"He suggested using the newly invented stethoscope to listen for a heartbeat – if the doctor didn’t hear anything for two minutes, they could be safely buried."
"An electrical engineer from Brooklyn, New York, had been investigating why people die after they’ve been electrocuted – and wondered if the right voltage might also jolt them back to life."
"Starting in the 1950s, doctors across the globe began discovering that some of their patients, who they had previously considered only comatose, in fact had no brain activity at all."
"They had discovered the ‘beating-heart cadavers’, people whose bodies were alive though their brains were dead."
"In some cases, their hearts kept beating and their organs kept functioning for a further 14 years – for one cadaver, this strange afterlife lasted two decades."
Now... If the brain were dead (by my understanding of a 'dead' organ - its cells have died), wouldn't the brain start either decomposing or being absorbed by the body? If that happens, it's a pretty clear indication that the brain is truly dead. But if it doesn't happen, doesn't that mean the brain cells are still alive (just not communicating for some reason)? And in that case (living cells with a blank EEG), couldn't there be a way to jump-start their communication, as was previously discovered with hearts?
I'm sure that I'm completely ignorant of some critical factor, and look forward to your thorough discussion of it...