What is death?

Absence of life.

No brain activity -- no heart activity.

Add your favorite George Bush/Dick Cheney joke.

Don't tempt me CerealKiller

Go ahead. Bring it on. I double dawg dare ya.

I was bored, so wrote an OpEd piece here: http://www.able2know.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=35847&start=60, but we shouldn't hijack this thread so soon out of the gate.

val, many cultures look at death in different ways. It might be helpful to tell everyone your personal views.

Death is what happens when you die.

so you ask what is death? i am but a simple mind, however i will try hard to answer this question. it seems to answer this you must ask what is life, this question is not eay to answer. Life as far as i can figure is experience. what is death? deathis also an experience. what can this mean that there is the same definition for two different terms? well either life is an illusion or death is an illusion or both are an illusion. I leave you to decide for your selves.

hermaneutics, I think your opinion points out the great problem raised by a definition of death. We only know what belongs to our empirical experience. But with death, we must deal with a situation where experience is, by definition, impossible. No one can experience his own death. We can only experience other people death. But, what do we experience? The ceasing of all body functions. But death is not only that. It is the dissappearance of an identity. When I say "I" I'm referring to something that belongs to my inner experience, and you are not able to understand it. Only by making a transposition to your inner experience of your "self", but then the experience is about you, not me.
In fact, this topic had the intention of search an understanding of death as the lost of the identity. I ask myself if it is possible to reach that understanding.

At the point of no return - true and full death - evry particle that comprised a person seperates and becomes fodder to the continuing world. Complete absense of sensation or thought. Nothing to be concerned about, ultimately, although I prefer to live for as long as possible.

Death is the art of eluding one's foes.

As I've noted many times, there is dying (our last acts of living) but no such state as death. How can I be in a state of death (subject and predicate) when there is no "I" to be in a state of death?
As far as I can determine, there was no "I" existing in a state of pre-birth before I was born and there will be no "I" existing in a state of post-life after I die.
And there is no "I" now that I am alive, but that's another matter.

-edited

I agree with JL...there is no state of Death.

But if there were...I would hope its elector votes would go to Kerry.

If you believe in the afterlife, Death is the front door. If you don't, Death is comparable to nothing. I'm in something of a transition state of what I believe in, so I'll just say quote Henry Ward Beecher's last words: "Now comes the mystery."


**Inside joke: Death is perky, short, and has a penchant for floppy hats.
(Bonus points if you can tell me the reference.)

As jl says, there is no state at all, once you've died.

...or death is the cessation of both reality and illusion. Not much left is there! Strange how one needs the other and as one ceases so does its opposite!

Yep...although there are always those who will pretend they know what happens after death...and speak as though they are telling some fact they know rather than sharing a guess they have about it.

But...you just ignore that stuff...if you can.

I'm guessing either Monty Python or Blackadder....

Death. Some believe is the cessation of life and others believe it is the beginning of a better life, or existence. As for me I would hope for the second option since hope springs eternal. However?

Some think they don't know what they do know. It's all in the mind.