Comment by thebigshane | Hacker News Reader

Comment by thebigshane | Hacker News Reader

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While I agree with you overall, I have to nitpick your wording...

   Being brain-dead, it is also very unlikely that you feel pain

Very unlikely? This seems like something that should demand complete[0] confidence.

[0]: Ok, ok, maybe not 100% provability, but I want to know more about this surely subjective determination by the doctors. Or is there an automated reading from some machine that can objectively say "Patient is 95% likely to not feel you operating on him alive"?

(Also, this is "deeply interesting" according to HN standards but lots of potential for irrational discourse -- my comment probably included)

If you are brain dead you cannot feel pain because your brain is not there to receive the signals. In computer speak, imagine you had a sensor that had external power and continued transmitting input to the CPU- the signals keep coming in, but the CPU is switched off. No processing of pain, no sensation of pain. End of story

Let me re-phrase...

If I'm brain dead and there is zero chance of me feeling pain, they can take my organs. I just want them to be sure I'm brain dead. How is that determined?

(oh and my brain is not an electrical cpu, I understand your analogy but I'm not sure it applies given the complexity of a human brain, for example certain parts of a brain can be "off" while the others are "on")

When your brain is 'working' it gives off signals, these are measured by an electroencephalograph (EEG). When those signals stop, you know the brain isn't functioning.

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