RE: Death without Dying
September 16, 2009 at 2:05 am
(This post was last modified: September 16, 2009 at 2:09 am by puertopez.)
Haha, back on track with the whole death thing. I think the important thing is to define exactly what you mean by death -- for most it means when your body fails to function anymore. Though different definitions also exist eg being brain-dead.
As Richard Feynman once said (roughly), you can know the name of a certain bird and what they call it in several different languages and yet know nothing about the bird itself. To know what something is called and to really know something, are two separate things.
So rather than conjuring up a name (death) that can at times be quite vague and undefinable, lets work from the basics upwards. If your personality has changed permanently, then is that not similar to having a theoretical whole body transplant? Then what has happened is exactly that, your body has remained the same but your brain and all the internal wiring has changed. So now you have a body with a different mind and personality.
That is all we can say about that. Whether you try to classify it as 'death' is really quite moot as it is just a word that often times is quite vague and whose definition is malleable to circumstance. If you consider 'death' to mean whether something has ceased to exist, then yes you could say that your previous mind/personality has died. Currently, there is no word to describe a situation where you have the same body but different/changed mind and personality.
Just remember, to know the name of something and to really know about that something are two very different things.
EDIT: I just read over this and somehow it seems to read different than what it was like in my mind. I hope you understand what i mean. If not, I'm new here
As Richard Feynman once said (roughly), you can know the name of a certain bird and what they call it in several different languages and yet know nothing about the bird itself. To know what something is called and to really know something, are two separate things.
So rather than conjuring up a name (death) that can at times be quite vague and undefinable, lets work from the basics upwards. If your personality has changed permanently, then is that not similar to having a theoretical whole body transplant? Then what has happened is exactly that, your body has remained the same but your brain and all the internal wiring has changed. So now you have a body with a different mind and personality.
That is all we can say about that. Whether you try to classify it as 'death' is really quite moot as it is just a word that often times is quite vague and whose definition is malleable to circumstance. If you consider 'death' to mean whether something has ceased to exist, then yes you could say that your previous mind/personality has died. Currently, there is no word to describe a situation where you have the same body but different/changed mind and personality.
Just remember, to know the name of something and to really know about that something are two very different things.
EDIT: I just read over this and somehow it seems to read different than what it was like in my mind. I hope you understand what i mean. If not, I'm new here
