
The Ethics of Consciousness Hunting - dnetesn
http://nautil.us/issue/64/the-unseen/the-ethics-of-consciousness-hunting
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kwhitefoot
Is it really true that patients are diagnosed as vegetative without any
attempt to check for brain activity with at least an EEG?

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tonyarkles
That jumped out at me too.

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chris_mc
Can you imagine listening to your doctor and loved ones discussing taking you
off life support and you're just not able to move? Then a lot of times, they
just starve the patient to death, thinking they're basically not feeling
anything, so then you starve to death while your family sits by your side.
That's hell. We need to do a lot more research on conciousness and what makes
a person or "animal" have that spark.

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rurcliped
If you want this added to the standard of care, then work on having it
introduced at Grey Sloan Memorial Hospital. Seriously.

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plasticchris
How much consciousness is enough to justify living?

They make the point that this can prevent unnecessary care but ignore this.
It's unlikely to be a simple yes or no.

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kenbellows
This won't answer the question directly, but these sorts of discussions always
bring to my mind the famous quote from Jeremy Bentham: "The question is not,
Can they reason?, nor Can they talk? but, Can they suffer?"

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ryukafalz
I wonder if the results you would get from an EEG in these cases are different
from those of a healthy person. If not, it should be possible for them to
communicate using e.g. morse code through EEG.

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dbh937
The article mentioned that after 5 yes-or-no questions in 60 minutes, the
patients became exhausted. I'm guessing that activating certain parts of the
brain requires considerably more effort for them than for a healthy person
based on that.

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kromem
The areas in question are areas tied to physical activity. They've been lying
in a bed for a decade. It's not surprising that activating areas tied to
physical activities is difficult.

I'm curious if the same fatigue would be present if the Yes/No responses were
tied to critical thinking activities (though those are obviously more
ambiguous to detect).

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runeg
As someone with a traumatic brain injury from over two years ago that stI'll
had cognitive problems on a daily basis preventing me from a range of tasks
such as working in IT (careel of 10+ years) to (depending on the day)
understanding the question "are you hungry?": i get mentally fatigued from
answering questions, both critical and non critical thinking. Both are taxing
and after less than an hour of ~15 questions I am unable to proceed or
comprehend the information. The best analog I could give is when you wake up
groggy and turn on a tv show that is in a language you don't know. Your brain
is trying and searching but there are no connections being made and you only
are aware that you are struggling but can do anything about it besides rest
and give your brain time to recouperate.

