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Consciousness, Mind, Brain, and Death

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Brain Death and Disorders of Consciousness

Part of the book series: Advances in Experimental Medicine and Biology ((AEMB,volume 550))

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Abstract

The arguments in favor of equating brain death with actual human death have shifted from medicine and biology to philosophy. For the most common argument in favor of brain death from the alleged loss of integration has in the meantime received its final blow, particularly through the results of Prof. Shewmon’s studies expounded in his two Havana papers 1996 and 2000, namely: (1) a careful comparison of the disintegration occurring in BD with other similar forms of even farther-reaching disintegration in clearly living organisms, and (2) his demonstrating the somatic pathophysiological equivalence between the state of “brain death” with the state of patients in “spinal shock,” who have conscious life, and the implications of this equivalence for the integrative-unity rationale used in the defense of equating death with brain death. In the 2000 Symposium no single objection to his results has been raised in discussions, nor during the last four years has a refutation of his results been offered.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. International Academy for Philosophy, Liechtenstein

    Josef Seifert Ph.D. (Rector)

Authors
  1. Josef Seifert Ph.D.
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Neurology and Neurosurgery, Havana, Cuba

    Calixto Machado

  2. David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, Los Angeles, California, USA

    D. Alan Shewmon

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Seifert, J. (2004). Consciousness, Mind, Brain, and Death. In: Machado, C., Shewmon, D.A. (eds) Brain Death and Disorders of Consciousness. Advances in Experimental Medicine and Biology, vol 550. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-306-48526-8_6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-306-48526-8_6

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Boston, MA

  • Print ISBN: 978-1-4757-0976-6

  • Online ISBN: 978-0-306-48526-8

  • eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive

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