17 April 2021

You worked in the outback, raking and then spraying to kill the many thicket bushes starting to come back; other natural foliage is welcome to return. You notice that I prefer the ariel typeset rather than the script type this time around. You likewise changed your habit. Subtle but effective, I imagine. - Amorella

2123 hrs. The less casual and laidback style has gone to the wayside. Where have you been this last year? 

You survived without my presence. The passion left and has not returned; it has with anecdotal evidence been 'burned away' (with a memorable wink to Wilder's "Our Town"). 

2212 hrs. I did not consciously remember "burned away," but it sounds authentic. I did some checking. 

** **

Our Town
Thornton Wilder

THE STORY continued

ACT III

NOTE: According to Wilder's stage directions, the dead "do not turn their heads or their eyes to the right or left, but they sit in a quiet without stiffness. When they speak, their tone is a matter of fact, without sentimentality." Wilder wants the audience to notice that the dead have lost their emotional attachment to the living. Later, you will understand that even this becomes a comment on what it means to be alive. 

The Stage Manager takes up his usual position, and when the house lights go down, he begins to speak. Nine years have gone by this time. And this is a different part of Grover's Corners, "an important part," on a hilltop. He talks about the beauty of the setting and points out the oldest graves belonging to the "strong-minded" settlers. Genealogists, paid by people who want to be certain they have colonial ancestors, visit the graves. "Wherever you come near the human race, there's layers and layers of nonsense," he says. Then he points out the Civil War veterans. "New Hampshire boys... had a notion that the Union ought to be kept together, though they'd never seen more than fifty miles of it themselves... And they went and died about it." 

Wilder is pointing out that humans are both silly and noble. There is no such thing as "either/or" when it comes to an understanding the human race. It contains all possibilities. 

Finally, the Stage Manager points to the actors sitting on chairs. Mrs. Gibbs, who worried so much about her husband, is dead. So are Simon Stimson, Mrs. Soames, and Wally Webb. 

NOTE: At the beginning of the play, the Stage Manager mentioned the deaths of several characters, including Mrs. Gibbs. It wasn't upsetting because you hadn't met them yet. And he didn't talk about every character's death. Now, learning about the death of Mrs. Gibbs and of Wally causes a pang. You've met them. They aren't just names anymore. Why do you think Wilder has done this? You may recall the question, "How's it going to end?" Wilder wants you to realize that most people go through life asking such questions when they know the answer perfectly well. Everyone is going to die. Yet, everyone acts as if death is unexpected. 

Wilder uses the Stage Manager to state some other beliefs. "We all know that something is eternal. And it ain't houses, and it ain't names... That something has to do with human beings." There is, he says, something within each one of us that lives on beyond our own life force. Is he talking about the soul? The Stage Manager says that all the great thinkers have been saying it throughout history, but people have trouble remembering the idea. "We all know," says the Stage Manager. Is he right? Do we all know? Does Wilder think we all know? 

NOTE: Wilder has been accused of being too much like a teacher, hitting you over the head with his message. Do you think this is a valid criticism? Or is the sugarcoating of humor and emotion thick enough to make the message go down easily? Or is Wilder raising questions rather than insisting on certain answers? 

In one of the most lyrical passages in the play, the Stage Manager describes how the "earth part" of people has burned away after death, and the "eternal part" comes out. The part that attaches people to the earth, memory and personal identity, has to disappear. (This is why the actors in the chairs speak and behave passively. The earth part of them is burning out.) It is not that the dead cease to care about the living; they hardly remember what it was to be alive. Do you suppose that this is the perfection that people talked about earlier in the play?   . . .

Selected from - http://pinkmonkey.com/booknotes/barrons/ourtownx.asp

** **

2221 hrs. Are you suggesting this bolded concept should be a set piece for this autobiography?

Yes. You will move from Caesar to Wilder at this point. - Amorella

1026 hrs. Interesting. The tone of thinking here appears at a higher, more intellectual, and consciously stable level. I cannot be doing this without your guidance. The tone carried is that while writing, I am among Wilder's dead in the play.

As you wish, you are the writer. - Amorella '

1039 hrs. Upon your return to the Notes on 14 April, you said, "Who to better play the guardian Angel than me, Amorella?"

My tonal construction will be similar to that of the Stage Manager in Wilder's play. You will be more comfortable seeing me in this light. - Amorella

1050 hrs. I am glad I am sharing this with Fritz. I am not comfortable not sharing. 

