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Death

December 15, 2023

For the figure sometimes referred to as Death, see Death (personification).
"Dead" redirects here. For other uses, see Dead (disambiguation) and Death (disambiguation).
"Deceased" redirects here. For the band, see Deceased (band).

Death is the irreversible cessation of all biological functions that sustain an organism.[1] For organisms with a brain, death can also be defined as the irreversible cessation of functioning of the whole brain, including the brainstem.[2][3] Brain death is sometimes used as a legal definition of death.[4] The remains of a former organism normally begins to decompose shortly after death.[5] Death is an inevitable process that eventually occurs in all organisms. Some organisms, such as Turritopsis dohrnii, are biologically immortal. However, they can still die from means other than aging.[6]

The human skull is used universally as a symbol of death.

Determining when someone has definitively died has proven difficult. Initially, death was defined as occurring when breathing and the heartbeat ceased, a status still known as clinical death.[7] However, the development of CPR meant it was no longer strictly irreversible.[8] Brain death was the next option, but several definitions exist for this. Some people believe that all brain functions must cease. Some believe that even if the brainstem is still alive, the personality and identity are irretrievably lost, so therefore, the person should be entirely dead.[9]

Death is generally applied to whole organisms; the similar process seen in individual components of an organism, such as cells or tissues, is necrosis.[10] Something that is not considered an organism, such as a virus, can be physically destroyed but is not said to die, as a virus is not considered alive in the first place.[11] As of the early 21st century, 56 million people die per year. The most common reason is cardiovascular disease, which is a disease that affects the heart.[12]

Many cultures and religions have a concept of an afterlife that may hold the idea of judgment of good and bad deeds in one's life. There are also different customs for honoring the body, such as a funeral, cremation, or sky burial.[13]

A study known as biogerontology seeks to eliminate death by natural aging in humans, often through the application of natural processes found in certain organisms.[14] However, as humans do not have the means to apply this to themselves, they have to use other ways to reach the maximum lifespan for a human, such as calorie reduction, dieting, and exercise.[15]

As of 2022, a total of 109 billion humans have died, or roughly 93.8% of all humans to ever live.[16]

Diagnosis

 
World Health Organization estimated number of deaths per million persons in 2012
  1.054–4.598
  4.599–5.516
  5.517–6.289
  6.290–6.835
  6.836–7.916
  7.917–8.728
  8.729–9.404
  9.405–10.433
  10.434–12.233
  12.234–17.141

Problems of definition

Main article: Medical definition of death

The concept of death is the key to human understanding of the phenomenon.[17] There are many scientific approaches and various interpretations of the concept. Additionally, the advent of life-sustaining therapy and the numerous criteria for defining death from both a medical and legal standpoint have made it difficult to create a single unifying definition.[18]

Defining life to define death

 
A flower, a skull, and an hourglass stand for life, death, and time in this 17th-century painting by Philippe de Champaigne.

One of the challenges in defining death is in distinguishing it from life. As a point in time, death seems to refer to the moment when life ends. Determining when death has occurred is difficult, as cessation of life functions is often not simultaneous across organ systems.[19] Such determination, therefore, requires drawing precise conceptual boundaries between life and death. This is difficult due to there being little consensus on how to define life.

It is possible to define life in terms of consciousness. When consciousness ceases, an organism can be said to have died. One of the flaws in this approach is that there are many organisms that are alive but probably not conscious.[20] Another problem is in defining consciousness, which has many different definitions given by modern scientists, psychologists and philosophers.[21] Additionally, many religious traditions, including Abrahamic and Dharmic traditions, hold that death does not (or may not) entail the end of consciousness. In certain cultures, death is more of a process than a single event. It implies a slow shift from one spiritual state to another.[22]

Other definitions for death focus on the character of cessation of organismic functioning and human death, which refers to irreversible loss of personhood. More specifically, death occurs when a living entity experiences irreversible cessation of all functioning.[23] As it pertains to human life, death is an irreversible process where someone loses their existence as a person.[23]

Definition of death by heartbeat and breath

Historically, attempts to define the exact moment of a human's death have been subjective or imprecise. Death was defined as the cessation of heartbeat (cardiac arrest) and breathing,[7] but the development of CPR and prompt defibrillation have rendered that definition inadequate because breathing and heartbeat can sometimes be restarted.[8] This type of death where circulatory and respiratory arrest happens is known as the circulatory definition of death (CDD). Proponents of the CDD believe this definition is reasonable because a person with permanent loss of circulatory and respiratory function should be considered dead.[24] Critics of this definition state that while cessation of these functions may be permanent, it does not mean the situation is irreversible because if CPR is applied fast enough, the person could be revived.[24] Thus, the arguments for and against the CDD boil down to defining the actual words "permanent" and "irreversible," which further complicates the challenge of defining death. Furthermore, events causally linked to death in the past no longer kill in all circumstances; without a functioning heart or lungs, life can sometimes be sustained with a combination of life support devices, organ transplants, and artificial pacemakers.

Brain death

Today, where a definition of the moment of death is required, doctors and coroners usually turn to "brain death" or "biological death" to define a person as being dead;[25] people are considered dead when the electrical activity in their brain ceases.[26] It is presumed that an end of electrical activity indicates the end of consciousness.[27] Suspension of consciousness must be permanent and not transient, as occurs during certain sleep stages, and especially a coma.[28] In the case of sleep, Electroencephalogram (EEGs) are used to tell the difference.[29]

The category of "brain death" is seen as problematic by some scholars. For instance, Dr. Franklin Miller, a senior faculty member at the Department of Bioethics, National Institutes of Health, notes: "By the late 1990s... the equation of brain death with death of the human being was increasingly challenged by scholars, based on evidence regarding the array of biological functioning displayed by patients correctly diagnosed as having this condition who were maintained on mechanical ventilation for substantial periods of time. These patients maintained the ability to sustain circulation and respiration, control temperature, excrete wastes, heal wounds, fight infections and, most dramatically, to gestate fetuses (in the case of pregnant "brain-dead" women)."[30]

 
French – 16th-/17th-century ivory pendant, Monk and Death, recalling mortality and the certainty of death (Walters Art Museum)

While "brain death" is viewed as problematic by some scholars, there are proponents of it[who?] that believe this definition of death is the most reasonable for distinguishing life from death. The reasoning behind the support for this definition is that brain death has a set of criteria that is reliable and reproducible. Also, the brain is crucial in determining our identity or who we are as human beings. The distinction should be made that "brain death" cannot be equated with one in a vegetative state or coma, in that the former situation describes a state that is beyond recovery.[31]

EEGs can detect spurious electrical impulses, while certain drugs, hypoglycemia, hypoxia, or hypothermia can suppress or even stop brain activity temporarily;[32] because of this, hospitals have protocols for determining brain death involving EEGs at widely separated intervals under defined conditions.[33]

Neocortical brain death

People maintaining that only the neo-cortex of the brain is necessary for consciousness sometimes argue that only electrical activity should be considered when defining death. Eventually, the criterion for death may be the permanent and irreversible loss of cognitive function, as evidenced by the death of the cerebral cortex. All hope of recovering human thought and personality is then gone, given current and foreseeable medical technology.[9] Even by whole-brain criteria, the determination of brain death can be complicated.

