This article is from the Cryonics FAQ, by Tim Freeman tim@infoscreen.com with numerous contributions by others.
Using the definitions in the glossary, they are legally and
clinically dead but they may or may not have reached
information-theoretic death, depending on how memory is stored in
the brain and how much this is affected by freezing damage. A
person who has been cremated is dead in all senses of the word.
People who have been buried and allowed to decompose are also dead.
People can only legally be frozen after they are legally dead.
 
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