Quote Originally Posted by rory_20_uk View Post
When a patient is on life support this means that the body is alive. Whether there is a self aware life-form in there varies tremendously. The body can be kept going for in some cases years.

With CPR there is often initial uncertainty, and is an emergency. When it has been going for 30 minutes the uncertainty is much, much less - and unless there is a really good reason to the contrary chances of recovery are dropping towards zero. Hence why the active treatment stops when it is viewed as futile. And also why there are such things as "Do Not Attempt Resuscitation" orders since often the patient's state can be predicted and treatment that is not required is not attempted.

Yes, you could contrast it in terms of stability and uncertainty. What I'm saying then is against conflating a disruption of stable equilibrium with tapering of acute intervention under uncertainty.