Total brain death

At present, in most places, the more conservative definition of death (– irreversible cessation of electrical activity in the whole brain, as opposed to just in the neo-cortex – )has been adopted. One example is the Uniform Determination Of Death Act in the United States.[34] In the past, the adoption of this whole-brain definition was a conclusion of the President's Commission for the Study of Ethical Problems in Medicine and Biomedical and Behavioral Research in 1980.[35] They concluded that this approach to defining death sufficed in reaching a uniform definition nationwide. A multitude of reasons was presented to support this definition, including uniformity of standards in law for establishing death, consumption of a family's fiscal resources for artificial life support, and legal establishment for equating brain death with death to proceed with organ donation.[36]

Problems in medical practice

Aside from the issue of support of or dispute against brain death, there is another inherent problem in this categorical definition: the variability of its application in medical practice. In 1995, the American Academy of Neurology (AAN) established the criteria that became the medical standard for diagnosing neurologic death. At that time, three clinical features had to be satisfied to determine "irreversible cessation" of the total brain, including coma with clear etiology, cessation of breathing, and lack of brainstem reflexes.[37] These criteria were updated again, most recently in 2010, but substantial discrepancies remain across hospitals and medical specialties.[37]

Donations

The problem of defining death is especially imperative as it pertains to the dead donor rule, which could be understood as one of the following interpretations of the rule: there must be an official declaration of death in a person before starting organ procurement, or that organ procurement cannot result in the death of the donor.[24] A great deal of controversy has surrounded the definition of death and the dead donor rule. Advocates of the rule believe that the rule is legitimate in protecting organ donors while also countering any moral or legal objection to organ procurement. Critics, on the other hand, believe that the rule does not uphold the best interests of the donors and that the rule does not effectively promote organ donation.[24]

Signs

Main article: Stages of death

Signs of death or strong indications that a warm-blooded animal is no longer alive are:[38]

The stages that follow after death are:[39]

  • Pallor mortis, paleness which happens in 15–120 minutes after death
  • Algor mortis, the reduction in body temperature following death. This is generally a steady decline until matching ambient temperature
  • Rigor mortis, the limbs of the corpse become stiff (Latin rigor) and difficult to move or manipulate
  • Livor mortis, a settling of the blood in the lower (dependent) portion of the body
  • Putrefaction, the beginning signs of decomposition
  • Decomposition, the reduction into simpler forms of matter, accompanied by a strong, unpleasant odor.
  • Skeletonization, the end of decomposition, where all soft tissues have decomposed, leaving only the skeleton.
  • Fossilization, the natural preservation of the skeletal remains formed over a very long period
 
Timeline of postmortem changes (stages of death)

Legal

See also: Legal death

The death of a person has legal consequences that may vary between jurisdictions. Most countries follow the whole-brain death criteria, where all functions of the brain must have completely ceased. However, in other jurisdictions, some follow the brainstem version of brain death.[37] Afterward, a death certificate is issued in most jurisdictions, either by a doctor or by an administrative office, upon presentation of a doctor's declaration of death.[40]

Misdiagnosis

See also: Premature burial
 
The Premature Burial, Antoine Wiertz's painting of a man buried alive, 1854

There are many anecdotal references to people being declared dead by physicians and then "coming back to life," sometimes days later in their coffin or when embalming procedures are about to begin. From the mid-18th century onwards, there was an upsurge in the public's fear of being mistakenly buried alive[41] and much debate about the uncertainty of the signs of death. Various suggestions were made to test for signs of life before burial, ranging from pouring vinegar and pepper into the corpse's mouth to applying red hot pokers to the feet or into the rectum.[42] Writing in 1895, the physician J.C. Ouseley claimed that as many as 2,700 people were buried prematurely each year in England and Wales, although some estimates peg the figure to be closer to 800.[43]

In cases of electric shock, cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) for an hour or longer can allow stunned nerves to recover, allowing an apparently dead person to survive. People found unconscious under icy water may survive if their faces are kept continuously cold until they arrive at an emergency room.[44] This "diving response," in which metabolic activity and oxygen requirements are minimal, is something humans share with cetaceans called the mammalian diving reflex.[44]

As medical technologies advance, ideas about when death occurs may have to be reevaluated in light of the ability to restore a person to vitality after longer periods of apparent death (as happened when CPR and defibrillation showed that cessation of heartbeat is inadequate as a decisive indicator of death). The lack of electrical brain activity may not be enough to consider someone scientifically dead. Therefore, the concept of information-theoretic death has been suggested as a better means of defining when true death occurs, though the concept has few practical applications outside the field of cryonics.[45]

Causes

See also: List of causes of death by rate and Preventable causes of death

The leading cause of human death in developing countries is infectious disease. The leading causes in developed countries are atherosclerosis (heart disease and stroke), cancer, and other diseases related to obesity and aging. By an extremely wide margin, the largest unifying cause of death in the developed world is biological aging,[46] leading to various complications known as aging-associated diseases. These conditions cause loss of homeostasis, leading to cardiac arrest, causing loss of oxygen and nutrient supply, causing irreversible deterioration of the brain and other tissues. Of the roughly 150,000 people who die each day across the globe, about two thirds die of age-related causes.[46] In industrialized nations, the proportion is much higher, approaching 90%.[46] With improved medical capability, dying has become a condition to be managed.

In developing nations, inferior sanitary conditions and lack of access to modern medical technology make death from infectious diseases more common than in developed countries. One such disease is tuberculosis, a bacterial disease that killed 1.8 million people in 2015.[47] Malaria causes about 400–900 million cases of fever and 1–3M deaths annually.[48] The AIDS death toll in Africa may reach 90–100 million by 2025.[49][50]

According to Jean Ziegler, the United Nations Special Reporter on the Right to Food, 2000 – Mar 2008, mortality due to malnutrition accounted for 58% of the total mortality rate in 2006. Ziegler says worldwide, approximately 62 million people died from all causes and of those deaths, more than 36 million died of hunger or diseases due to deficiencies in micronutrients.[51]

 
American children smoking in 1910. Tobacco smoking caused an estimated 100 million deaths in the 20th century.[52]

Tobacco smoking killed 100 million people worldwide in the 20th century and could kill 1 billion people worldwide in the 21st century, a World Health Organization report warned.[52]

Many leading developed world causes of death can be postponed by diet and physical activity, but the accelerating incidence of disease with age still imposes limits on human longevity. The evolutionary cause of aging is, at best, only beginning to be understood. It has been suggested that direct intervention in the aging process may now be the most effective intervention against major causes of death.[53]

Selye proposed a unified non-specific approach to many causes of death. He demonstrated that stress decreases the adaptability of an organism and proposed to describe adaptability as a special resource, adaptation energy. The animal dies when this resource is exhausted.[54] Selye assumed that adaptability is a finite supply presented at birth. Later, Goldstone proposed the concept of production or income of adaptation energy which may be stored (up to a limit) as a capital reserve of adaptation.[55] In recent works, adaptation energy is considered an internal coordinate on the "dominant path" in the model of adaptation. It is demonstrated that oscillations of well-being appear when the reserve of adaptability is almost exhausted.[56]

 
Le Suicidé by Édouard Manet depicts a man who has recently committed suicide via a firearm

In 2012, suicide overtook car crashes as the leading cause of human injury deaths in the U.S., followed by poisoning, falls, and murder.[57]

Accidents and disasters, from nuclear disasters to structural collapses, also claim lives. One of the deadliest incidents of all time is the Failure of the 1975 Banqiao Dam Failure, with varying estimates, up to 240,000 dead.[58] Other incidents with high death tolls are; the Wanggongchang explosion when a gunpowder factory ended up with 20,000 deaths,[59] a collapse of a wall of Circus Maximus killing 13,000 people,[60] and the Chernobyl disaster killing between 95 and 4,000 people.[61][62]

Natural disasters kill around 45,000 people annually, although this number can vary to millions to thousands on a per decade basis. Some of the deadliest natural disasters are the 1931 China Floods, which killed and estimated 4 million people, although, estimates widely vary,[63] the 1887 Yellow River Flood, which killed an estimated 2 million people in China,[64] and the 1970 Bhola Cyclone, killing 500,000 people in Pakistan.[65]

In animals, predation can be a common cause of death. Livestock have a 6% death rate from predation. However, younger animals are more susceptible to predation. For example, 50% of young foxes die to birds, bobcats, coyotes, and other foxes as well. Young bear cubs in the Yellowstone National Park only have a 40% chance to survive to adulthood from other bears and predators.[66]

Autopsy

 
An autopsy is portrayed in The Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Nicolaes Tulp, by Rembrandt

An autopsy, also known as a postmortem examination or an obduction, is a medical procedure that consists of a thorough examination of a human corpse to determine the cause and manner of a person's death and to evaluate any disease or injury that may be present. It is usually performed by a specialized medical doctor called a pathologist.[67]

Autopsies are either performed for legal or medical purposes.[67] A forensic autopsy is carried out when the cause of death may be a criminal matter, while a clinical or academic autopsy is performed to find the medical cause of death and is used in cases of unknown or uncertain death, or for research purposes.[68] Autopsies can be further classified into cases where external examination suffices, and those where the body is dissected and an internal examination is conducted.[69] Permission from next of kin may be required for internal autopsy in some cases.[70] Once an internal autopsy is complete the body is generally reconstituted by sewing it back together.[39]

A necropsy, which is not always a medical procedure, was a term previously used to describe an unregulated postmortem examination. In modern times, this term is more commonly associated with the corpses of animals.[71]

Death before birth

Death before birth can happen in several ways: stillbirth, when the fetus dies before or during the delivery process; miscarriage, when the embryo dies before independent survival; and abortion, the artificial termination of the pregnancy. Stillbirth and miscarriage can happen for various reasons, while abortion is carried out purposely.

