The human mind is extremely complex
and this thing we call "consciousness" is often very hard to define. Yet, most people would say that they "are" their "conscious mind".......whatever that is.
In the case of brain damaged people, the brain can be very scrambled....and various odd cognitive states can occur, and not all of them are what we would normally call true consciousness.
The higher cortex of the brain is really where the "me" resides.
The lower brain stem functions are where bodily functions are controlled, and also some very basic "reptilian" emotions......fright and flight, happy and sad, angry and content. But emotions are very complex things....yet, to most of us they are intimately attached to the "me'" parts of the higher brain.
But sometimes bad things happen, and what "appears" to be true emotion from a semi-conscious person, is really what I would call a "false consciousness."
Many people observing this phenomenon "project" their own feelings and emotions onto other person. People do this with their pets all the time.
My dog is "happy" to see me. Everyone at the office looks "angry." Terry Schiavo "cried."
By and large, unless emotion is "verified" by some other conscious cognitive action.....in the case of brain damaged people, it is not likely to be a "true emotion" from the person themselves. But something lower down the brain stem mimicing an "emotion."
Many persons in vegetative states can appear to express very deep "emotion." They really do "cry" and "laugh!"
BUT ALL OTHER COGNITIVE CONFIRMING DATA ARE MISSING OR UNEXPRESSED......
And this is THE KEY to whether these are real emotions, or merely brain stem pseudo-consciousness that we all have "working just under the surface."
I personally do not think that Terri Schaivo is truly "conscious," or that "her person" is in her body at this point. Her parents are just deluding themselves.....
Yes, there is "something there." But no, it is NOT THE PERSON of Terri Schaivo.....it is merely that "shadowland" of brain function that is usually behind the scenes when all of the other senses are functioning properly.
In vegetative states many strange mental states are possible.
Indeed, even in walking talking people with severe brain damage....bizarre states of cognition can be seen. Some people "see" only on their right side. Others can "write," but not read what they have written! Others have delusions that are all out of step with reality but are otherwise normal. In short, there are many many ways to lose contact with conscious reality....and in many cases the people so suffering are in fact quite "conscious." Even more "conscious" than Ms. Schaivo.
The word "coma" comes from the Latin for "hair,"....hence our word "comb," and it generally refers to a person trapped in a cloud-like netherworld of being....where nothing is real, but yet something is percieved....sound, movement, voices.
Persons in deep coma are really in a "waking state of sleep." Or a "sleeping state of wakefullness....?"
In the Schaivo case, her parents are only prolonging the suffering of their daughter.....as she is in a state of mindless wakefulness that is a fate far worse than the "dreamless sleep" of death....
As someone once wisely said: THERE ARE WORSE THINGS THAN DEATH IN THIS WORLD.....
And Terri Schaivo is living that fate everyday.....