At present, let's share with Fritz and on the blog. - Amorella

2257 hrs. Strange, I don't think of the blog as a sharing because no one reads it anyway. 

You are a very private man; there is no need to exploit that. Send this on to Fritz. He is a very private man also. - Amorella

* * *

 * * *

16 April 2021

1056 hrs. Translation:

** **

Gallic War by Julius Caesar 

Loeb Classical Library 1917

 

https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Caesar/Gallic_War/1A*.html

 

1 Gaul is a whole divided into three parts, one of which is inhabited by the Belgae, another by the Aquitani, and a third by a people called in their own tongue Celtae, in the Latin Galli. All these are different one from another in language, institutions, and laws. The Galli (Gauls) are separated from the Aquitani by the river Garonne, from the Belgae by the Marne and the Seine. Of all these peoples the Belgae are the most courageous, because they are farthest removed from the culture and civilization of the Province, and least often visited by merchants introducing the commodities that make for effeminacy; and also, because they are nearest to the Germans dwelling beyond the Rhine, with whom they are continually at war. For this cause the Helvetii also excel the rest of the Gauls in valour, because they are struggling in almost daily fights with the Germans, either endeavouring to keep them out of Gallic territory or waging an aggressive warfare in German territory. The separate part of the country which, as has been said, is occupied by the Gauls, starts from the river Rhone, and is bounded by the river Garonne, the Ocean, and the territory of the Belgae; moreover, on the side of the Sequani and the Helvetii, it touches on the river Rhine; and its general trend is northward. The Belgae, beginning from the edge of the Gallic territory, reach to the lower part of the river Rhine, bearing towards the north and east. Aquitania, starting from the Garonne, reaches to the Pyrenees and to that part of the Ocean which is by Spain: its bearing is between west and north.

** **

** **

Classic Style: Prose as a Window Into the World

Transcript

The last writing style we’re going to look at is what has been called “classic style”.

It’s quite different from the other styles we’ve looked at, and it’s gotten some buzz recently with the publication of Steven Pinker’s book The Sense of Style, subtitled “the thinking person’s guide to writing in the 21st century”.

In the book he strongly advocates for classic style as an ideal to which academic writers should aspire. . ..

Classic Style

The model scene for classic style is one person speaking to another, a conversation between equals.

The writer uses prose as a window to describe a world, and to draw attention to the objects and actions going on within this world.

The assertions, the claims that the writer wants to make, are depicted in this world, and the writer tries to get the audience, the reader, to see what is depicted by positioning the reader so that he or she can see what the writer sees.

The writer wants to reveal some truth about the world, and their goal is to get the reader to see this truth, through a conversational dialogue about the world that the writer has created, but that is imaginatively accessible to both of them.

This is the discursive setup for classic style. . ..

Classic style aims at the presentation of an objective, disinterested truth about the world — a truth that can be confirmed by anyone with a suitable background and position to see it.

Second, this is also very different from reflexive style, where the author wants to draw the reader’s attention to the act of writing itself, and to the challenges the writer faces.

The classic writer wants the reader to see through the text — hence the metaphor of a window — into the world depicted by the text, because that’s the subject of the writing, not the writing itself. You don’t want the reader to notice smudges or cracks in the window, or even that the world is being framed by a window — you just want them to pay attention to the scene depicted through the window.

Third, classic style is different from practical style.

Classic and practical style have a common interest in clarity and directness in writing, but they value this for different reasons.

In practical style, clarity is a virtue because its primary goal is to be easily understood by the reader, so that it can help the reader with whatever practical problem they’re facing.

Classic style isn’t concerned with solving a practical problem for the reader.

In classic style we value clarity and simplicity because TRUTH is clear and simple — this is a presupposition of the conceptual stance that grounds classic style. Hence the title of Thomas and Turner’s book on classic style, Clear and Simple as the Truth.

A fourth point I want to note about classic style is that the goal of writing in this style is a kind of performance.

When the writer is able to create this world and successfully lead the reader through the scene, that’s a kind of artfully constructed performance. . ..

The goal of writing in classic style is a kind of performance that presents all truths are expressible and knowable in the way described, that the truths being presented are objective features of the world, and the writer is confident in making these assertions without hedging or qualifying.

But the writer knows that this is a performance, it’s a pretense.

