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Notes -
a dead person is a person whose brain is not functioning, a nonfunctional brain can not feel pain and thus can not be tortured, therefore a person can not be tortured if he is dead.
an alive person is a person whose brain is functioning, only a functioning brain can feel pain and thus be tortured, therefore a person can only be tortured if he is alive.
a person whose brain has stopped functioning can only be tortured if his brain is made functional, thus transitioning him from being a dead person to an alive person, in other words, by reviving him.
"the basilisk" can only torture a dead person if it revives him first, making his nonfunctional brain functional again.
a brain consists only of matter, therefore to change the brain state from nonfunctional to functional one must change the matter comprising the brain.
matter that cannot be accessed cannot be changed, therefore the basilisk can only torture a dead person if it can access the matter comprising his brain.
this is a necessary but not sufficient condition, i.e. obviously the brain state can not change from functional to nonfunctional only by accessing one atom from it.
also if the brain's matter has been transformed enough such as by being burned, its hard to say that its still a nonfunctional brain, rather than just a pile of ashes.
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