Stillbirth

Main article: Stillbirth

Stillbirth can happen right before or after the delivery of a fetus. It can result from defects of the fetus or risk factors present in the mother. Reductions of these factors, caesarean sections when risks are present, and early detection of birth defects have lowered the rate of stillbirth. However, 1% of births in the United States end in a stillbirth.[72]

Miscarriage

Main article: Miscarriage

A miscarriage is defined by the World Health Organization as, "The expulsion or extraction from its mother of an embryo or fetus weighing 500g or less." Miscarriage is one of the most frequent problems in pregnancy, and is reported in around 12–15% of all clinical pregnancies; however, by including pregnancy losses during menstruation, it could be up to 17–22% of all pregnancies. There are many risk-factors involved in miscarriage; consumption of caffeine, tobacco, alcohol, drugs, having a previous miscarriage, and the use of abortion can increase the chances of having a miscarriage.[73]

Abortion

Main article: Abortion

An abortion may be performed for many reasons, such as pregnancy from rape, financial constraints of having a child, teenage pregnancy, and the lack of support from a significant other.[74] There are two forms of abortion: a medical abortion and an in-clinic abortion or sometimes referred to as a surgical abortion. A medical abortion involves taking a pill that will terminate the pregnancy no more than 11 weeks past the last period, and an in-clinic abortion involves a medical procedure using suction to empty the uterus; this is possible after 12 weeks, but it may be more difficult to find an operating doctor who will go through with the procedure.[75]

Senescence

Main article: Senescence
 
Dead Camelthorn tree within Sossusvlei

Senescence refers to a scenario when a living being can survive all calamities but eventually dies due to causes relating to old age. Conversely, premature death can refer to a death that occurs before old age arrives, for example, human death before a person reaches the age of 75.[76] Animal and plant cells normally reproduce and function during the whole period of natural existence, but the aging process derives from the deterioration of cellular activity and the ruination of regular functioning. The aptitude of cells for gradual deterioration and mortality means that cells are naturally sentenced to stable and long-term loss of living capacities, even despite continuing metabolic reactions and viability. In the United Kingdom, for example, nine out of ten of all the deaths that occur daily relates to senescence, while around the world, it accounts for two-thirds of 150,000 deaths that take place daily.[77]

Almost all animals who survive external hazards to their biological functioning eventually die from biological aging, known in life sciences as "senescence." Some organisms experience negligible senescence, even exhibiting biological immortality. These include the jellyfish Turritopsis dohrnii,[78] the hydra, and the planarian. Unnatural causes of death include suicide and predation. Of all causes, roughly 150,000 people die around the world each day.[46] Of these, two-thirds die directly or indirectly due to senescence, but in industrialized countries – such as the United States, the United Kingdom, and Germany – the rate approaches 90% (i.e., nearly nine out of ten of all deaths are related to senescence).[46]

Physiological death is now seen as a process, more than an event: conditions once considered indicative of death are now reversible.[79] Where in the process, a dividing line is drawn between life and death depends on factors beyond the presence or absence of vital signs. In general, clinical death is neither necessary nor sufficient for a determination of legal death. A patient with working heart and lungs determined to be brain dead can be pronounced legally dead without clinical death occurring.[80]

Life extension

Main article: Life extension

Life extension refers to an increase in maximum or average lifespan, especially in humans, by slowing down or reversing the processes of aging through anti-aging measures. Although aging is the most common cause of death worldwide, it is socially mostly ignored as such and seen as "necessary" and "inevitable" anyway, which is why little money is spent on research into anti-aging therapies, a phenomenon known as pro-aging trance.[46]

The average lifespan is determined by vulnerability to accidents and age or lifestyle-related afflictions such as cancer or cardiovascular disease. Extension of average lifespan can be achieved by good diet, exercise, and avoidance of hazards such as smoking. Maximum lifespan is also determined by the rate of aging for a species inherent in its genes. Currently, the only widely recognized method of extending the maximum lifespan is calorie restriction.[15] Theoretically, the extension of the maximum lifespan can be achieved by reducing the rate of aging damage, by periodic replacement of damaged tissues, or by molecular repair or rejuvenation of deteriorated cells and tissues.[81]

A United States poll found that religious people and irreligious people, as well as men and women and people of different economic classes, have similar rates of support for life extension, while Africans and Hispanics have higher rates of support than white people. Thirty-Eight percent of the polled said they would desire to have their aging process cured.[82]

Researchers of life extension are a subclass of biogerontologists known as "biomedical gerontologists." They try to understand the nature of aging, and they develop treatments to reverse aging processes or at least slow them down for the improvement of health and the maintenance of youthful vigor at every stage of life.[14] Those who take advantage of life extension findings and seek to apply them to themselves are called "life extensionists" or "longevists." The primary life extension strategy currently is to apply available anti-aging methods in the hope of living long enough to benefit from a complete cure for aging once it is developed.[83]

Cryonics

Main article: Cryonics
 
Technicians prepare a body for cryopreservation in 1985.

Cryonics (from Greek κρύος 'kryos-' meaning 'icy cold') is the low-temperature preservation of animals and humans who cannot be sustained by contemporary medicine, with the hope that healing and resuscitation may be possible in the future.[84][85]

Cryopreservation of people or large animals is not reversible with current technology. The stated rationale for cryonics is that people who are considered dead by current legal or medical definitions may not necessarily be dead according to the more stringent information-theoretic definition of death.[45][86]

Some scientific literature is claimed to support the feasibility of cryonics.[87] Medical science and cryobiologists generally regard cryonics with skepticism.[88]

Location

 
Kyösti Kallio (middle), the fourth President of the Republic of Finland, had a fatal heart attack a few seconds after this photograph was taken by Hugo Sundström on December 19, 1940, at Helsinki railway station in Helsinki, Finland.[89][90]

Around 1930, most people in Western countries died in their own homes, surrounded by family, and comforted by clergy, neighbors, and doctors making house calls.[91] By the mid-20th century, half of all Americans died in a hospital.[92] By the start of the 21st century, only about 20 to 25% of people in developed countries died outside of a medical institution.[92][93][94] The shift from dying at home towards dying in a professional medical environment has been termed the "Invisible Death."[92] This shift occurred gradually over the years until most deaths now occur outside the home.[95]

Psychology

See also: Death anxiety

Death studies is a field within psychology.[96] To varying degrees people inherently fear death, both the process and the eventuality; it is hard wired and part of the 'survival instinct' of all animals.[97] Discussing, thinking about, or planning for their deaths causes them discomfort. This fear may cause them to put off financial planning, preparing a will and testament, or requesting help from a hospice organization.

