James J. Hughes "Unitarian Universalism and Transhumanism" 2005:
"Sometimes when I'm asked how the coming technological transformation of humanity could be consistent with spirituality I think about people in the "locked-in" state. One of our oldest nightmares is of being buried alive, being totally conscious, and yet thought dead. That's what being locked-in is. It is a state of total paralysis, usually the result of a long, slow degeneration of nerve and muscle control, until you can't even blink or puff to communicate, even though you can still hear and see, and are fully conscious. People with conditions leading to locked-in state, like Lou Gehrig's disease, were often advised to make advanced directives to have their feeding tubes removed if they didn't want to spend a decade or more in this state."
Via Cyborg Democracy
