More Dead than Dead.

Whoa! Wait a minute. More dead than dead? Deader than dead?
Yup. A study cited below (1) focused on Persistent Vegetative State (PVS) people as being perceived as worse off than dead. I agree. I would rather be dead than kept in a PVS. But not for the same reasons as the people who form the basis of the conclusions of this study. No, those people believe in an afterlife, where brain function remains intact, perception of the world remains intact and intelligence remains intact. After the brain is long gone. The study found that as religiosity increased so did the notion that PVS was a “deader” form of dead than being really dead.
Confused? No need. All you have to do is put yourself into the mindset of the after lifers to get it. If you are not brain dead you obviously are still conscious and sentient. If you are dead, then you have gone to the afterlife where you are once again conscious and sentient. So, the in-between, PVS, where there is no consciousness and no sentience is “more dead than dead”. Simple.
Two things though: I have a hard time thinking that people who actually believe that there is an afterlife are really sentient, and I don’t want to lay around in a PVS being an expense and psychological burden on my loved ones.
As for me: Pull the Plug and Let Me Go. Where? No Where.

1. DEAD: K. Gray, T.A. Knickman and D.M. Wegner. More dead than dead: Perceptions of persons in the persistent vegetative state. Cognition. Published online July 27, 2011. doi:10.1016/j.cognition.2011.06.014. Abstract available: [Go to]
Image: http://www.filmofilia.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/after.life_.jpg