What's interesting is that one can ever know that they are dead. It requires an entity outside of oneself to acknowledge such a thing. Furthermore, the death of a life form invariably leads to the possibility of life in other forms. Does this mean that one can never truly die alone?

So when I finish emptying my bowels, is that a kind of death?

No, that's life my friend.

So the end of biological functions is a part of life too?

Are you being facetious to tease? It's not easy to tell on the internet.

Death is the end of all biological functions that define a living organism.

That's better. But it's still only half of the equation: What about the non-physical matter? :thumbsup:

So we're talking about two different things so far, I think.

One is the strict biological idea of 'death', as in the negation of biological 'life' which is fairly easy to define within the confines of an organism dominated by one variety of dna. You can be really picky with regard to the death of most 'animal' organisms, at least on a scale of normal human awareness, in that biological 'life' activity never really stops, it simply moves from domination/regulation by one variety of dna to one or multiple others.

Humans create an environment for and are pretty symbiotic with a huge range of fauna which help us to control pathological microbes as well as break down nutrients and... well, thousands, more, functions until we stop supplying them with a conducive environment and a good number of these species help to break the human form down and recycle the nutrients. (In a natural context)

The other thing that we're talking about is what it means to be a living and sapient being and what we understand as 'death' for that or those entities might be, i think (baraka?).

So, I understand what we commonly define as biological 'death' as the negation of 'life'. "I am alive" becomes "I am not alive", or "The 'I' that was is now no more."; The functions of biological life (respiration, reproduction, etc) break down.

In this second idea of what the death of sapience may be and what it might 'mean' (death as a symbol? o_O come to think of it, life as a symbol?) would necessarily be based on the negation of a positive statement of what that sapience, the, potentially, wise 'mind' or 'soul' or 'self-consciousness would be and how it might only exist in reference to other entities would be.

Seeing as baraka brought up the idea, maybe he'd like to take first stab (my stab earlier wasn't too good i think) at the positive idea?

If I knew, I wouldn't be mortal.

Bodily functions cease, sure. What do I believe happens? I don't spend much time thinking about it but I'm open to all possibilities.

Wow, I'm surprised how many people think death is the ultimate end. I can't say for certain that we retain our personality when we die but I know deep within my being that we do not end. I don't believe in any one afterlife, but just looking around at the miracle of life and existence in general and I can't help but believe that there is no true end. There are only beginnings.

Exist something that isn't Physics? :paranoid:


What is Death... The answer is fairly simple once you know what is life. :paranoid:

Defining Death in general could be impossible, like defining life in general.
Defining death for a human being is simple. When the brain stop working, yours e-m current vanishes, the hearts stop beating then you're death. There are a scientific and a juridic definition, both viable for their sake.

If death is the end or a door to other worlds? I'm pragmatic, I don't need unnecessary entities (Occam's Razor calling) to sleep tight. Someone does, good for him.

I'm not a religious guy, but my own fear of death leads me to fully understand why people want to make myths about an after life. The thought of non-existence is beyond most of us to grasp

I believed death is the end. there is no more. you become non existent. and as a result i both love and hate the idea. when i was very depressed there was nothing i wanted more then a way out and just to stop experiencing anything. however it also scares me. I quite like living this week.

Haha yeah, "this week". I have those slow days where I wouldn't mind just switching everything off, but dying is just way too painful to bother with. :)

I look at death as an equivalent to drinking too much at that one party.
Minus the waking up part.

Edit: I'm not saying an afterlife wouldn't be nice though, but seriously, that's something that's too convenient to believe. So I choose to not even humor the idea beyond "that would be be cool."

Few months ago I was thinking hard about life and death and purpose of life. I have read famous philosophers and books about anthropology, about brain mostly. The conclusion of that research wasn't so original: We live this life without any purpose, except the purpose we give to ourselves. Unfortunately, our brain is nothing but a complex processor that gathers information trough our senses and creates an image of the world, I can hardly believe there is anything similar to soul that can continue "living" after dead body.
At the other hand, I really want to believe in something that is eternal, right and good, perfectly good in all ways. But it seems so unbelivable that I think knowing truth is the burden very hard to wear.