The real writer — you and I, sitting at our laptops struggling to find the right words, we don’t have to believe any of this. But when we choose to write in the classic style, we’re choosing to embrace these fictions, like an actor on stage playing a role, or a musician performing during a concert.

You can be as skeptical and uncertain and philosophically sophisticated as you want in real life, but when writing in the classic mode you hide that skepticism and uncertainty and philosophical sophistication for the sake of presenting a truth in as clear and compelling a way as possible.

Any writing style requires adopting a persona of some kind — this is the persona of the classic writer.

Summary

Here’s a summary of the main points.

• Classic style views prose as a window to the world. 
• The model scene is one where the writer and the reader are in conversation.
• The writer’s goal is to depict a world that presents a truth, and to position the reader in such a way that the reader can see what the writer sees, and thereby confirm the truth that the writer is presenting. 
• Truth is understood to be clear, simple and verifiable. 
• Classic style is a performative style, where it’s understood by the writer that the truth may not be clear or simple, but when writing in the classic mode the writer aims to present truth as clear and simple and verifiable — this the persona that the writer adopts, a presupposition of the conceptual stance that grounds classic style. 

In the next video we’ll look at some examples of classic writing and how classic style can help improve your academic writing.

https://criticalthinkeracademy.com/courses/22120/lectures/315866

** **

1152 hours. On Being Human: A Commentary appears to be a good working title. 

**

Gaul is a whole divided into three parts, one of which is inhabited by the Belgae, another by the Aquitani, and a third by a people called in their own tongue Celtae, in the Latin Galli. All these are different one from another in language, institutions, and laws.

**

Being Human is a whole divided into three parts, one of which is physical, another is spiritual, and a third is the clear consciousness to know the exact difference.

Being Human is divided into three parts: the physical, another is spiritual, and a third is a clear consciousness in understanding the difference.

There you have it, the first sentence of your book, now titled, BEING HUMAN: A COMMENTARY. - Amorella

1212 hrs. Yes, I have a beginning.

Being Human is divided into three parts: the physical, another is spiritual, and a third is a clear consciousness in understanding the difference. This understanding radiates from the combination of the physical brain/body enclosing the measurable physical/emotional heart and rational mind as separate from the attributes of spiritually unmeasurable heartansoulanmind. The concept through this autobiography is to provide a self-study guide to help balance herorhis late-in-life imperfect nature to better personally speculate on how to meet an Afterlife, if indeed, one, or even many, may exist. 

Your Grammarly performance is 100 percent on the above and suggests this work is geared for the college not the high school level reader. 

1254 hrs. The problem I am foreseeing is that the spiritual heartansoulanmind is not verifiable scientifically as such although such subjective evidence is available through observation of self and others. 

Send this to Fritz and post in current blog. - Amorella

 * * *

15 April 2021

Evening. This is Amorella. Put all your material in a new folder titled, 'Jan-Apr.2021.D.Pouch'. Title the new folder: 'AutoBio.Apr.2021'.

0918 hrs. I trust you with this new project Amorella. I prefer the April 2021 Notes begin a new blog as the end of the Miss Havisham Notes Blog. 

Set up a new blog and title - 

* * *

NOTES

Clearing Life's Clutter:

An Auto Bio in Third Person

 

* * *

0936 hrs. Looks good to me.

Post. - Amorella

* * *

Surprise

• April 14, 2021

Wednesday evening. The five flowering bushes were planted along the fence row today by Mr. J. Garcia. You are ever thankful. You are thinking of combining your fiction selections to an autobiography, the fiction reflecting your creative life woven in reality as a matter of course. Your thought is dropping this setting in the first few days of being Dead, the focus of who you were in life - an objectively balanced portrait of your humanity with me, a personification of your soul, as an off-stage guide and perhaps Jadah as an animal spirit guide as well. Perhaps, the book with the title, "A Life Framed in Irony and Dark Humor." - Ms. Havisham.

Who to better play the guardian Angel than me, Amorella? 

1022 hours. This is an unexpected visit. 

Mutual, I'm sure. Post. - Amorella

 * * *

March 17, 2021

 

Mid-morning. You are at L. L. Bean waiting for Carol and Linda after breakfast at Scramblers with Kim. Yesterday while also at Easton, you stopped at Chico's and Tesla (viewing and sitting in the Y Model at the showroom). After this stop, Carol is returning to Chico's for two pairs of jeans. - Ms. Havisham

 

1107 hrs. I need to find a new theme and focus on writing something dear to my heartansoulanmind. Metaphysics (the Living and the Dead) has been my strongest interest. I would like to take the point of view of someone's point of view of dying, dead, and the days to include the burial. 

