Even Non-Religious People Think Dead People Are Sort of Alive

[rug]

What’s dead to you?

The researchers Kurt Gray of the University of Maryland’s Mind Perception and Morality Lab, together with Annie Knickman and Dan Wegner of Harvard University would like to know. They’ve recently designed an experiment to try and uncover how we perceive those in persistent vegetative states, or PVS. And what they’ve found so far is astonishing, even perhaps a complete uprooting of zombie studies.

The researchers stopped 201 random subjects in public spaces throughout New York and New England. Participants read one of three random, hypothetical short stories. In all three, a man, David, smashes up his car and suffers “serious injuries.” Fates vary – in one, David fully recovers; in another, David dies; and in the third, David’s entire brain goes dark, save the one chunk that keeps him breathing. He’s alive, by legal standards, but won’t ever really come to. David’s a vegetable.

Subjects were then asked to size up his mental abilities. Could David “influence the outcome of events, know right from wrong, remember incidents from his life, be aware of his environment, possess a personality” or otherwise be emotional? They rated his capacities on a seven-point scale:

3 – David can do these things.

0 – You don’t agree or disagree that he can do these things.

-3 – You “strongly disagree” that he can do these things.

http://motherboard.tv/2011/8/21/even-non-religious-people-think-dead-people-are-sort-of-alive

[OffWithTheirHeads]

1. Well, that does help explain John McCain

[hlthe2b]

2. that's likely because there is so much confusion re: the definition

of persistent vegetative state and the differences of effect depending on the area damaged. The MSM not only routinely conflates coma and PVS, frequently using the terms interchangeably. More to the point it does a horrendously poor job of differentiating or educating the public on the degree of brain damage and the area of damage that allows one to understand the likelihood (or near impossibility, as the case may be) of recovery.

That said, it is initially very startling to see someone in a PVS state seemingly look at you and realize that they still experience the cyclical wake-sleep cycles that normal functioning humans do. People see this and elect to believe what, in this case, actually does reflect ones "lying eyes" effect.

[Kurmudgeon]

3. No matter what "David" can or can not do, no one knows what's really inside of his head.

Time to go find Metallica's One on Youtube! ;)

[bluerum]

4. WTF dude. I think he should have a different name.

[muriel_volestrangler]

5. The belief in ghosts is not part of mainline Christianity

(and it looks like this was an American survey, so the religious taking part would mainly be Christians) unless it gets into the dubious 'exorcism' area (and I'm not sure if most exorcists claim they're dealing with the spirits of dead people, or just demons). So it's not that surprising that some non-religious people think a dead person can 'think' better than one in a PVS.

Presumably, those who believe in ghosts - religious and non-religious - and those who believe in an afterlife think that someone in a PVS cannot 'move on' to being a ghost, or the afterlife. And so they accept the scientific opinion on how much such a person can think etc. while in this world. It'd be interesting to know what they think what such a ghost or afterlife spirit would remember or know about their time in a PVS. Is it a question of the spirit of the person suddenly regaining its ability to think, express a personality etc. once the months, years etc. of the body being biologically alive are over? Does cell activity 'hold the spirit back'?

Would anyone who believes in an afterlife, or ghosts, care to comment on what they think a person's 'spirit' is doing during a PVS?