Two questions to ponder after the premature, law enforced death of Terri Schiavo...
Can people who are in a vegetated state of mind for long periods of time adjust to the sensation emitted from all the billions of cells in the body/mind that are perfectly healthy and have an intelligence that is beyond intellectual thinking...
Just as a blind person adjusts their vision so that they let their finger tips become their vision....can a so called brain-dead person experience joyful sensations from such organs as the gut and heart?
Secondly, What role should the intellectual brain play in determining a persons way of thinking. In other words, is intelligence and intellect the same or is there a big difference?
When sound intellectual reasoning sentences a perfect bodily healthy woman to death by starvation and dehydration, it is time to rethink the true meaning of life? The human brain is only one of the components that make up the structure of a human being.
Of course, the brain is the most important factor in living a naturally active, objective and thoughtful life. However, it is not the whole mind, for every cell/atom in the brain and body has its own in-built intelligence that links with other cells intelligence ... The subconscious brain regulates all the organs and cells of the body, so even if the conscious brain is dead, it does not mean the subconscious cannot be felt by the living whole person. If the whole of the working brain cannot function at all, then the whole person is dead and the heart stops beating.
Accordingly, we can say "The Mind" is the whole of the person that includes the gut, immune system, liver, kidneys and heart etc, not just the brain. So, just because a person is deemed to be consciously brain-dead and in a vegetated state, it does not mean that person cannot feel the invisible joys of life through all the living intelligent cells/atoms of the whole being/mind.
When a society uses the law of the land to end the life of a person by starvation and dehydration, who cannot speak for herself, and everyone is helpless to save her ... then it shows the extent the intellectual brain will go to prove it knows better than its own intangible intelligence. Humanity will forever be troubled by the memories of how American justice was used to end the life of a lady whose blood-family wanted to care for her with authentic loving devotion.
With the advance of technology, even a non-functioning brain will be repaired to full working order...Hopefully when that day comes, humanity may have learned the difference between intelligence and intellect... Between compassion and blind dogmatic law... Between authentic life and natural death.