 

How are you going to show the time-lapse in terms of the dead person? - Ms. H. 

 

1116 hrs. I assume there is no time sense to lapse. Partition by thought event only as there would be no reference. 

 

Habit and memory would demand one for continuity. - Ms. H. 

 

1121 hrs. I could use a single space, double space, or triple space. Something akin to e. e. cummings. 

 

** **

 

E.E. Cummings quotes.  

“It takes courage to grow up and become who you really are.” 

― E.E. Cummings

 

“I carry your heart with me (I carry it in my heart)I am never without it (anywhere
I go you go,my dear; and whatever is done by only me is your doing,my darling)
I fear no fate (for you are my fate,my sweet)I want no world (for beautiful you are my world,my true)
and it's you are whatever a moon has always meant, and whatever a sun will always sing is you

here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud and the sky of a tree called life; which grows
higher than the soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart

I carry your heart (I carry it in my heart)” 

― E.E. Cummings

 

“To be nobody but 
yourself in a world 
which is doing its best day and night to make you like 
everybody else means to fight the hardest battle 
which any human being can fight and never stop fighting.” 

― e. e. cummings

 

“Unbeing dead isn't being alive.” 

― E. E. Cummings

 

“For whatever we lose (like you or me),
It's always our self we find in the sea.” 

― e. e. cummings, 100 Selected Poems

 

“Trust your heart if the seas catch fire, live by love though the stars walk backward.” 

― E.E. Cummings

 

“We do not believe in ourselves until someone reveals that deep inside us something is valuable, worth listening to, worthy of our trust, sacred to our touch. Once we believe in ourselves, we can risk curiosity, wonder, spontaneous delight or any experience that reveals the human spirit.” 

― E.E. Cummings

 

“Whenever you think, or you believe, or you know, you're a lot of other people: but the moment you feel, you're nobody-but-yourself.” 

― e. e. cummings

 

“I will take the sun in my mouth
and leap into the ripe air 
Alive 
with closed eyes
to dash against darkness.” 

― E.E. Cummings, Poems, 1923-1954

 

“Yours is the light by which my spirit's born: - you are my sun, my moon, and all my stars.” 

― e. e. cummings

“I like my body when it is with your
body. It is so quite new a thing.
Muscles better and nerves more.
i like your body. i like what it does,
i like its hows. i like to feel the spine
of your body and its bones, and the trembling
-firm-smooth ness and which i will
again and again and again
kiss, i like kissing this and that of you,
i like, slowly stroking the, shocking fuzz
of your electric fur, and what-is-it comes
over parting flesh ... And eyes big love-crumbs,

and possibly i like the thrill

of under me you so quite new.” 

― e.e. cummings

 

“Lovers alone wear sunlight.” 

― E.E. Cummings

 

“listen: there’s a hell

of a good universe next door; let’s go” 

― E.E. Cummings

 

“and it's you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you” 

― E.E. Cummings

 

“Unless you love someone, nothing else makes sense.” 

― E.E Cummings

 

“I'd rather learn from one bird how to sing 
than teach ten thousand stars how not to dance” 

― E.E. Cummings

 

“I thank you God for this most amazing day, for the leaping greenly spirits of trees, and for the blue dream of sky and for everything which is natural, which is infinite, which is yes.” 

― e. e. cummings

 

“The snow doesn't give a soft white damn whom it touches.” 

― E.E. Cummings

 

“since feeling is first
who pays any attention
to the syntax of things
will never wholly kiss you;

wholly to be a fool
while Spring is in the world

my blood approves,
and kisses are a far better fate
than wisdom
lady i swear by all flowers. Don't cry
--the best gesture of my brain is less than
your eyelids' flutter which says

we are for each other: then
laugh, leaning back in my arms
for life's not a paragraph

And death i think is no parenthesis” 

― E.E. Cummings

 

“The three saddest things are the ill wanting to be well, the poor wanting to be rich, and the constant traveler saying 'anywhere but here'.” 

