What do you personally think the "point of death" would be? I mean, what do you think is the final moment where "life" passes out?

Let's say a person, once living a normal life, goes completely brain dead (no thought or mind activity.) Or maybe a baby is born with a servere form a of genetic disease called anencephaly where the brain may no form at all (but has a brain stem.) Or maybe death of a person is when the cells of the body completely stop forming. When is "death" to you?

Just need opinions for an assignment.

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Perhaps it's the goth in me, but I find death can cover a rather broad range, from going to sleep to apathy to not growing as a person. I think you're searching for a more clinical definition though, so I'll leave that for others to take a stab at.

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Everything worth being you is dead when there is no brain activity. In the case of the infant, it has no personality. It hasn't had time to develop one. Your personality and your ability to reason is what makes you alive. Without it, your not truly alive.

Your body is mearly a vehicle for your mind. So rather or not your body is "dead" is irrelevant to the state of your mind. For if your mind is dead, what difference does it make if your body is dead or not?

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Try not, do; or do not.

This is tough... I've edited and re-written what is typed below about 20 times.

A person is dead when a lack of neural activity in the brain fails to enact the body into performing any of the functions necessary for life.

Both body and mind must be dead for the person to be considered deceased.

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[This message has been edited by Spork (edited April 14, 2004).]

My general viewpoint.

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I wish I had a clear vision on death.

there are several states of death. I heard this somewhere:

1. you are brain dead if your cerebral brain has no apparent activity yet your body is kept alive either by an intact and functional brain stem or by life support.

2. you are clinically dead if you flatline and ALL brain activity ceases.


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Old aunts used to come up to me at weddings, poking me in the ribs and cackling, telling me, "You're next." They stopped after I started doing the same thing to them at funerals.

[This message has been edited by Pagewizard_YKS (edited April 14, 2004).]

Actually not, cliniclly dead is simple the cessation (sp?) of heart function, so technically you are clinicly dead every time you sneeze, but that doesn't really count for anything these days.

As for my general view of death, i think it is when all brain function ceases, at least cognitive functions above the brain stem (nothin above simple life functions).

Also, i dont believe there is a point of life beginning beyond conception. Past that point,potential for life is present. However, if it it proved conclusively that the child will have no higher brain/brain function after birth, such as in the case of anencephaly, then it cannot be considered living.

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"No good can ever come from staying with normal people"
-Outlaw Star
"Some people play tennis. I erode the human soul"
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Death is like an eternal unconsciousness. Unless you dream or something when unconscious (which I doubt, seeing as you're unconscious), because when you're dead, you don't. When you're dead, you stop thinking, feeling, and...everything. And you never think about anything or feel anything again. Ever. How do you like THEM apples?

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When the brain stops working, a person is dead.

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Death is when all neuroactivity has ceased, so pretty much what most other people said.

Therefore you can be clinically dead and still come back if your defibulated or struck by lightning or something. That leaves something to hope for.

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I'd love to see something that says that's anything but and old wive's tale...

My idea of death is when someone is no longer able to carry out the basic functions of life (metabolism, growth, reproduction, and response to stimuli or adaptation to the environment) whether it be due to heart failure, or being trapped in a block of ice...

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Roach - Caught in the war of hemispheres.
0 of 14.

I'd say when neural activity in the brain has been halted without any possibility of reactivation.

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When bread becomes toast, it can never go back to being bread again.

My mother's (and mine, i guess) friend, who happens to be a nuerosurgeon, said this. I heard him, so its not some sort of 'friend of a friend' nonsence. When you sneeze, your heart stops completetly for a split second.

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"No good can ever come from staying with normal people"
-Outlaw Star
"Some people play tennis. I erode the human soul"
-Tycho, Penny Arcade
"I'm a Cannabal-Vegitarian. I will BBQ an employee if there is no veggie option"
-DX:IW
A Knight's Tail
Exile: A Tale of Light in Dark

One thing I can tell you: it ain't the end!

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We are all dying to live, yet living to die...

Death? When everything packs in, gives up and no more respiration takes place. Which means there's no more neural activity, etc. And then you get shoved inside a small box for the worms to party. And then? Well, you get dug up in two thouand years by a future Tony Robinson who declares that burying in the ground was an age-old custom used to secure evil spirits in the ground. Or something.

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"Apples rule. If it weren't for a conspiracy on the part of fruit manufacturers we'd all have apples."

when the person's vital organs, not nessessarillly the brain (allowing a person to allow death to come ON ITS OWN) are no longer functioning. especially the cardiopulminary system. life can be artificially extened woth machines doing the job, but removing them would carry no pain of murder.

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[This message has been edited by avenger216 (edited April 14, 2004).]

IMO, death is when the brain's higher functions stop.

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I too believe that a person is "dead" when their mind no longer has interaction and thoughts with the world. I doubt I will say that a brain-dead person (a complete vegetable) is "corpse" when their body is still functioning. But, I believe, there is no real "person" alive in that body because it is just a collection of organs, tissues, bones and so on. So would it be considered "murder" or "termination" if one decides to end the mindless body when the heart still beats?

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I think being dead meaning that there is no longer any potential for fundamental biological processes. You can "live" on life support equipment, even if you have no brain activity. By the same note a fetus is "alive" in the mother's womb, although both of these cases will rapidly become "dead" if disconnected from their life support system.

It depends on whether or not you consider someone who is incapable of surviving indpendently as a life form.

Gee, that's funny, because I have some papers here from UW and Harvard that say that's a myth, and a link here that's reviewed by Harvard Medical School's faculty that says the same thing... There's no reason at all that sneezing would effect the SA node...

[edit - Forgot the link...]

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Roach - Caught in the war of hemispheres.
0 of 14.

[This message has been edited by Roach (edited April 14, 2004).]

Meh, we all die. Deal.

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Not the end of the world, no, but it is the end for the individual.

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The point I was trying to make is that there's a difference between being alive and living. If I can't live, then it's irrelevant if my body is [technically] alive. At that point (as far as I'm concerned) I am dead, IMO.

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Try not, do; or do not.