Mortality salience is the awareness that death is inevitable. However, self-esteem and culture are ways to reduce the anxiety this effect can cause.[98] The awareness of someone's own death can cause a deepened bond in their in-group as a defense mechanism. This can also cause the person to become very judging. In a study, two groups were formed; one group was asked to reflect upon their mortality, the other was not, afterwards, the groups were told to set a bond for a prostitute. The group that did not reflect on death had an average of $50, the group who was reminded about their death had an average of $455 dollars.[99]

Different people have different responses to the idea of their deaths. Philosopher Galen Strawson writes that the death that many people wish for is an instant, painless, unexperienced annihilation.[100] In this unlikely scenario, the person dies without realizing it and without being able to fear it. One moment the person is walking, eating, or sleeping, and the next moment, the person is dead. Strawson reasons that this type of death would not take anything away from the person, as he believes a person cannot have a legitimate claim to ownership in the future.[100][101]

Society and culture

Main articles: Death and culture and Human skull symbolism
 
The regent duke Charles (later king Charles IX of Sweden) insulting the corpse of Klaus Fleming. Albert Edelfelt, 1878
 
Dead bodies can be mummified either naturally, as this one from Guanajuato, or by intention, as those in ancient Egypt

In society, the nature of death and humanity's awareness of its mortality has, for millennia, been a concern of the world's religious traditions and philosophical inquiry. Including belief in resurrection or an afterlife (associated with Abrahamic religions), reincarnation or rebirth (associated with Dharmic religions), or that consciousness permanently ceases to exist, known as eternal oblivion (associated with Secular humanism).[102]

Commemoration ceremonies after death may include various mourning, funeral practices, and ceremonies of honoring the deceased.[103] The physical remains of a person, commonly known as a corpse or body, are usually interred whole or cremated, though among the world's cultures, there are a variety of other methods of mortuary disposal.[13] In the English language, blessings directed towards a dead person include rest in peace (originally the Latin, requiescat in pace) or its initialism RIP.

Death is the center of many traditions and organizations; customs relating to death are a feature of every culture around the world. Much of this revolves around the care of the dead, as well as the afterlife and the disposal of bodies upon the onset of death. The disposal of human corpses does, in general, begin with the last offices before significant time has passed, and ritualistic ceremonies often occur, most commonly interment or cremation. This is not a unified practice; in Tibet, for instance, the body is given a sky burial and left on a mountain top. Proper preparation for death and techniques and ceremonies for producing the ability to transfer one's spiritual attainments into another body (reincarnation) are subjects of detailed study in Tibet.[104] Mummification or embalming is also prevalent in some cultures to retard the rate of decay.[105]

Some parts of death in culture are legally based, having laws for when death occurs, such as the receiving of a death certificate, the settlement of the deceased estate, and the issues of inheritance and, in some countries, inheritance taxation.[106]

Capital punishment is also a culturally divisive aspect of death. In most jurisdictions where capital punishment is carried out today, the death penalty is reserved for premeditated murder, espionage, treason, or as part of military justice. In some countries, sexual crimes, such as adultery and sodomy, carry the death penalty, as do religious crimes, such as apostasy, the formal renunciation of one's religion. In many retentionist countries, drug trafficking is also a capital offense. In China, human trafficking and serious cases of corruption are also punished by the death penalty. In militaries around the world, courts-martial have imposed death sentences for offenses such as cowardice, desertion, insubordination, and mutiny.[107]

Death in warfare and suicide attack also have cultural links, and the ideas of dulce et decorum est pro patria mori, which translates to "It is sweet and proper to die for one's country," mutiny punishable by death, such as in the United States,[108] grieving relatives of dead soldiers and death notification are embedded in many cultures.[109] Recently in the western world, with the increase in terrorism following the September 11 attacks, but also further back in time with suicide bombings, kamikaze missions in World War II, and suicide missions in a host of other conflicts in history, death for a cause by way of suicide attack, and martyrdom have had significant cultural impacts.[110]

Suicide, in general, and particularly euthanasia, are also points of cultural debate. Both acts are understood very differently in different cultures.[111] In Japan, for example, ending a life with honor by seppuku was considered a desirable death,[112] whereas according to traditional Christian and Islamic cultures, suicide is viewed as a sin.

 
Santa Muerte, the personification of death in Mexican tradition[113]

Death is personified in many cultures, with such symbolic representations as the Grim Reaper, Azrael, the Hindu god Yama, and Father Time. In the west, the Grim Reaper, or figures similar to it, is the most popular depiction of death in western cultures.[114]

In Brazil, death is counted officially when it is registered by existing family members at a cartório, a government-authorized registry. Before being able to file for an official death, the deceased must have been registered for an official birth at the cartório. Though a Public Registry Law guarantees all Brazilian citizens the right to register deaths, regardless of their financial means of their family members (often children), the Brazilian government has not taken away the burden, the hidden costs, and fees of filing for a death. For many impoverished families, the indirect costs and burden of filing for a death lead to a more appealing, unofficial, local, and cultural burial, which, in turn, raises the debate about inaccurate mortality rates.[115]

Talking about death and witnessing it is a difficult issue in most cultures. Western societies may like to treat the dead with the utmost material respect, with an official embalmer and associated rites.[105] Eastern societies (like India) may be more open to accepting it as a fait accompli, with a funeral procession of the dead body ending in an open-air burning-to-ashes.[116]

Origins of death

Main article: Origin of death

The origin of death is a theme or myth of how death came to be. It is present in nearly all cultures across the world, as death is a universal happening.[117] This makes it an origin myth, a myth that describes how a feature of the natural or social world appeared.[118][119] There can be some similarities between myths and cultures. In North American mythology, the theme of a man who wants to be immortal and a man who wants to die can be seen across many Indigenous people.[120] In Christianity, death is the result of the fall of man after eating the fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.[117] In Greek mythology, the opening of Pandora's box releases death upon the world.[121]

Consciousness

Main article: Consciousness after death

Much interest and debate surround the question of what happens to one's consciousness as one's body dies. The belief in the permanent loss of consciousness after death is often called eternal oblivion. The belief that the stream of consciousness is preserved after physical death is described by the term afterlife. Neither is likely to be confirmed without the ponderer having to die.

Near-death experiences are the closest thing people have to an afterlife that we know. Some people who have had near-death experiences (NDEs) report that they have seen the afterlife while they were dead. Seeing a being of light and talking with it, life flashing before the eyes, and the confirmation of cultural beliefs of the afterlife are all themes that happen during the moments they are dead.[122]

In biology

 
Earthworms are soil-dwelling detritivores

After death, the remains of a former organism become part of the biogeochemical cycle, during which animals may be consumed by a predator or a scavenger.[123] Organic material may then be further decomposed by detritivores, organisms that recycle detritus, returning it to the environment for reuse in the food chain, where these chemicals may eventually end up being consumed and assimilated into the cells of an organism.[124] Examples of detritivores include earthworms, woodlice, and millipedes.[125]

Microorganisms also play a vital role, raising the temperature of the decomposing matter as they break it down into yet simpler molecules.[126] Not all materials need to be fully decomposed. Coal, a fossil fuel formed over vast tracts of time in swamp ecosystems, is one example.[127]

Natural selection

Main articles: Competition (biology) and Natural selection

The contemporary evolutionary theory sees death as an important part of the process of natural selection. It is considered that organisms less adapted to their environment are more likely to die, having produced fewer offspring, thereby reducing their contribution to the gene pool. Their genes are thus eventually bred out of a population, leading at worst to extinction and, more positively, making the process possible, referred to as speciation. Frequency of reproduction plays an equally important role in determining species survival: an organism that dies young but leaves numerous offspring displays, according to Darwinian criteria, much greater fitness than a long-lived organism leaving only one.[128][129]

Death also has a role in competition, where if a species out-competes another, there is a risk of death for the population. Especially in the case where they are directly fighting over resources.[130]

Extinction

Main article: Extinction
 
A dodo, the bird that became a byword in the English language for the extinction of a species[131]

Death plays a role in extinction, the cessation of existence of a species or group of taxa, reducing biodiversity, due to extinction being generally considered to be the death of the last individual of that species (although the capacity to breed and recover may have been lost before this point). Because a species' potential range may be very large, determining this moment is difficult, and is usually done retrospectively.[132]

