Schrödinger’s Second Paradox . . . ? Unexpected Deaths

As the great forensic pathologist and criminologist Professor Francis Camps remarked, when investigating Unexpected Deaths: 

‘A death which may be expected to take place can still be of unexpected causation. It is for this reason that any fallacy in thinking, such as acceptance of the obvious or lack of true critical approach . . . may well become closely allied to self-deception . . .’

The startled cat, a detail from
Olympia by Édouard Manet
first exhibited at the 1865 Paris Salon. 

Simultaneously live and dead. 

Professor Camps then goes on the consider deaths by electrocution . . .

‘The minimum current to kill from electrocution is stated to be about 65 milliamperes. Death from electrocution can occur in two ways, either by a sudden shock causing vagal inhibition or by true electrocution which produces ventricular fibrillation or respiratory failure. Although the importance of the element of surprise should not be over-emphasised, cases have been recorded in which death has occurred from touching a wire which was believed to be live but which was, in fact, dead.’

For more on precocity in forensic pathology (Francis Camps was, according to my mother, a child prodigy in the advancing of the forensic sciences as the keystone of criminal justice) see An Unreined Mind : 
http://catherineeisnerfrance.blogspot.co.uk/2017/07/the-skinner-principle-seminal-sp5-case.html

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Catherine Eisner believes passionately in plot-driven suspense fiction, a devotion to literary craft that draws on studies in psychoanalytical criminology and psychoactive pharmacology to explore the dark side of motivation, and ignite plot twists with unexpected outcomes. Within these disciplines Eisner’s fictions seek to explore variant literary forms derived from psychotherapy and criminology to trace the traumas of characters in extremis. Compulsive recurring sub-themes in her narratives examine sibling rivalry, rivalrous cousinhood, pathological imposture, financial chicanery, and the effects of non-familial male pheromones on pubescence, 

see Eisner’s Sister Morphine (2008)

http://catherineeisnerfrance.blogspot.co.uk/2011/09/sister-morphine.html

and Listen Close to Me (2011)

http://catherineeisnerfrance.blogspot.co.uk/2011/09/published-this-autumn-listen-close-to.html
and A Bad Case (2015)
http://catherineeisnerfrance.blogspot.co.uk/2015/07/a-bad-case-and-other-adventures-of.html

Quod dei deo, quod Caesaris Caesari.

                  Since Death these days is on everyone’s lips,

                  we pledge ourselves to His buyers’ market;

                  a mortal spark will trade a loss, perhaps,

                  for the spoils of everlasting darkness.