...I don't mean to pose this as a conspiratorial question (obviously, the physical man himself is quite gone), but a philosophical one:

Functionally speaking, Heath Ledger is still starring in one more soon to be released film, still communicating with the world and (arguably) still interacting with it - and still doing it purposefully, of his own desire and consent ('retroactive' desire and consent, I suppose you might call it). So what is the difference (again, strictly from a philosophical standpoint) between being alive and dead here? What if, say, there were ten more not yet produced films that would be released over the next few years that contained more 'new' footage of Heath Ledger, so that now there was some pretty large degree of unpredictability in his now post-mortem 'actions' (well, 'unpredictable' in terms of those who weren't on the set with Ledger at the time of the filming, anyway)? Is he still dead?

I thought this might be a fun question to tackle.