Evolution of aging and mortality

Main article: Evolution of ageing

Inquiry into the evolution of aging aims to explain why so many living things and the vast majority of animals weaken and die with age. However, there are exceptions, such as Hydra and the jellyfish Turritopsis dohrnii, which research shows to be biologically immortal.[133]

Organisms showing only asexual reproduction, such as bacteria, some protists, like the euglenoids and many amoebozoans, and unicellular organisms with sexual reproduction, colonial or not, like the volvocine algae Pandorina and Chlamydomonas, are "immortal" at some extent, dying only due to external hazards, like being eaten or meeting with a fatal accident. In multicellular organisms and also in multinucleate ciliates[134] with a Weismannist development, that is, with a division of labor between mortal somatic (body) cells and "immortal" germ (reproductive) cells, death becomes an essential part of life, at least for the somatic line.[135]

The Volvox algae are among the simplest organisms to exhibit that division of labor between two completely different cell types, and as a consequence, include the death of somatic line as a regular, genetically regulated part of its life history.[135][136]

Grief in animals

Animals have sometimes shown grief for their partners or "friends." When two chimpanzees form a bond together, sexual or not, and one of them dies, the surviving chimpanzee will show signs of grief, ripping out their hair in anger and starting to cry; if the body is removed, they will resist, they will eventually go quiet when the body is gone, but upon seeing the body again, the chimp will return to a violent state.[137]

Death of abiotic factors

Some non-living things can be considered dead. For example, a volcano, batteries, electrical components, and stars are all nonliving things that can "die," whether from destruction or cessation of function.

A volcano, a break in the earth's crust that allows lava, ash, and gases to escape, has three states that it may be in, active, dormant, and extinct. An active volcano has recently or is currently erupting; in a dormant volcano, it has not erupted for a significant amount of time, but it may erupt again; in an extinct volcano, it may be cut off from the supply of its lava and will never expected to erupt again, so the volcano can be considered to be dead.[138]

A battery can be considered dead after the charge is fully used up. Electrical components are similar in this fashion, in the case that it may not be able to be used again, such as after a spill of water on the components,[139] the component can be considered dead.

 
Kepler's Supernova, after the death of what could have been a white dwarf.

Stars also have a life-span and, therefore, can die. After it starts to run out of fuel, it starts to expand, this can be analogous to the star aging. After it exhausts all fuel, it may explode in a supernova,[140] collapse into a black hole, or turn into a neutron star.[141]

Religious views

Buddhism

See also: Anussati § The ten recollections

In Buddhist doctrine and practice, death plays an important role. Awareness of death motivated Prince Siddhartha to strive to find the "deathless" and finally attain enlightenment. In Buddhist doctrine, death functions as a reminder of the value of having been born as a human being. Being reborn as a human being is considered the only state in which one can attain enlightenment. Therefore, death helps remind oneself that one should not take life for granted. The belief in rebirth among Buddhists does not necessarily remove death anxiety since all existence in the cycle of rebirth is considered filled with suffering, and being reborn many times does not necessarily mean that one progresses.[142]

Death is part of several key Buddhist tenets, such as the Four Noble Truths and dependent origination.[142]

Christianity

See also: Soul in the Bible, Second death, and Resurrection of the dead § Christianity
 
In Dante's Paradiso, Dante is with Beatrice, staring at the highest heavens.

While there are different sects of Christianity with different branches of belief, the overarching ideology on death grows from the knowledge of the afterlife. After death, the individual will undergo a separation from mortality to immortality; their soul leaves the body entering a realm of spirits. Following this separation of body and spirit (death), resurrection will occur.[143] Representing the same transformation Jesus Christ embodied after his body was placed in the tomb for three days, each person's body will be resurrected, reuniting the spirit and body in a perfect form. This process allows the individual's soul to withstand death and transform into life after death.[144]

Hinduism

See also: Reincarnation § Hinduism, Naraka (Hinduism), and Yama (Hinduism)
 
Illustration depicting Hindu beliefs about reincarnation

In Hindu texts, death is described as the individual eternal spiritual jiva-atma (soul or conscious self) exiting the current temporary material body. The soul exits this body when the body can no longer sustain the conscious self (life), which may be due to mental or physical reasons or, more accurately, the inability to act on one's kama (material desires).[145] During conception, the soul enters a compatible new body based on the remaining merits and demerits of one's karma (good/bad material activities based on dharma) and the state of one's mind (impressions or last thoughts) at the time of death.[146]

Usually, the process of reincarnation makes one forget all memories of one's previous life. Because nothing really dies and the temporary material body is always changing, both in this life and the next, death means forgetfulness of one's previous experiences.[147]

Islam

See also: Islamic view of death

The Islamic view is that death is the separation of the soul from the body as well as the beginning of the afterlife.[148] The afterlife, or akhirah, is one of the six main beliefs in Islam. Rather than seeing death as the end of life, Muslims consider death as a continuation of life in another form.[149] In Islam, life on earth right now is a short, temporary life and a testing period for every soul. True life begins with the Day of Judgement when all people will be divided into two groups. The righteous believers will be welcomed to janna (heaven), and the disbelievers and evildoers will be punished in jahannam (hellfire).[150]

Muslims believe death to be wholly natural and predetermined by God. Only God knows the exact time of a person's death.[151] The Quran emphasizes that death is inevitable, no matter how much people try to escape death, it will reach everyone. (Q50:16) Life on earth is the one and only chance for people to prepare themselves for the life to come and choose to either believe or not believe in God, and death is the end of that learning opportunity.[152]

Judaism

See also: Bereavement in Judaism

There are a variety of beliefs about the afterlife within Judaism, but none of them contradict the preference for life over death. This is partially because death puts a cessation to the possibility of fulfilling any commandments.[153]

Language

The word "death" comes from Old English dēaþ, which in turn comes from Proto-Germanic *dauþuz (reconstructed by etymological analysis). This comes from the Proto-Indo-European stem *dheu- meaning the "process, act, condition of dying."[154]

The concept and symptoms of death, and varying degrees of delicacy used in discussion in public forums, have generated numerous scientific, legal, and socially acceptable terms or euphemisms. When a person has died, it is also said they have "passed away", "passed on", "expired", or "gone", among other socially accepted, religiously specific, slang, and irreverent terms.

As a formal reference to a dead person, it has become common practice to use the participle form of "decease", as in "the deceased"; another noun form is "decedent".

Bereft of life, the dead person is a "corpse", "cadaver", "body", "set of remains" or, when all flesh is gone, a "skeleton". The terms "carrion" and "carcass" are also used, usually for dead non-human animals. The ashes left after a cremation are lately called "cremains".

See also

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Bibliography

  • Bondeson, Jan (2001). Buried Alive: the Terrifying History of our Most Primal Fear. W.W. Norton & Company. ISBN 978-0393049060.
  • Mullin, Glenn H. (2008) [1998]. Living in the Face of Death: The Tibetan Tradition. Ithaca, New York: Snow Lion Publications. ISBN 978-1559393102.

Further reading

  • Cochem, Martin of (1899). "On Death" . The four last things: death, judgment, hell, heaven. Benziger Brothers.
  • Daughters of Charity of St. Vincent de Paul. (1856). "Considerations on Death" . St. Vincent's Manual. John Murphy & Co.
  • Liguori, Alphonsus (1868). Preparation for Death . Rivingtons.
  • Marques, Susana Moreira (2015). Now and At the Hour of Our Death. Translated by Sanches, Julia. And Other Stories. ISBN 978-1908276629.
  • Massillon, Jean-Baptiste (1879). "On Death" . Sermons by John-Baptist Massillon. Thomas Tegg & Sons.
  • Rosenberg, David (17 August 2014). "How One Photographer Overcame His Fear of Death by Photographing It (Walter Schels' Life Before Death)". Slate.
  • Sachs, Jessica Snyder (2001). Corpse: Nature, Forensics, and the Struggle to Pinpoint Time of Death (270 pages). Perseus Publishing. ISBN 978-0738203362.
  • Warraich, Haider (2017). Modern Death: How Medicine Changed the End of Life. St. Martin's Press. ISBN 978-1250104588.

