to the diversity of life.
All of that is true.
None if it refutes anything I’m saying.
the things I mentioned have no metabolism, don’t absorb nutrients, and don’t excrete.
by your definition they are dead.
Right. So?
Is fire alive? it takes in nutrients (Hydro carbons+oxygens), reacts them to support itself, and expells waste products (CO2+water), in fact, that’s the same input and output as many organisms. Is fire a living organisms?
you missed growth (also fire)
and reproduction (also fire, but also problematic as it means a single rabbit isn’t alive but a couple are)
BTW, not an appeal to authority, just a notice that I might know what I’m talking about. I have a PhD in biology.
there are more interesting candidates for life definition, Dawkins considered that maybe the question is a waste of time and what matters is the genetic unit, “living things” are just things that spread genetic material.
Others theories are based on chaos theory, thermodynamic cascades,matter/energy waves…
the things I mentioned have no metabolism, don’t absorb nutrients, and don’t excrete.
by your definition they are dead.
It’s literally not a corpse, it’s a brain-dead person / body.
You started this debate with Steve by using sensationalizing language, and I’m here to provide definitions and lay this discussion to rest:
https://www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/definition/english/brain-dead?q=Braindead
https://www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/definition/english/corpse?q=Corpse
We can all agree that what they’ve done is horrible, there’s no need to distort language to make a point.
A corpse can not carry a pregnancy, a brain-dead body apparently can if assisted.
I’ll see myself out.
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4206160/
“Is brain death death” and “is a brain-dead person a corpse” are two different questions. The answer to the first is yes, the second is no. You can be dead, but until your body starts decomposing it’s not a corpse.
That’s simply not correct. A corpse would have more rights to autonomy. You can’t force a corpse to donate life saving organs, but you can make a woman.