The Meaning of Death

Just 3-4 minutes without oxygen and the human brain suffers irreversible damage ... or so it was once thought. Studies now show that brain damage doesn't occur until 30 minutes after blood flow stops. Resuscitation after an hour has been achieved using special drugs and induced hypothermia.

We must now question at what point death actually occurs. Although a person in cardiac arrest is deemed to be "unconscious" and the EEG shows no electrical activity after about 15 minutes (see previous post), yet there may be residual consciousness somewhere. For example, what if consciousness did not reside in the brain alone, but was instead the gestalt consciousness of all the cells of the human body?