Once again I got out of the routine of my usual weekly
posts. I’m going to blame the Easter madness that tends to consume a pastor’s
life. Now that we are past that time I can get back to the important things,
like this blog.
I’m currently reading, TheAnticipatory Corpse, by Jeffery Bishop. So far it is a very good book that
is taking a deep and careful look at the treatment of death in the medical
field. I haven’t gotten to the end yet, but I am presuming that everyone is
dead by the last chapter. I’ll let you know.
One of the areas Bishop looks at is when a person is declared
“dead.” I don’t want to get into the details of that argument right now,
instead I would like to consider the idea of when a person stops “living.”
The idea of “living” is a moving target. One could use a
simple physiological approach and say that as long as the heart is beating and
the brain is working than the individual is alive. Others, like me, may claim
that there is more to “living” than pumping blood and sending electrical
singles around one’s body. I prefer to take a more philosophical view asking
what the purpose of life might be.
If someone is in the ICU and is being kept alive (physiologically
speaking) by machines I would argue that the individual is not “living.” This
doesn’t mean the individual is dead – I think dead would mean the individual
has no chance to live ever again. It means the person is not engaging with life
at the potential with which he or she can. This also means that there are many
people who are healthy but are not living (think the individual who spends a
large percentage of time on a couch in front of a glowing box with a steady
stream of drool dripping from his or her mouth). The fun part begins when we
ask what it means to “live.” Does it mean interacting with people? Does it mean
the individual is self-aware? Does it mean the individual has autonomy over his
or her life (making the question of suicide interesting – perhaps it is a final
act of living…)? Living is more complicated when taking more than a mechanical view
of the body.
When looked at philosophically one may not be living when
admitted to an ICU but continues to hold a potential to return to living and
thus is not dead. Yet if the individual is being kept alive by machines and
will die if unplugged then I would suggest that the individual stopped living
for some time and now is waiting to die, or is actively dying. For many it
would be much easier to stay with the physiological and claim that someone is
no longer living if the heart stops working and/or if the brain stops doing its
thing. Yet I think that is avoiding the bigger question of what it means to
live in sickness and in health.
Look, we are all going to die in the end, sorry to spoil it
for you. What will you do to live? Reading my blog is a good start.
2 comments:
I was fascinated (and a little uncomfortable) when I read an essay a few years ago about the changing definitions of medical death over the last few decades.
You asked the right question here -- if the goal posts keep moving on "death,' that also changes the definition of "life," too, right?
Anyway, have you read Hofstadter's "I Am a Strange Loop?" Talks about consciousness as a system that's endlessly recursive, and whether there's any "there" there, where our consciousness is concerned.
--Dan H.
Dan,
Thanks for your comments - we need more philosophy/theology so we can ask the questions about what it means to live. Yet look at your philosophy section at your local bookstore and you will see that such interests are dying.
I haven't read Hofstadter's work - sounds almost mystical
J
Post a Comment