Malik- So you don't believe in convenience? Guess cars and cellphones don't really exist :)

Tesla- The problem with that theory, and really most people's perception is that it assumes we know everything or nearly everything about how we work and how the universe works when nothing could be farther from the truth.

Energy, matter, space, time, etc. all have underlying mathematical equations. Math is like the language of the gods. It can describe everything in a precise matter. We may not know the entirety of the language or have all the translations down but from all our experience we know it exists.

Now, taking that into consideration complex beings are like information. Our biological information is recorded through genetics, our experience through neuron pathways and connections. That said, when you erase that information does it really go away? Are you destroying it? If we erase an equation, does that suddenly render it inert? Of course not, it goes on being true whether we know about or have it written down or not.

We may not be able to understand how information exists without perception, but that doesn't mean it doesn't go right on existing.

Very interesting. I've never thought about the universe in that way.
"Math is like the language of the gods."

That math is the language of the gods is onthological demodè even between we physicist... :O

Ex falso sequitur quodlibet, amicus. :thumbsup:

Why would you think that way? Everything can be shown trough math formulas(3D models are the most obvious example). The sentence itself is a little poetical, but it's impressive :)

Death can't simply be "the end" because that is disproven by ghosts of people who once lived.

If a person has never experienced death or ghosts, they can't really say anything meaningful about either, imho.

Like I said before, death involves something after physical death. What that something truly is, I don't know. But, I know there is much more to death than simply "not existing anymore".

Math shouldn't be considered the language of the gods, but instead, the language of the universe since it helps to explain the universe.. and not the gods.

Anyways, I know for a fact that death is not the end of existence for a person. So many things can disprove the idea completely.

For the former, people will say that ghosts have not been proven either. I know, we see them. It's plainly obvious for people like you and me, but they do not see what we see, or have forgotten that they did in earlier years, or have simply passed it off as "imagination". One day maybe we will find someone the general population finds trustworthy enough to take video evidence as real. Maybe they will even see for themselves without a camera. I doubt it, though. We all have our purposes and our beliefs to coincide with those purposes. For many, that means no contact. So be it. Let the atheists be atheists, let the crazed southern baptists be crazed southern baptists.

One day we will all know the universal truth. We may all be surprised.

Ghosts are illusions that our mind has made, false interpretations of normal occurrences mixed with imagination.

What are "normal occurrences"?

Instead of normal, a better word would be "natural", and natural occurrences are events that happen because of the actions preceding that event, and which(actions and the event) can be explained by physical laws. Before anyone starts grumbling about physical laws, I want to say that existing laws explain approximately, but not exactly what's going on in this world.

Exactly my point :)

You believe yours, I believe mine.

Haha maybe it isn't that easy, but I am glad you agreed ^^

I wasn't agreeing with you, actually. In fact I completely disagree with you. I was referencing my post above my last reply.

To each their own. I agree, to disagree :)

I thought it was strange anyways...As a matter of fact, I think universal truth by all means cannot exist.

Again, I politely agree to disagree.

You won't goad me into a debate over your absolute rules so easily :)

Haha, you don't need to debate if you don't want to, I just say that your opinions lack of solid support.

Of course they don't. That is not my goal. Nothing I have seen or experienced can be scientifically proven as of yet. If it could be, I still would probably not be inclined to show it. Just like evolution, where the proof is so obvious it cannot be denied, yet millions of people still deny it. For me it has been made plainly, undeniably apparent that we are not just lipids and organelles, or the sum of those parts. Yet to try explain this to you would mean nothing. That does not bother me, but you insist that I must argue my point. I have no argument, and I laugh as I type this.

I know my truth, you know yours. We are both probably wrong in some respect. Again, I agree to disagree :)

One day you'll catch on. Maybe :lol:

I caught it already, you said it brilliantly clear.