Quote Originally Posted by Mike Blue View Post
Perhaps more philosophical, because I cannot experience what someone else goes through with their last four minutes. The individual may not interact with their environment but it does not mean that they are not aware for the time they have left.

The French, during the age of the guillotine, did experiment with the heads of those recently departed from their bodies. There is a legitimate question as to consciousness when the heart stops delivering blood and how long the brain activity continues.

The "horror" of the possibility that they are not unconscious and feeling pain is more than the average conscious person wants to accommodate, much like the discussion we are having about what the living say of the dead to ease their feelings about death.

I wouldn't ask such a question about good or bad death if I wasn't equally experienced. I am not a fit judge of either state and since people don't return from death there is hardly any proof to be offered. Perhaps my concern is more about how to ready any human being for their own death when the time comes. Then it may be possible to be satisfied with the life one has lived rather than concerned about the manner of death or what comes after.

In the end, we confront that fear alone, no one can go through that for us.
Actually the french investigated because severed heads were chewing holes in the catch basket,This was before there was any understanding of electrical involuntary muscle contractions.