Could the dead hear and feel?

[Philip Kirschner]

In <3m9fph$nf5 at news.duke.edu> carswell at acpub.duke.edu (Brett Carswell) 
writes: 

>
>Charles Hokanson (Phnxbmed at ix.netcom.com) wrote:
>: While the original question and content of the text seem more 
>: appropriate to a religious or philisophical mewsgroup, it does raise 
and 
>: interesting issue, That of the definition of death.  It has long been 
>: accepted that the clinical signs of death are lack of vital signs, 
ie. 
>: heart beat and brian wave activity.  And that in the absense of these 
>: for some length of time, cell and tissue death occur.  It had been 
>: thought that this process occurs rather rapidly (minutes).  However, 
>: this process can be slowed (or stopped?) by substantially reducing 
the 
>: temerature of the body.  
>
>: A recent TV program showed a surgical procedure in which the heart 
and 
>: brainwave activity of a patient were totally stopped for one hour.  
Half 
>: of the blood was removed from the body to reduce the pressure of a 
very 
>: large brain aneurysm.  Once the aneurysm had been deflated, it was 
>: clamped off.  The temperature of the patient was gradually increased, 
>: and the vital signs were all restored.  Apparently, thousands of 
similar 
>: procedures have been performed in Russia for many years, utilizing 
>: hypothermia techniques.
>
>: Therefore, back to the original question, Can the dead hear or feel? 
It 
>: would seem to depend on your definition of death.  The woman who 
>: underwent the procedure neither heard nor felt while she was "dead' 
by 
>: normal clinical standards.  And the absence of brain wave activity 
would 
>: seem to indicate that she did not think either.  However subsequently 
>: she lived.
>
>: It would seem therefore that a definition of clinical death would 
have 
>: to include a refernce to cell, tissue and organ death, such that when 
>: sufficient cell, tissue and organ death has occured, the host 
organism, 
>: human in this case, can not be restored to life.
>
>: As to the many reported cases of, out of "body experiences" and 
"white 
>: light experiences" of people who presumably died and then supposedly 
>: come back to life, there is sufficient scientific evidence to debunk 
>: this nonsense as nothing more than lack of oxygen, and/or reaction to 
>: anestheic gases.
>
>: Finally, as to the religious answer, I don't know what other 
religions 
>: teach, however since you mentioned a catholic, and presumably 
>: judeo-christian perspective, I refer you to Ecclesiastes Chapter 9 
>: Verses 5 and 6:
>
>:  " For the living know that they will die, but the dead know nothing 
at 
>: all.  They have no further reward and even the memory of them is 
>: forgotten.  Their love, their hate, their jealousy have long since 
>: vanished; never again will they have a part in anything that happens 
>: under the sun."
>
>: and Job 19: 25,26 :
>
>: "I know that my redeemer lives and that in the end he will stand upon 
>: the earth. And after my skin has been destroyed, yet in my flesh I 
will 
>: see God."
>
>: CH
>