Does this mean that every dying patient must be assaulted by every possible intervention if he or she is to be proven dead? A third caucus says that irreversibility occurs when the inherent order of the atoms that make up the brain are irrevocably destroyed. If the atomic structure of the brain is disturbed but the structural integrity of the brain is maintained, there is no fundamental barrier, given our current understanding of physical law, to recovering its information content, however labor-intensive that might be. ↑ Wowk, B (2014).