there are a lot of ways to define death and the topic is often pretty touchy especially in america and this phanaphobic society.
are you dead when your heart stops beating and your lungs stop inhaling?
are you dead when all your brain functions stop working and you enter a PVS?
or are you dead when you have not even enough brain functions to be a person anymore?
after everything ive heard, it has become apparent to me that death is a very peacefull thing when done naturally. if however tramatic, then it could be different. which thus brings me to this. in our society death is seen as a bad thing, but is it really a bad thing for the person dying?
the topic is deffinatly an interesting one and with these questions i will leave you all to discuss. religion may be a part of this but so help me god if this turns into a religious fight between athiest and christians like every other **** thread in WERP then im locking it.
I think at a physical standpoint, death (natural) is just the body's cells are no longer able to reproduce, these sterile cells start deteriorating because they can't renew themselves with mitosis, and thus as the cells fail, so do the tissues, then the organs, then the organ systems, and then with the light in your head burning out, you go along with the last organ system to fail, the brain.
Not really. After everyone calls you dead, some cells still live for some time, for example your nails and hair grow on a bit. (Which has for example inspired the old scandinavians to the legend of Naglfar, a ship that was built from the nails of the dead; legend that had made everyone cut the nails from the dead to slow down Naglfar's construction as much as possible ^^).
Your organs aren't functioning -- Brain, heart, etc.
Brain death doesn't require the loss of function of any other organ, not even the heart, and yet it is still irreversible.
the actual definition of death in our main society today is cardiovascular death; when your heart and lungs stop working. this is always very debatable and it seems any level, open minded person would agree. thats not to say the opposing view still doesnt have some points.
the case of terri schiavo is a very good example to use for this subject. 15 years before her actual cardiovascular death, terri incurred severe neurological damage when a chemical imbalance stoped her heart, cutting the oxygen supply to her brain. she was left in a PVS (persistent vegetative state). which means she could sometimes have some very basic yet still involuntary movements such as yawns or grimaces, only SOMETIMES being able to breath on her own. but to many she was left described as "awake but unaware".
proceeding she went through a lot of legal dispute between her parents and her "lover" wether they should keep the feeding tube in.
Well, since she survived for 15 years after her heart trouble, I can only guess they got her heart working again; which would mean she clinically died, got "revived" to a state of near-brain death, have been kept alive artificially and died a clinical death again, this time definitely. Since her nervous system was that damaged, and brain death is irreversible, she was half dead from the moment of her first heart trouble.
Personally I see definitive loss of consciousness as the moment of your 'actual' death; "awake but not aware" sounds like she's not dead yet, but not fully alive either.
Even with that story, I still stand by death being full and 100%, because death also has to apply to all living organisms, not just humans. Even with the PVS, her body was still at work. She may not be able to realize it, but her body was still working, therefore living.
Probably when you can't answer yes on the question, "Are you alive?"
It depends how you want an answer. If they've got a punctured lung, they won't be able to verbally give a response. If they're paralyzed from the neck down, they won't be able to give much of a physical response either (perhaps "blink once for no, twice for yes". Also you'd need to ensure they understood the question.
In the near future they'll be able to keep people alive artificially forever. They'll constantly stimulate the brain with electrodes and use artificial organs to replace everything. Perhaps it should be defined as when all of your cells die? That means you have no natural functions.