External links

  • Death at Curlie
  • "Death". Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University. 2016. {{cite book}}: |website= ignored (help)
  • "Death" . Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 7 (11th ed.). 1911. pp. 898–900.
  • Best, Ben. "Causes of Death". BenBest.com. Retrieved 10 June 2016.
  • Schels, Walter; Lakotta, Beate. . LensCulture.com. Archived from the original on 11 October 2014. Retrieved 19 September 2016. Interviews with people dying in hospices, and portraits of them before, and shortly after, death.
  • U.S. Census. . AntiqueBooks.net (scanns). Archived from the original on 18 September 2004. Retrieved 19 September 2016. How the medical profession categorized causes of death.
  • Wald, George. "The Origin of Death". ElijahWald.com. A biologist explains life and death in different kinds of organisms, in relation to evolution.
  • "Death" (video; 10:18) by Timothy Ferris, producer of the Voyager Golden Record for NASA. 2021

December 15, 2023
death, figure, sometimes, referred, personification, dead, redirects, here, other, uses, dead, disambiguation, disambiguation, deceased, redirects, here, band, deceased, band, irreversible, cessation, biological, functions, that, sustain, organism, organisms, . For the figure sometimes referred to as Death see Death personification Dead redirects here For other uses see Dead disambiguation and Death disambiguation Deceased redirects here For the band see Deceased band Death is the irreversible cessation of all biological functions that sustain an organism 1 For organisms with a brain death can also be defined as the irreversible cessation of functioning of the whole brain including the brainstem 2 3 Brain death is sometimes used as a legal definition of death 4 The remains of a former organism normally begins to decompose shortly after death 5 Death is an inevitable process that eventually occurs in all organisms Some organisms such as Turritopsis dohrnii are biologically immortal However they can still die from means other than aging 6 The human skull is used universally as a symbol of death Determining when someone has definitively died has proven difficult Initially death was defined as occurring when breathing and the heartbeat ceased a status still known as clinical death 7 However the development of CPR meant it was no longer strictly irreversible 8 Brain death was the next option but several definitions exist for this Some people believe that all brain functions must cease Some believe that even if the brainstem is still alive the personality and identity are irretrievably lost so therefore the person should be entirely dead 9 Death is generally applied to whole organisms the similar process seen in individual components of an organism such as cells or tissues is necrosis 10 Something that is not considered an organism such as a virus can be physically destroyed but is not said to die as a virus is not considered alive in the first place 11 As of the early 21st century 56 million people die per year The most common reason is cardiovascular disease which is a disease that affects the heart 12 Many cultures and religions have a concept of an afterlife that may hold the idea of judgment of good and bad deeds in one s life There are also different customs for honoring the body such as a funeral cremation or sky burial 13 A study known as biogerontology seeks to eliminate death by natural aging in humans often through the application of natural processes found in certain organisms 14 However as humans do not have the means to apply this to themselves they have to use other ways to reach the maximum lifespan for a human such as calorie reduction dieting and exercise 15 As of 2022 a total of 109 billion humans have died or roughly 93 8 of all humans to ever live 16 Contents 1 Diagnosis 1 1 Problems of definition 1 1 1 Defining life to define death 1 1 2 Definition of death by heartbeat and breath 1 1 3 Brain death 1 1 4 Neocortical brain death 1 1 5 Total brain death 1 1 6 Problems in medical practice 1 1 7 Donations 1 2 Signs 1 3 Legal 1 4 Misdiagnosis 2 Causes 2 1 Autopsy 3 Death before birth 3 1 Stillbirth 3 2 Miscarriage 3 3 Abortion 4 Senescence 5 Life extension 5 1 Cryonics 6 Location 7 Psychology 8 Society and culture 8 1 Origins of death 9 Consciousness 10 In biology 10 1 Natural selection 10 2 Extinction 10 3 Evolution of aging and mortality 10 4 Grief in animals 10 5 Death of abiotic factors 11 Religious views 11 1 Buddhism 11 2 Christianity 11 3 Hinduism 11 4 Islam 11 5 Judaism 12 Language 13 See also 14 References 15 Bibliography 16 Further reading 17 External linksDiagnosis nbsp World Health Organization estimated number of deaths per million persons in 2012 1 054 4 598 4 599 5 516 5 517 6 289 6 290 6 835 6 836 7 916 7 917 8 728 8 729 9 404 9 405 10 433 10 434 12 233 12 234 17 141Problems of definition Main article Medical definition of death The concept of death is the key to human understanding of the phenomenon 17 There are many scientific approaches and various interpretations of the concept Additionally the advent of life sustaining therapy and the numerous criteria for defining death from both a medical and legal standpoint have made it difficult to create a single unifying definition 18 Defining life to define death nbsp A flower a skull and an hourglass stand for life death and time in this 17th century painting by Philippe de Champaigne One of the challenges in defining death is in distinguishing it from life As a point in time death seems to refer to the moment when life ends Determining when death has occurred is difficult as cessation of life functions is often not simultaneous across organ systems 19 Such determination therefore requires drawing precise conceptual boundaries between life and death This is difficult due to there being little consensus on how to define life It is possible to define life in terms of consciousness When consciousness ceases an organism can be said to have died One of the flaws in this approach is that there are many organisms that are alive but probably not conscious 20 Another problem is in defining consciousness which has many different definitions given by modern scientists psychologists and philosophers 21 Additionally many religious traditions including Abrahamic and Dharmic traditions hold that death does not or may not entail the end of consciousness In certain cultures death is more of a process than a single event It implies a slow shift from one spiritual state to another 22 Other definitions for death focus on the character of cessation of organismic functioning and human death which refers to irreversible loss of personhood More specifically death occurs when a living entity experiences irreversible cessation of all functioning 23 As it pertains to human life death is an irreversible process where someone loses their existence as a person 23 Definition of death by heartbeat and breath Historically attempts to define the exact moment of a human s death have been subjective or imprecise Death was defined as the cessation of heartbeat cardiac arrest and breathing 7 but the development of CPR and prompt defibrillation have rendered that definition inadequate because breathing and heartbeat can sometimes be restarted 8 This type of death where circulatory and respiratory arrest happens is known as the circulatory definition of death CDD Proponents of the CDD believe this definition is reasonable because a person with permanent loss of circulatory and respiratory function should be considered dead 24 Critics of this definition state that while cessation of these functions may be permanent it does not mean the situation is irreversible because if CPR is applied fast enough the person could be revived 24 Thus the arguments for and against the CDD boil down to defining the actual words permanent and irreversible which further complicates the challenge of defining death Furthermore events causally linked to death in the past no longer kill in all circumstances without a functioning heart or lungs life can sometimes be sustained with a combination of life support devices organ transplants and artificial pacemakers Brain death Today where a definition of the moment of death is required doctors and coroners usually turn to brain death or biological death to define a person as being dead 25 people are considered dead when the electrical activity in their brain ceases 26 It is presumed that an end of electrical activity indicates the end of consciousness 27 Suspension of consciousness must be permanent and not transient as occurs during certain sleep stages and especially a coma 28 In the case of sleep Electroencephalogram EEGs are used to tell the difference 29 The category of brain death is seen as problematic by some scholars For instance Dr Franklin Miller a senior faculty member at the Department of Bioethics National Institutes of Health notes By the late 1990s the equation of brain death with death of the human being was increasingly challenged by scholars based on evidence regarding the array of biological functioning displayed by patients correctly diagnosed as having this condition who were maintained on mechanical ventilation for substantial periods of time These patients maintained the ability to sustain circulation and respiration control temperature excrete wastes heal wounds fight infections and most dramatically to gestate fetuses in the case of pregnant brain dead women 30 nbsp French 16th 17th century ivory pendant Monk and Death recalling mortality and the certainty of death Walters Art Museum While brain death is viewed as problematic by some scholars there are proponents of it who that believe this definition of death is the most reasonable for distinguishing life from death The reasoning behind the support for this definition is that brain death has a set of criteria that is reliable and reproducible Also the brain is crucial in determining our identity or who we are as human beings The distinction should be made that brain death cannot be equated with one in a vegetative state or coma in that the former situation describes a state that is beyond recovery 31 EEGs can