Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

EEG finds consciousness in people in vegetative state
New Scientist ^ | 11/10/11 | Chelsea Whyte

Posted on 11/11/2011 4:34:27 PM PST by wagglebee

Signs of consciousness have been detected in three people previously thought to be in a vegetative state, with the help of a cheap, portable device that can be used at the bedside.

"There's a man here who technically meets all the internationally agreed criteria for being in a vegetative state, yet he can generate 200 responses [to direct commands] with his brain," says Adrian Owen of the University of Western Ontario. "Clearly this guy is not in a true vegetative state. He's probably as conscious as you or I are."

In 2005, Owen's team, used functional MRI to show consciousness in a person who was in a persistent vegetative state, also known as wakeful unconsciousness – where the body still functions but the mind is unresponsive – for the first time. However, fMRI is costly and time-consuming, so his team set about searching for simple and cost-effective solutions for making bedside diagnoses of PVS. Now, they have devised a test that uses the relatively inexpensive and widely available electroencephalogram (EEG).

(Excerpt) Read more at newscientist.com ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: euthanasia; faithandphilosophy; moralabsolutes; prolife
Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-2021-4041-6061-63 next last
To: wagglebee

That’s like saying “you MUST speak your mind”.

At this point, since I am busy, may I waive my right to speak on this issue further, or have my God given rights put me in a position that I must continue to voice my opinion?


21 posted on 11/11/2011 6:07:21 PM PST by Balding_Eagle (Overproduction, one of the top five worries of the American Farmer each and every year..)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 19 | View Replies]

To: wagglebee

who was that someone I spoke of? ME! I said put a pillow over MY face lol. Anyways, been an interesting conversation, and I’ll politely agree to disagree on this one. unalienable rights such as ‘life liberty and the pursuit of happiness’ mean someone is not allowed to take those from you under any authority, but you can choose to disregard any of those if you are so masochistically inclined. You however cannot deprive those of others. You can do as you wish with your own life.


22 posted on 11/11/2011 6:08:52 PM PST by Osamabindead
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 20 | View Replies]

To: Balding_Eagle
That’s like saying “you MUST speak your mind”.

No, because not speaking does not alienate your right to speech.

23 posted on 11/11/2011 6:09:04 PM PST by wagglebee ("A political party cannot be all things to all people." -- Ronald Reagan, 3/1/75)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 21 | View Replies]

To: Osamabindead
I said put a pillow over MY face...unalienable rights such as ‘life liberty and the pursuit of happiness’ mean someone is not allowed to take those from you under any authority,

Do you even recognize the fallacy of you statement?

24 posted on 11/11/2011 6:11:29 PM PST by wagglebee ("A political party cannot be all things to all people." -- Ronald Reagan, 3/1/75)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 22 | View Replies]

To: Osamabindead; wagglebee

Hey, noob. Welcome to FR.

IBTZ


25 posted on 11/11/2011 6:12:11 PM PST by metmom (For freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore & do not submit again to a yoke of slavery)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 8 | View Replies]

To: wagglebee

What if I decide not to pursue my ‘right to life’ part of the ‘right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness’?


26 posted on 11/11/2011 6:15:06 PM PST by Balding_Eagle (Overproduction, one of the top five worries of the American Farmer each and every year..)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 23 | View Replies]

To: Balding_Eagle
A person signing a DNR for instance is quite different from asking to be suffocated with a pillow.
27 posted on 11/11/2011 6:18:07 PM PST by wagglebee ("A political party cannot be all things to all people." -- Ronald Reagan, 3/1/75)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 26 | View Replies]

To: wagglebee

You”re ducking.


28 posted on 11/11/2011 6:20:35 PM PST by Balding_Eagle (Overproduction, one of the top five worries of the American Farmer each and every year..)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 27 | View Replies]

To: wagglebee

Weird how you snip and clip my arguments. I said “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness (for example of inalienable rights)were inalienable as far as anyone having the right to take them away or supercede them. They are for you, however, to do as you wish with them. I have the inalienable rights to bear arms, but it doesn’t mean I have to have a stockpile of weapons. I am free to excercise my rights as I wish. Rights are not commandments. As for the smother me with a pillow and you saying it’s not the same as DNR..well....yeah. If you can’t recognize tongue in cheek statements, then I’m not to blame. But here’s a tricky one for you. If life is an unalienable right granted by god absolutely without forfeit, then how do you recognize the death penalty?


29 posted on 11/11/2011 6:28:58 PM PST by Osamabindead
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 27 | View Replies]

To: traditional1

I think they meant to say consciousness in what used to be
considered a vegetative state....

You mean,the assured results of scientific knowledge could be
wrong? No, cannot be. And if you say so, you will lose
your tenure and standing in the community.


