Refinements in the Organism as a Whole Rationale for Brain Death

Death can be defined as the permanent cessation of the organism as a whole. Although the organism as a whole is a century-old concept, it remains better intuited than analyzed. Recent concepts in theoretical biology including hierarchies of organization, emergent functions, and mereology have inform...

Full description

Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Bernat, J.L (Author)
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: SAGE Publications Inc. 2019
Subjects:
Online Access:View Fulltext in Publisher
LEADER 01793nam a2200217Ia 4500
001 10.1177-0024363919869795
008 220511s2019 CNT 000 0 und d
020 |a 00243639 (ISSN) 
245 1 0 |a Refinements in the Organism as a Whole Rationale for Brain Death 
260 0 |b SAGE Publications Inc.  |c 2019 
856 |z View Fulltext in Publisher  |u https://doi.org/10.1177/0024363919869795 
520 3 |a Death can be defined as the permanent cessation of the organism as a whole. Although the organism as a whole is a century-old concept, it remains better intuited than analyzed. Recent concepts in theoretical biology including hierarchies of organization, emergent functions, and mereology have informed the idea that the organism as a whole is the organism’s critical emergent functions. Because the brain conducts the critical emergent functions including conscious awareness and control of respiration and circulation, the cessation of brain functions is death of the organism. A newer concept, the brain as a whole, may offer a superior criterion of death to the whole-brain criterion, because it more closely matches accepted clinical brain death tests and confirms the cessation of the organism’s emergent functions. Although the concepts of organism as a whole and brain as a whole remain vague and in need of rigorous biophilosophical analysis, their future precision will be restricted by the categorical limitations intrinsic to theoretical biological models. © Catholic Medical Association 2019. 
650 0 4 |a Brain as a whole 
650 0 4 |a Brain death 
650 0 4 |a Brain stem death 
650 0 4 |a Criterion of death 
650 0 4 |a Definition of death 
650 0 4 |a Emergent functions 
650 0 4 |a Organism as a whole 
700 1 |a Bernat, J.L.  |e author 
773 |t Linacre Quarterly