detect spurious electrical impulses while certain drugs hypoglycemia hypoxia or hypothermia can suppress or even stop brain activity temporarily 32 because of this hospitals have protocols for determining brain death involving EEGs at widely separated intervals under defined conditions 33 Neocortical brain death People maintaining that only the neo cortex of the brain is necessary for consciousness sometimes argue that only electrical activity should be considered when defining death Eventually the criterion for death may be the permanent and irreversible loss of cognitive function as evidenced by the death of the cerebral cortex All hope of recovering human thought and personality is then gone given current and foreseeable medical technology 9 Even by whole brain criteria the determination of brain death can be complicated Total brain death At present in most places the more conservative definition of death irreversible cessation of electrical activity in the whole brain as opposed to just in the neo cortex has been adopted One example is the Uniform Determination Of Death Act in the United States 34 In the past the adoption of this whole brain definition was a conclusion of the President s Commission for the Study of Ethical Problems in Medicine and Biomedical and Behavioral Research in 1980 35 They concluded that this approach to defining death sufficed in reaching a uniform definition nationwide A multitude of reasons was presented to support this definition including uniformity of standards in law for establishing death consumption of a family s fiscal resources for artificial life support and legal establishment for equating brain death with death to proceed with organ donation 36 Problems in medical practice Aside from the issue of support of or dispute against brain death there is another inherent problem in this categorical definition the variability of its application in medical practice In 1995 the American Academy of Neurology AAN established the criteria that became the medical standard for diagnosing neurologic death At that time three clinical features had to be satisfied to determine irreversible cessation of the total brain including coma with clear etiology cessation of breathing and lack of brainstem reflexes 37 These criteria were updated again most recently in 2010 but substantial discrepancies remain across hospitals and medical specialties 37 Donations The problem of defining death is especially imperative as it pertains to the dead donor rule which could be understood as one of the following interpretations of the rule there must be an official declaration of death in a person before starting organ procurement or that organ procurement cannot result in the death of the donor 24 A great deal of controversy has surrounded the definition of death and the dead donor rule Advocates of the rule believe that the rule is legitimate in protecting organ donors while also countering any moral or legal objection to organ procurement Critics on the other hand believe that the rule does not uphold the best interests of the donors and that the rule does not effectively promote organ donation 24 Signs Main article Stages of death Signs of death or strong indications that a warm blooded animal is no longer alive are 38 Respiratory arrest no breathing Cardiac arrest no pulse Brain death no neuronal activity The stages that follow after death are 39 Pallor mortis paleness which happens in 15 120 minutes after death Algor mortis the reduction in body temperature following death This is generally a steady decline until matching ambient temperature Rigor mortis the limbs of the corpse become stiff Latin rigor and difficult to move or manipulate Livor mortis a settling of the blood in the lower dependent portion of the body Putrefaction the beginning signs of decomposition Decomposition the reduction into simpler forms of matter accompanied by a strong unpleasant odor Skeletonization the end of decomposition where all soft tissues have decomposed leaving only the skeleton Fossilization the natural preservation of the skeletal remains formed over a very long period nbsp Timeline of postmortem changes stages of death Legal See also Legal death The death of a person has legal consequences that may vary between jurisdictions Most countries follow the whole brain death criteria where all functions of the brain must have completely ceased However in other jurisdictions some follow the brainstem version of brain death 37 Afterward a death certificate is issued in most jurisdictions either by a doctor or by an administrative office upon presentation of a doctor s declaration of death 40 Misdiagnosis See also Premature burial nbsp The Premature Burial Antoine Wiertz s painting of a man buried alive 1854There are many anecdotal references to people being declared dead by physicians and then coming back to life sometimes days later in their coffin or when embalming procedures are about to begin From the mid 18th century onwards there was an upsurge in the public s fear of being mistakenly buried alive 41 and much debate about the uncertainty of the signs of death Various suggestions were made to test for signs of life before burial ranging from pouring vinegar and pepper into the corpse s mouth to applying red hot pokers to the feet or into the rectum 42 Writing in 1895 the physician J C Ouseley claimed that as many as 2 700 people were buried prematurely each year in England and Wales although some estimates peg the figure to be closer to 800 43 In cases of electric shock cardiopulmonary resuscitation CPR for an hour or longer can allow stunned nerves to recover allowing an apparently dead person to survive People found unconscious under icy water may survive if their faces are kept continuously cold until they arrive at an emergency room 44 This diving response in which metabolic activity and oxygen requirements are minimal is something humans share with cetaceans called the mammalian diving reflex 44 As medical technologies advance ideas about when death occurs may have to be reevaluated in light of the ability to restore a person to vitality after longer periods of apparent death as happened when CPR and defibrillation showed that cessation of heartbeat is inadequate as a decisive indicator of death The lack of electrical brain activity may not be enough to consider someone scientifically dead Therefore the concept of information theoretic death has been suggested as a better means of defining when true death occurs though the concept has few practical applications outside the field of cryonics 45 CausesSee also List of causes of death by rate and Preventable causes of death The leading cause of human death in developing countries is infectious disease The leading causes in developed countries are atherosclerosis heart disease and stroke cancer and other diseases related to obesity and aging By an extremely wide margin the largest unifying cause of death in the developed world is biological aging 46 leading to various complications known as aging associated diseases These conditions cause loss of homeostasis leading to cardiac arrest causing loss of oxygen and nutrient supply causing irreversible deterioration of the brain and other tissues Of the roughly 150 000 people who die each day across the globe about two thirds die of age related causes 46 In industrialized nations the proportion is much higher approaching 90 46 With improved medical capability dying has become a condition to be managed In developing nations inferior sanitary conditions and lack of access to modern medical technology make death from infectious diseases more common than in developed countries One such disease is tuberculosis a bacterial disease that killed 1 8 million people in 2015 47 Malaria causes about 400 900 million cases of fever and 1 3M deaths annually 48 The AIDS death toll in Africa may reach 90 100 million by 2025 49 50 According to Jean Ziegler the United Nations Special Reporter on the Right to Food 2000 Mar 2008 mortality due to malnutrition accounted for 58 of the total mortality rate in 2006 Ziegler says worldwide approximately 62 million people died from all causes and of those deaths more than 36 million died of hunger or diseases due to deficiencies in micronutrients 51 nbsp American children smoking in 1910 Tobacco smoking caused an estimated 100 million deaths in the 20th century 52 Tobacco smoking killed 100 million people worldwide in the 20th century and could kill 1 billion people worldwide in the 21st century a World Health Organization report warned 52 Many leading developed world causes of death can be postponed by diet and physical activity but the accelerating incidence of disease with age still imposes limits on human longevity The evolutionary cause of aging is at best only beginning to be understood It has been suggested that direct intervention in the aging process may now be the most effective intervention against major causes of death 53 Selye proposed a unified non specific approach to many causes of death He demonstrated that stress decreases the adaptability of an organism and proposed to describe adaptability as a special resource adaptation energy The animal dies when this resource is exhausted 54 Selye assumed that adaptability is a finite supply presented at birth Later Goldstone proposed the concept of production or income of adaptation energy which may be stored up to a limit as a capital reserve of adaptation 55 In recent works adaptation energy is considered an internal coordinate on the dominant path in the model of adaptation It is demonstrated that oscillations of well being appear when the reserve of adaptability is almost exhausted 56 nbsp Le Suicide by Edouard Manet depicts a man who has recently committed suicide via a firearmIn 2012 suicide overtook car crashes as the leading cause of human injury deaths in the U S followed by poisoning falls and murder 57 Accidents and disasters from nuclear disasters to structural collapses also claim lives One of the deadliest incidents of all time is the Failure of the 1975 Banqiao Dam Failure with varying estimates up to 240 000 dead 58 Other incidents with high death tolls