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[–] 53 points 1 year ago (7 children)

The heart beating is not a good definition of being alive in my opinion. The heart stopping temporarily doesn't mean you died, you were just in terribly grave danger.

If a person is defined by their heart, what does that make a heart transplant?

utterly useless definition.

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  • [–] 26 points 1 year ago (3 children)

    no, we should use the heart beating as a definition. why? because then I can say I'm undead and have died twice. that's very cool 😎 pls don't take that away from me 🥺 :(

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  • [–] 15 points 1 year ago

    As an old and now retired medic. My personal definition of dead was if you made into the back of my amp-a-lamps or not. If you did you weren't dead-- you were merely having a bit of a bad day. I might have needed to do your breathing for you and I might have needed to make your heart pump blood. But until some doctor somewhere decided you weren't worth his time and effort, you were still alive. Because I don't haul dead people.

    So, by my definition as a trained and professional medical person, you where never dead-dead. Just someone have a bad day among many others having a bad day at that time.

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  • [–] 5 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    But if you've died, then were undead, and then died again, you'd be un-undead right? So alive? It's basic double jeopardy.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago* (1 child)

    You put the double 'un' but forgot the double 'dead'.

    Oh, I didn't realise you were actually catching the thing mid statement.


    Still:

    • A dead un-dead would be a re-dead, not very alive
    • Considering the 2x dead person is still capable of commenting, I would assume it came back after re-death and is now in some other condition.
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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago (1 child)

    That depends entirely on whether the un- prefix only negates the other un- prefix, or the entire adjective.

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  • [–] 0 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    The thing is that 'un' is different from stuff like 'not', 'non' and the likes, because it is not just denying the referred word but saying that the effect of the referred word was reverted somehow.

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  • [–] 9 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    We use a lot to define being alive not just the heart. The heart stopping is just an easy way to pronounce someone dead. What you described is called a pause. Not really the same thing. Brain death is also a thing. Any organ transplant allows you to function when otherwise you wouldn't be able to.

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  • [–] 5 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    I meant like, when someones heart stops and gets restarted again with cpr or a defibrillator or something. People often call that being dead, and coming back.

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  • [–] 7 points 1 year ago

    So if someones heart stops we don't actually shock them. That's a medical show myth. We shock them if they're in something called a lethal rhythm. Which is the heart beating but not actually pumping blood. Very similar to the heart stopping and will eventually lead to the heart giving out. CPR keeps the blood flowing which keeps oxygen moving throughout the body preventing permanent damage. We give medications to restart the heart. They don't really die until these interventions are stopped. Some people also have a pacemaker that detects their heart going into a lethal rhythm and will take over the electrical impulse until their heart goes back to normal. By the definition of the heart stopping this person would technically die and be brought back too. So I see what you're saying but I wanted to add some context that this is pretty complex. Even more so when you bring in people deciding when they don't want these interventions.

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  • [–] 8 points 1 year ago (2 children)

    Brain oxygen levels are the most important one iirc

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  • [+] 5 points 1 year ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (1 child)
  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago

    Yeah, I'm not in any way medically anything but I think I remember Dr Mike or one of those talking about how brain death is considered death or something like that.

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  • [–] 4 points 1 year ago (2 children)

    Hey why do you think they call it "grave" danger

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