― E.E. Cummings

 

“somewhere i have never travelled, gladly beyond
any experience, your eyes have their silence:
in your most frail gesture are things which enclose me,
or which i cannot touch because they are too near

your slightest look easily will unclose me
though i have closed myself as fingers,
you open always petal by petal myself as Spring opens
(touching skilfully, mysteriously) her first rose

or if your wish be to close me, i and
my life will shut very beautifully, suddenly,
as when the heart of this flower imagines
the snow carefully everywhere descending;

nothing which we are to perceive in this world equals
the power of your intense fragility: whose texture
compels me with the colour of its countries,
rendering death and forever with each breathing

(i do not know what it is about you that closes
and opens; only something in me understands
the voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses)
nobody, not even the rain, has such small hands” 

― E.E. Cummings, Selected Poems

 

“Love is the voice under all silences, the hope which has no opposite in fear; the strength so strong mere force is feebleness: the truth more first than sun, more last than star...” 

― e. e cummings

 

“may came home with a smooth round stone
as small as a world and as large as alone.” 

― E.E. Cummings

 

“life's not a paragraph
And death i think is no parenthesis” 

― E.E. Cummings

 

“Once we believe in ourselves, we can risk curiosity, wonder, spontaneous delight, or any experience that reveals the human spirit” 

― E.E. Cummings

 

“The world is mud-luscious and puddle-wonderful.” 

― e. e. cummings

 

“i carry your heart with me(i carry it in my heart)” 

― E.E. Cummings, Selected Poems

 

“One's not half of two; two are halves of one.” 

― E.E. Cummings

 

“I like my body when it is with your body. It is so quite new a thing. Muscles better and nerves more.” 

― e. e. Cummings, Selected Poems

 

“anyone lived in a pretty how town
(with up so floating many bells down)
spring summer autumn winter
he sang his didn't he danced his did

Women and men(both little and small)
cared for anyone not at all
they sowed their isn't they reaped their same
sun moon stars rain

children guessed(but only a few
and down they forgot as up they grew
autumn winter spring summer)
that noone loved him more by more

when by now and tree by leaf
she laughed his joy she cried his grief
bird by snow and stir by still
anyone's any was all to her

someones married their everyones
laughed their cryings and did their dance
(sleep wake hope and then)they
said their nevers they slept their dream

stars rain sun moon
(and only the snow can begin to explain
how children are apt to forget to remember
with up so floating many bells down)

one day anyone died i guess
(and noone stooped to kiss his face)
busy folk buried them side by side
little by little and was by was

all by all and deep by deep
and more by more they dream their sleep
noone and anyone earth by april
wish by spirit and if by yes.

Women and men (both dong and ding)
summer autumn winter spring
reaped their sowing and went their came
sun moon stars rain” 

― E. E. Cummings, Selected Poems

 

** **

 

1243 hrs. Home. The best quote to begin with is: 

 

“life's not a paragraph
And death i think is no parenthesis” 

― E.E. Cummings

 

 

Afternoon. Linda, Gayle, Carol, and you had a late lunch at Texas Roadhouse off Polaris Boulevard -- a good time enjoyed by all. - Ms. H. 

 

1645 hrs. Life may not be a paragraph, but life can be a sentence. Death is not a word or phrase inserted as an explanation or afterthought in a passage that is grammatically complete without it; usually bracketed. It seems to me death cannot be defined other than saying that it is the permanent end-of-life process. [Oxford]

 

** **

Death

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Death is the permanent, irreversible cessation of all biological functions that sustain a living organism.^[1] Brain death is sometimes used as a legal definition of death.^[2] The remains of a previously living organism normally begin to decompose shortly after death.^[3] Death is an inevitable, universal process that eventually occurs in all living organisms.

Death is generally applied to whole organisms; the similar process seen in individual components of a living organism, such as cells or tissues, is necrosis. Something that is not considered a living organism, such as a virus, can be physically destroyed but is not said to die.

Problems of definition

The concept of death is a key to human understanding of the phenomenon.^[6] There are many scientific approaches and various interpretations of the concept. Additionally, the advent of life-sustaining therapy and the numerous criteria for defining death from both a medical and legal standpoint have made it difficult to create a single unifying definition.

One of the challenges in defining death is in distinguishing it from life. At a point in time, death would seem to refer to the moment at which life ends. Determining when death has occurred is difficult, as the cessation of life functions is often not simultaneous across organ systems.^[7] Such determination, therefore, requires drawing precise conceptual boundaries between life and death. This is difficult due to there being little consensus on how to define life.

