The Mystery of Consciousness

Twenty years ago this month, the nation was gripped by the fate of 41-year-old Terri Schiavo, a Florida woman whose feeding tube was being removed. Schiavo had suffered cardiac arrest at the age of 26, and sustained severe brain damage as a result. A fierce and lengthy legal battle ensued between her husband and her parents over whether life-sustaining measures should continue. The case sparked debate across the political spectrum, mobilizing advocates and public figures ranging from President George W. Bush to the Pope. The controversy revolved largely around a series of complicated questions — whether Schiavo was conscious or not, whether she was aware of her surroundings, whether she had any hope of recovery — and whether she would have wanted to live like this.

On this episode, we look back at Schiavo’s case and others to explore the thorny question of what it means to be conscious, and how — or even whether — doctors are capable of determining a patient’s level of awareness. We hear stories about the lingering impact of Schiavo’s case, medicine’s changing views on whether coma patients with brain damage will ever recover, and what philosophers have to say about the meaning of consciousness.

• Reporter Emily Previti talks with some of the central players in the Terri Schiavo case about how it shaped — and continues to shape — our understanding of sentience, consciousness, and end-of-life decisions.
• We talk with philosopher Jonathan Birch about the nature of consciousness, the ethical implications for end-of-life decisions, and the disconcerting truth about how much patients who are seemingly unconscious are actually able to experience. Birch’s new book is “The Edge of Sentience: Risk and Precaution in Humans, Other Animals, and AI.”