How dead is dead?

"participants were also asked to rate how religious they were."

If this was the exact wording of the question, I think they should have instead asked people to rate to what extent they believe in a soul. It's not very fashionable (especially in NY) to describe oneself as 'religious', but a great many people who will tell you 'I'm not religious' still believe in souls, heaven, angels, etc.

Well, the clear thing at least is that people seem to understand the difference between medically dead and information-theoretical dead, and possibly soul-dead. I'm wondering what the results would be if they cremated the medically dead guy instead of buried him. At the very least even religious people seem to think what a person is rests in a brain. Now on to the next set of steps to try and get people to sign up for cryonics...

Perhaps it's not a case of people really believing that dead people have more cognitive abilities than the "living". This again is one of those tricky morality/judgement issues which is far beyond the scope of this simple survey. Perhaps the cognition rating was more in a social context. Death, is a very critical part of live. It's almost a rite of passage in some ways. After death, you leave behind your legacy. If you're a leader, a successor might pick up the torch and rally the troops in your memory, so in that sense, a dead person's memory/personality may be more "alive" than one in a persistent vegetative state. Case and point, Ariel Sharon. (I mean no offense to him) Had he passed on, it may even have energized his party/cause etc. Instead, being in a coma has actually been worse for him. It's hard to inspire others in the "memory of" when that person is still breathing. Even worse, when someone comes around, their cause, work etc may no longer be relevant if it's after a very prolonged period of time. I think the article oversimplifies the issue. Chalking it up to "religious" and trying to correlate that with people thoughts seem rather random. Perhaps "religious" people may be thinking more from a societal context? Nevertheless, if this is a serious effort, I hope they have follow up articles with more data that really helps identify this. It's not just an interesting topic in that it defines death, but it reveals more about the inner workings of the more complex parts of our cognitive system and how we develop our "values" (no pun intended).

Someone in the comments made a good point:

People saw the vegetative David as "asleep" so, does not have the ability perform any of those mental tasks, while religious people see the soul of dead David still there, and "agree" the dead David could still perform those mental tasks.

"In another, he died. In the third, his entire brain was destroyed except for one part that kept him breathing."

Maybe the choice of words used is significant. On popular tv there are now shows featuring people who had "technically" died but were later brought back from the dead. When something is destroyed, however, it is gone.

The choice given to interviewees reminds me, for some reason, of the childhood riddle, 'Would you rather be nearly drowned or nearly saved?'

To echo one of the reader comments, perhaps this says more about the capabilities of the living than about those of the dead.

"That those who do not are inclined to do so unless heavily prompted not to is curious indeed."

What a confusing way of ending an article. It would translate into Ruby to something like this:

def ascribe_mental_acuity_to_the_dead?

  true

  unless believe_in_after_life

    false if heavily_prompted_not_to_believe_in_after_life

  end

end

I now understand why people choose Euthanasia It makes them "less dead" actually

I would think the subject of "what is life" is too subjective to chart onto a simple line graph.

They should have added an option where David died while being in vegetative state.

Must be the fault of Twilight. It is practically a given these days that dead people continue to roam the world as vampires, and in fact have more fun than living people.