It is possible to define life in terms of consciousness. When consciousness ceases, a living organism can be said to have died. One of the flaws in this approach is that there are many organisms that are alive but probably not conscious (for example, single-celled organisms).

Another problem is in defining consciousness, which has many different definitions given by modern scientists, psychologists, and philosophers. Additionally, many religious traditions, including Abrahamic and Dharmic traditions, hold that death does not (or may not) entail the end of consciousness. In certain cultures, death is more of a process than a single event. It implies a slow shift from one spiritual state to another.

Other definitions for death focus on the character of cessation of something. More specifically, death occurs when a living entity experiences irreversible cessation of all functioning.^[10] As it pertains to human life, death is an irreversible process where someone loses their existence as a person.^[10]

Historically, attempts to define the exact moment of a human's death have been subjective or imprecise. Death was once defined as the cessation of heartbeat (cardiac arrest) and of breathing, but the development of CPR and prompt defibrillation have rendered that definition inadequate because breathing and heartbeat can sometimes be restarted. This type of death where circulatory and respiratory arrest happens is known as the circulatory definition of death (DCDD). Proponents of the DCDD believe that this definition is reasonable because a person with permanent loss of circulatory and respiratory function should be considered dead.^[11] Critics of this definition state that while cessation of these functions may be permanent, it does not mean the situation is irreversible because if CPR was applied, the person could be revived.

Thus, the arguments for and against the DCDD boil down to a matter of defining the actual words "permanent" and "irreversible," which further complicates the challenge of defining death. 

Furthermore, events that were causally linked to death in the past no longer kill in all circumstances; without a functioning heart or lungs, life can sometimes be sustained with a combination of life support devices, organ transplants, and artificial pacemakers.

Today, where a definition of the moment of death is required, doctors and coroners usually turn to "brain death" or "biological death" to define a person as being dead; people are considered dead when the electrical activity in their brain ceases. It is presumed that an end of electrical activity indicates the end of consciousness. Suspension of consciousness must be permanent and not transient, as occurs during certain sleep stages, and especially a coma. In the case of sleep, EEGs can easily tell the difference.

The category of "brain death" is seen as problematic by some scholars. For instance, Dr. Franklin Miller, a senior faculty member at the Department of Bioethics, National Institutes of Health, notes: "By the late 1990s... the equation of brain death with the death of the human being was increasingly challenged by scholars, based on evidence regarding the array of biological functioning displayed by patients correctly diagnosed as having this condition who were maintained on mechanical ventilation for substantial periods of time. These patients maintained the ability to sustain circulation and respiration, control temperature, excrete wastes, heal wounds, fight infections, and, most dramatically, to gestate fetuses (in the case of pregnant "brain-dead" women)."^[12]

While "brain death" is viewed as problematic by some scholars, there are certainly proponents of it that believe this definition of death is the most reasonable for distinguishing life from death. The reasoning behind the support for this definition is that brain death has a set of criteria that is reliable and reproducible.^[13] Also, the brain is crucial in determining our identity or who we are as human beings. The distinction should be made that "brain death" cannot be equated with one who is in a vegetative state or coma, in that the former situation describes a state that is beyond recovery.^[13]

Those people maintaining that only the neocortex of the brain is necessary for consciousness sometimes argue that only electrical activity should be considered when defining death. Eventually, it is possible that the criterion for death will be the permanent and irreversible loss of cognitive function, as evidenced by the death of the cerebral cortex. All hope of recovering human thought and personality is then gone given current and foreseeable medical technology. At present, in most places, the more conservative definition of death – irreversible cessation of electrical activity in the whole brain, as opposed to just in the neo-cortex – has been adopted (for example, the Uniform Determination Of Death Act in the United States). In 2005, the Terri Schiavo case brought the question of brain death and artificial sustenance to the front of American politics.

Even by whole-brain criteria, the determination of brain death can be complicated. EEGs can detect spurious electrical impulses, while certain drugs, hypoglycemia, hypoxia, or hypothermia, can suppress or even stop brain activity on a temporary basis. Because of this, hospitals have protocols for determining brain death involving EEGs at widely separated intervals under defined conditions.