30 posted on 11/11/2011 6:49:21 PM PST by Getready (Wisdom is more valuable than gold and diamonds, and harder to find.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 9 | View Replies]

To: Osamabindead; wagglebee

Osama, are you making up your stuff as you go along, or reading from a website that helps you?

Trotting out the death penalty thing is not very bright of you. Sort of like having toilet paper sticking to your shoe after visiting the public toilet.


31 posted on 11/11/2011 8:01:09 PM PST by little jeremiah (We will have to go through hell to get out of hell.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 29 | View Replies]

Comment #32 Removed by Moderator

To: Tzar
Slavery is illegal by Federal law, not personal property law. I couldn't sale a nuclear weapon either, but I have the right to bear arms.Where's the line drawn? It could also be philosophically argued that your average wage slave sold themselves into slavery for minimum wage, blah blah. Try this on though: I could go on National TV; Tell the world and if anyone's listening on the moon too, that I'm moving to North Korea to sale myself into slave labor for the glory of Kim Jong-Il and guess what! Nothing, anyone could do about it. Be pretty stupid, but hey. You're premise that I couldn't do something by inalienable right is flawed, because it's federally illegal. See how far you get if you argued your inalienable right of pursuit of happiness was trampled because you weren't allowed unhindered access to cocaine. Doesn't matter. Federal (sadly enough) supercedes personal, inalienable rights.This thread is now officially waaayyy off track.
33 posted on 11/11/2011 8:14:54 PM PST by Osamabindead
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 32 | View Replies]

To: little jeremiah

Trotting out the death penalty and it looking stupid was a by-product. If one argues that the “inalienable” right of life extends so far to god that no one of this earthly realm is able to take that right away, how can you ever be for the death penalty. We’re talking INALIENABLE. I argued against the limits of this right. So maybe re-read a bit and see it more in focus. (for the record I’m pro-life/death penalty, in case the water got really blurry here) Just the position that life is so sacrosanct that even I couldn’t die if I wanted to from a vegetative state, makes me wonder how someone that goes that far can drop the axe, and how they reason it.


34 posted on 11/11/2011 8:20:03 PM PST by Osamabindead
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 31 | View Replies]

To: wagglebee

"There's a man here who technically meets all the internationally agreed criteria for being in a vegetative state, yet he can generate 200 responses [to direct commands] with his brain," says Adrian Owen of the University of Western Ontario. "Clearly this guy is not in a true vegetative state. He's probably as conscious as you or I are."
35 posted on 11/11/2011 8:22:48 PM PST by Diamond (He has erected a multitude of new offices, and sent hither swarms of officers to harass our people,)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

Comment #36 Removed by Moderator

To: Tzar

Who’s killing themself by denying themself from being hooked up to a machine. You do know that refusing medical care is a patient right, don’t you? That’s the issue, and it’s not “inalienable” no one can force you to do something medically (which was the source of this whole argument:The limits of inalienable..does it extend beyond your consent, medically?)


37 posted on 11/11/2011 8:34:19 PM PST by Osamabindead
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 36 | View Replies]

To: Osamabindead

Your run-on and ungrammatical sentences are very hard to follow. Apparently you seem to be saying that you are pro-life, but you want someone to be able to kill you if you want to die but can’t do it yourself.

You mock wagglebee for being pro-life and pro-death penalty (I think that’s what you’re saying) and yet you claim that you are pro-life and pro-death penalty.

Your thinking seems disordered.

For the record, it is obvious that executions for capital crimes is not incongruous with the right to life. One forfeits that right to life when he deprives someone else of their life.


38 posted on 11/11/2011 8:39:43 PM PST by little jeremiah (We will have to go through hell to get out of hell.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 34 | View Replies]

Comment #39 Removed by Moderator

To: little jeremiah

Here’s a less incongruent finish. I don’t mock them, I wonder what they mean when they say “INALIENABLE” with such dramatic finality as in even you can’t choose, which by extension, no one can choose, but god. Then have no pangs of conscience with the death penalty. How is the leap made. The argument for your life being forfeit in the death penalty is squashed by absolutely unforfeitable, since wagglebee was kind enough to link the Websters definition of it. I am Pro-life for abortion, the unborn child has no choice. I do. I am pro death penalty. I don’t believe i the absolutes of “inalienable” rights. I think it’s a misunderstanding on the word on their part. Like if you understood the symbol “3” to be what we all understood to be “4” your math is going to look very weird to us. You’re not wrong. We just have some problems with definitions, that make us seem disjointed.


40 posted on 11/11/2011 8:47:19 PM PST by Osamabindead
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 38 | View Replies]


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-2021-4041-6061-63 next last

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson