[Avodah] Brain Death

[Micha Berger]

On Fri, Jan 21, 2011 at 11:32:52AM -0500, David Riceman wrote:
>> Are you saying we all agree as to what that known state is? If so,
>> what is it?
>
> I don't know why you think this. To pick an analogy, there is day, there  
> is night, and there is an intermediate state known as bein ha'arbayim.   
> Can you define the precise boundaries of these three states? Most  
> aharonim claim that bein ha'arbayim is inherently a safeik.  Nonetheless  
> there are plenty of examples of hezkas yom and hezkas laylah.

FWIW, bein hashemashos has a chalos sheim of day AND of night. It's
not stam a safeiq, but the period of overlap. That's a different subject,
but I'm pointing it out to make it clear that I'm keeping this reply to
discussing just day, not both, just to keep the cases parallel.

We disagree about where the sun must appear to be in order for it to
be day. The machloqes is not about which indicators make us sure enough
about that location that we can presume, ie use a chazaqah, that it is
there (or to presume that it is isn't).

> There is being alive, there is being dead, and there is an intermediate  
> state known as goseis.  Why should this be any different?

I'm saying we do not have agreement on the halachic definition of "alive". 

You're saying we do not have agreement on it means to be a living person,
and the question is which indicators are sufficient that we can presume
(chazaqah) that that definition holds.

What's that definition?

> On a more philosophical level there seems to be an internal  
> contradiction in your position.  On the one hand you want "alive" and  
> "dead" to be what Leibniz and (following him) Godel call a primitive  
> concept....

I'm saying that alive vs dead are halachic states that apply to sets
of medical ones. And, for that matter, it's possible that WRT different
halakhos, we could actually be using different pairs of states and only
homonymously calling them by the same names.

I didn't tie this Brisker chalos-sheim approach to any metaphysical
existences. (Despite my article in this month's Kol Hamevaser [blatant
plug] at <http://www.kolhamevaser.com/2010/12/brisk-and-telz>.) The
dichotomoy between primitive and defined concepts isn't really relevent;
the mapping is between realia and law. If you forced me to speak in these
terms, I guess I would say the lomdus concept of life is a primitive
concept, whereas the application to a given case requires defived
concepts. But in any case, this is generalizable to Brisker chalos-sheim
in general, and no special internal contradiction in our case.


On Fri, Jan 21, 2011 at 12:31:43PM -0500, RCM wrote:
: RMB wrote:
:> As for a RMT actually saying this, listen to
:> <http://www.hods.org/video/html/Tendler%20-%20RMoshe.html>
:> in the beginning and around 2/3 or 3/4 of the way through.

: I listened to the video you cited, but I heard just the opposite. RMT
: said (at about the third point and again towards the end) that RMF
: paskened that you could remove someone from a ventilator despite the fact
: that the heart is still beating! Thus brain stem death is not because
: it causes the cessation of heart function. Rmt seemed very concerned
: about apnea but not heart function.

That is not in contradition to what I said. What I said was that brain
stem death makes the person incapable of prolonged hearbeat. If someone
who has no brain stem activity is on a machine keeping his heart beating,
we can know that what's going on isn't an *independent* heartbeat,
and doesn't qualify as life. Not that the heart is or isn't beating,
but whether the person could ever have a heartbeat of their own doing.

Listening again to RMT's presentation of RMF's position, he appears at
different points to make two different claims.

1- Without oxygen reaching the brain stem, we know the brain isn't
regulating the heart, and at this point the heart is still going entirely
for externally imposed reasons.

Resulting definition of life (my derived conclusion): the ability to
(at some point in the future) have a self-generated heart beat.

2- Without oxygen reaching the brain stem, the person is effectively
in the same state as the gemara's decapitation case.

Resulting definition of life (also my own extrapolation): The heart
pumping oxygenated blood to the brain.

:-)BBii!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             I long to accomplish a great and noble task,
micha at aishdas.org        but it is my chief duty to accomplish small
http://www.aishdas.org   tasks as if they were great and noble.
Fax: (270) 514-1507                              - Helen Keller