In the past, the adoption of this whole-brain definition was a conclusion of the President's Commission for the Study of Ethical Problems in Medicine and Biomedical and Behavioral Research in 1980.^[14] They concluded that this approach to defining death sufficed in reaching a uniform definition nationwide. A multitude of reasons was presented to support this definition, including uniformity of standards in law for establishing death; consumption of a family's fiscal resources for artificial life support; and legal establishment for equating brain death with death in order to proceed with organ donation.^[15]

Aside from the issue of support of or dispute against brain death, there is another inherent problem in this categorical definition: the variability of its application in medical practice. In 1995, the American Academy of Neurology (AAN) established a set of criteria that became the medical standard for diagnosing neurologic death. At that time, three clinical features had to be satisfied in order to determine "irreversible cessation" of the total brain, including coma with clear etiology, cessation of breathing, and lack of brainstem reflexes.^[16] This set of criteria was then updated again, most recently in 2010, but substantial discrepancies still remain across hospitals and medical specialties.^[16]

The problem of defining death is especially imperative as it pertains to the dead donor rule, which could be understood as one of the following interpretations of the rule: there must be an official declaration of death in a person before starting organ procurement, or that organ procurement cannot result in the death of the donor.^[11] A great deal of controversy has surrounded the definition of death and the dead donor rule. Advocates of the rule believe the rule is legitimate in protecting organ donors while also countering against any moral or legal objection to organ procurement. Critics, on the other hand, believe that the rule does not uphold the best interests of the donors and that the rule does not effectively promote organ donation. 

Signs

Signs of death or strong indications that a warm-blooded animal is no longer alive are:

·       Respiratory arrest (no breathing)

·       Cardiac arrest (no pulse)

·       Brain death (no neuronal activity)

The stages that follow after death are:

·       Pallor Mortis, paleness which happens in the 15–120 minutes after death

·       Algor mortis, the reduction in body temperature following death. This is generally a steady decline until matching ambient temperature

·       Rigor mortis, the limbs of the corpse become stiff (Latin rigor) and difficult to move or manipulate

·       Livor mortis, a settling of the blood in the lower (dependent) portion of the body

·       Putrefaction, the beginning signs of decomposition

·       Decomposition, the reduction into simpler forms of matter, accompanied by a strong, unpleasant odor.

·       Skeletonization, the end of decomposition, where all soft tissues have decomposed, leaving only the skeleton.

·       Fossilization, the natural preservation of the skeletal remains formed over a very long period

Legal

The death of a person has legal consequences that may vary between different jurisdictions. A death certificate is issued in most jurisdictions, either by a doctor or by an administrative office, upon presentation of a doctor's declaration of death.

Misdiagnosed

There are many anecdotal references to people being declared dead by physicians and then "coming back to life," sometimes days later in their own coffin or when embalming procedures are about to begin. From the mid-18th century onwards, there was an upsurge in the public's fear of being mistakenly buried alive ^[17] and much debate about the uncertainty of the signs of death. Various suggestions were made to test for signs of life before burial, ranging from pouring vinegar and pepper into the corpse's mouth to applying red hot pokers to the feet or into the rectum.^[18] Writing in 1895, the physician J.C. Ouseley claimed that as many as 2,700 people were buried each year prematurely in England and Wales, although others estimated the figure to be closer to 800.^[19]

In cases of electric shock, cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) for an hour or longer can allow stunned nerves to recover, allowing an apparently dead person to survive. People found unconscious under icy water may survive if their faces are kept continuously cold until they arrive at an emergency room.^[20] This "diving response," in which metabolic activity and oxygen requirements are minimal, is something humans share with cetaceans called the mammalian diving reflex.^[20]

As medical technologies advance, ideas about when death occurs may have to be re-evaluated in light of the ability to restore a person to vitality after longer periods of apparent death (as happened when CPR and defibrillation showed that cessation of heartbeat is inadequate as a decisive indicator of death). The lack of electrical brain activity may not be enough to consider someone scientifically dead. Therefore, the concept of information-theoretic death^[21] has been suggested as a better means of defining when true death occurs, though the concept has few practical applications outside the field of cryonics.

There have been some scientific attempts to bring dead organisms back to life, but with limited success. In science fiction scenarios where such technology is readily available, real death is distinguished from reversible death.

 

Selected and edited from Wikipedia

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1802 hrs. This is interesting in that the main character has to be shown to the reader as dying and then substantially dead through definition.