The analysis in Science concludes that she has a "rich mental life" but may not be "conscious." What in God's name does that mean? Would you pull the plug on a 24-year-old relative with a rich and responsive but unconscious mental life? Go ahead, raise your hand. Or just think about raising it, and we'll record your vote by brain scan.
Wednesday, September 13, 2006
William Saletan discusses vegetative states and brain scans:
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5 comments:
My hand is raised. Are we assuming no hope of regaining consciousness?? If they weren't meant to be conscious why artificially create it?
james-
Could you clarify what you mean by "weren't meant to be concious?"
Well, they are naturally unconcious correct? And if the only purpose of the artificial life source is to keep them breathing and pumping blood, it probably means they aren't able to do it on their own for a reason. Their body is incapble of function on its own, and it's not natural to keep it going. You can take 'natural' as being spiritually or biologically or however you like.
So you're arguing that we should never use respirators, under any circumstances, because everyone has to be able to breathe "naturally" on their own without "artificial" assistance?
Suppose she was almost completely vegetative, dependent on a feeding tube, except that she could move her left pinky, and so could use a Stephen Hawking-style keyboard and artificial voice to communicate. Pull the plug?
Now suppose she can't move her pinky, but we can hook up an fMRI scanner and some kind of interface so she can choose words and phrases for her artificial voice mentally, and communicate that way. Pull the plug? The situation the article describes is actually getting fairly close to this second possibility.
I wouldn't want to live like that...
So if it's my plug, go for it.
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