Talk:Death

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This is an old revision of this page, as edited by FvdP (talk | contribs) at 18:11, 22 October 2002 ( possible article structure). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

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The original text was a bit confused between human and non-human death; I think that's a little clearer now, but I'm still not happy with the mixed nature of this article. Perhaps this is a good candidate for an EB merge--I'll go see what they have to say. --Lee Daniel Crocker

Just a note on the "failure" versus "termination" issue. Failure in the case used previously was used as scientists use it, not as a shortcoming, but the equivalent to such terms as "kidney failure", "system failure" (in computers), "memory failure" etc. It simply means that some part of the organism has failed to such a degree that life is no longer possible. Termination feels more 'loaded' a term to me for some reason. Just a minor quibble though. Rgamble

It seems to me that when we say "failure," we mean abnormal termination - your kidneys aren't "supposed" to fail (during your lifetime): on the other hand, you are "supposed" to die. - montréalais

I removed this statement:

Humans are the only living beings able to imagen death.

Aside from the spelling, it's a very problematic claim:

  1. It's not falsifiable; since we have no way of asking other living beings if or what they imagine, we cannot verify that death is or is not among those things
  2. What does it mean to "imagine death"? To imagine a dead body? To imagine one's own dead body? To imagine the state of the outside after we are dead (and plan for it)? To imagine being in the state of death itself? (One might argue that we humans are unable to do this latter; hence we imagine all the afterlife fooferah.)

--Brion 11:57 Oct 22, 2002 (UTC)

I've restructured the article, partly to try to separate the discussion of death in general from the discussion of death of humans. Here are some notes on specific passages added, deleted, or changed:

Death was once defined as the cessation of heartbeat and breathing, for example, but the development of CPR and early defibrillation posed a challenge: either the definition of death was incorrect, or techniques had been discovered that really allowed one to reverse death (because, in some cases, breathing and heartbeat can be restarted). Generally, the first option was chosen. (Today this definition of death is known as "clinical death".)

First, can anyone provide any specific historical context, in terms of people, places, dates, etc. for when this definition might have been relevant? The vagueness here worries me.

Second, the rest of this paragraph, or at least my contributions to it, are basically historical fiction; maybe they're in the right ballpark, but I have no evidence whatsoever to suggest that this conflict actually happened. I was trying to make the narrative coherent and compelling. Maybe this should be removed, or maybe someone who knows more about it can fix things.

In most places the more conservative definiton of death has been adopted (for example the Uniform Definition of Death Act in the United States).

It was unclear which definition of death was "more conservative", so I removed this statement.

It is presumed that a stoppage of electrical activity indicates the end of consciousness.

I don't know how many people presume this. However, I do know that, if people don't presume this, then the claim that stoppage of electrical activity is a good operational definition of death is a very odd one. So: if anyone disputes this statement, I challenge you to provide an alternative explanation.

It might also be worthwhile to entertain the possibility that death does not occur at a particular moment, but unfolds as a process over a period of time. Perhaps, in the end, it is not terribly meaningful to speak of "the exact moment of death".

There must be people to cite on this topic.

-- Ryguasu, Oct 22 2002

""Biologically, death can occur to wholes, to parts of wholes, or to both. For example, it is possible for individual cells and even organs to die"" , is there room here for a link to cell death as it's been recently awarded the Nobel prize?--dgd


This is incorrect.....

The irreversibility of death is connected with the second law of thermodynamics; in both cases, organized systems become less organized systems, and there is, in theory, no turning back. Nonetheless, many people do not seem convinced that death is always and necessarily irreversible; thus some have a literal belief in the resurrection of Jesus Christ, while others have high hopes for the eventual prospects of Cryonics.

The second law of thermodynamics does not argue that death is irreversible. The second law does not apply to an open system which a body is not. In principle, if you pump enough energy into a system, you can reverse any entropy loss.

One can argue that the second law makes death inevitable, but that is a totally different argument.

These two paragraphs were reversed, so that the "second" at the beginning of the now-first paragraph makes no sense:

What happens to humans after death?
Second, and more interesting to many, what, if anything, happens to humans when they die? Is there perhaps an afterlife? This is a long-standing and vexing question.
Physiological consequences of human death
For the human body, the physiological consequences of death include rigor mortis, dependent lividity, and decay.

It would actually make more sense to me to re-reverse the paragraphs, so that it goes from the known (body decay) to the unknown & open question (afterlife). FvdP 17:29 Oct 22, 2002 (UTC)

The "second" makes sense in terms of the following organizational structure, which is found, in this order, in the article:

  1. "Thinking about human death raises a number of questions."
  2. "First, how can we identify the exact moment at which death has occured?"
  3. "Second, and more interesting to many, what, if anything, happens to humans when they die?

Maybe this structure is not clear; I think it got less clear with the addition of the h2s.

Perhaps the structure should be:

  1. "Thinking about human death raises a number of questions."
  2. "First, how can we identify the exact moment at which death has occured?"
  3. "Second, and more interesting to many, what, if anything, happens to humans when they die?
    1. there are some mundane physical things that we understand
    2. there are some metaphysical things that we might not

This is a little problematic, though, because the first question implies that everything that follows is a sort of mystery, including the "mundane physical things that we understand." Ideas? -- Ryguasu

-- Actually after a bit more thought, I see a possible article structure as follows:

  • death as a biological phenomenon (non-controversial description):
    • (current first section)
    • what happens to bodies after death
  • controversial issues about death:
    • when is the exact moment of death ?
    • is biological death the actual end of a human's life ?

On the "second, and more interesting to many", I would just remove it. "second" comes way too far after the implicit "first". "more interesting to many" is not NPOV, even though it's probably true; no need to insist on that fact, readers know what interests them. FvdP 18:11 Oct 22, 2002 (UTC)

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