are the Wanggongchang explosion when a gunpowder factory ended up with 20 000 deaths 59 a collapse of a wall of Circus Maximus killing 13 000 people 60 and the Chernobyl disaster killing between 95 and 4 000 people 61 62 Natural disasters kill around 45 000 people annually although this number can vary to millions to thousands on a per decade basis Some of the deadliest natural disasters are the 1931 China Floods which killed and estimated 4 million people although estimates widely vary 63 the 1887 Yellow River Flood which killed an estimated 2 million people in China 64 and the 1970 Bhola Cyclone killing 500 000 people in Pakistan 65 In animals predation can be a common cause of death Livestock have a 6 death rate from predation However younger animals are more susceptible to predation For example 50 of young foxes die to birds bobcats coyotes and other foxes as well Young bear cubs in the Yellowstone National Park only have a 40 chance to survive to adulthood from other bears and predators 66 Autopsy nbsp An autopsy is portrayed in The Anatomy Lesson of Dr Nicolaes Tulp by RembrandtAn autopsy also known as a postmortem examination or an obduction is a medical procedure that consists of a thorough examination of a human corpse to determine the cause and manner of a person s death and to evaluate any disease or injury that may be present It is usually performed by a specialized medical doctor called a pathologist 67 Autopsies are either performed for legal or medical purposes 67 A forensic autopsy is carried out when the cause of death may be a criminal matter while a clinical or academic autopsy is performed to find the medical cause of death and is used in cases of unknown or uncertain death or for research purposes 68 Autopsies can be further classified into cases where external examination suffices and those where the body is dissected and an internal examination is conducted 69 Permission from next of kin may be required for internal autopsy in some cases 70 Once an internal autopsy is complete the body is generally reconstituted by sewing it back together 39 A necropsy which is not always a medical procedure was a term previously used to describe an unregulated postmortem examination In modern times this term is more commonly associated with the corpses of animals 71 Death before birthDeath before birth can happen in several ways stillbirth when the fetus dies before or during the delivery process miscarriage when the embryo dies before independent survival and abortion the artificial termination of the pregnancy Stillbirth and miscarriage can happen for various reasons while abortion is carried out purposely Stillbirth Main article Stillbirth Stillbirth can happen right before or after the delivery of a fetus It can result from defects of the fetus or risk factors present in the mother Reductions of these factors caesarean sections when risks are present and early detection of birth defects have lowered the rate of stillbirth However 1 of births in the United States end in a stillbirth 72 Miscarriage Main article Miscarriage A miscarriage is defined by the World Health Organization as The expulsion or extraction from its mother of an embryo or fetus weighing 500g or less Miscarriage is one of the most frequent problems in pregnancy and is reported in around 12 15 of all clinical pregnancies however by including pregnancy losses during menstruation it could be up to 17 22 of all pregnancies There are many risk factors involved in miscarriage consumption of caffeine tobacco alcohol drugs having a previous miscarriage and the use of abortion can increase the chances of having a miscarriage 73 Abortion Main article Abortion An abortion may be performed for many reasons such as pregnancy from rape financial constraints of having a child teenage pregnancy and the lack of support from a significant other 74 There are two forms of abortion a medical abortion and an in clinic abortion or sometimes referred to as a surgical abortion A medical abortion involves taking a pill that will terminate the pregnancy no more than 11 weeks past the last period and an in clinic abortion involves a medical procedure using suction to empty the uterus this is possible after 12 weeks but it may be more difficult to find an operating doctor who will go through with the procedure 75 SenescenceMain article Senescence nbsp Dead Camelthorn tree within SossusvleiSenescence refers to a scenario when a living being can survive all calamities but eventually dies due to causes relating to old age Conversely premature death can refer to a death that occurs before old age arrives for example human death before a person reaches the age of 75 76 Animal and plant cells normally reproduce and function during the whole period of natural existence but the aging process derives from the deterioration of cellular activity and the ruination of regular functioning The aptitude of cells for gradual deterioration and mortality means that cells are naturally sentenced to stable and long term loss of living capacities even despite continuing metabolic reactions and viability In the United Kingdom for example nine out of ten of all the deaths that occur daily relates to senescence while around the world it accounts for two thirds of 150 000 deaths that take place daily 77 Almost all animals who survive external hazards to their biological functioning eventually die from biological aging known in life sciences as senescence Some organisms experience negligible senescence even exhibiting biological immortality These include the jellyfish Turritopsis dohrnii 78 the hydra and the planarian Unnatural causes of death include suicide and predation Of all causes roughly 150 000 people die around the world each day 46 Of these two thirds die directly or indirectly due to senescence but in industrialized countries such as the United States the United Kingdom and Germany the rate approaches 90 i e nearly nine out of ten of all deaths are related to senescence 46 Physiological death is now seen as a process more than an event conditions once considered indicative of death are now reversible 79 Where in the process a dividing line is drawn between life and death depends on factors beyond the presence or absence of vital signs In general clinical death is neither necessary nor sufficient for a determination of legal death A patient with working heart and lungs determined to be brain dead can be pronounced legally dead without clinical death occurring 80 Life extensionMain article Life extension This section is written like a personal reflection personal essay or argumentative essay that states a Wikipedia editor s personal feelings or presents an original argument about a topic Please help improve it by rewriting it in an encyclopedic style June 2023 Learn how and when to remove this template message Life extension refers to an increase in maximum or average lifespan especially in humans by slowing down or reversing the processes of aging through anti aging measures Although aging is the most common cause of death worldwide it is socially mostly ignored as such and seen as necessary and inevitable anyway which is why little money is spent on research into anti aging therapies a phenomenon known as pro aging trance 46 The average lifespan is determined by vulnerability to accidents and age or lifestyle related afflictions such as cancer or cardiovascular disease Extension of average lifespan can be achieved by good diet exercise and avoidance of hazards such as smoking Maximum lifespan is also determined by the rate of aging for a species inherent in its genes Currently the only widely recognized method of extending the maximum lifespan is calorie restriction 15 Theoretically the extension of the maximum lifespan can be achieved by reducing the rate of aging damage by periodic replacement of damaged tissues or by molecular repair or rejuvenation of deteriorated cells and tissues 81 A United States poll found that religious people and irreligious people as well as men and women and people of different economic classes have similar rates of support for life extension while Africans and Hispanics have higher rates of support than white people Thirty Eight percent of the polled said they would desire to have their aging process cured 82 Researchers of life extension are a subclass of biogerontologists known as biomedical gerontologists They try to understand the nature of aging and they develop treatments to reverse aging processes or at least slow them down for the improvement of health and the maintenance of youthful vigor at every stage of life 14 Those who take advantage of life extension findings and seek to apply them to themselves are called life extensionists or longevists The primary life extension strategy currently is to apply available anti aging methods in the hope of living long enough to benefit from a complete cure for aging once it is developed 83 Cryonics Main article Cryonics nbsp Technicians prepare a body for cryopreservation in 1985 Cryonics from Greek kryos kryos meaning icy cold is the low temperature preservation of animals and humans who cannot be sustained by contemporary medicine with the hope that healing and resuscitation may be possible in the future 84 85 Cryopreservation of people or large animals is not reversible with current technology The stated rationale for cryonics is that people who are considered dead by current legal or medical definitions may not necessarily be dead according to the more stringent information theoretic definition of death 45 86 Some scientific literature is claimed to support the feasibility of cryonics 87 Medical science and cryobiologists generally regard cryonics with skepticism 88 Location nbsp Kyosti Kallio middle the fourth President of the Republic of Finland had a fatal heart attack a few seconds after this photograph was taken by Hugo Sundstrom on December 19 1940 at Helsinki railway station in Helsinki Finland 89 90 Around 1930 most people in Western countries died in their own homes surrounded by family and comforted by clergy neighbors and doctors making house calls 91 By the mid 20th century half of all Americans died in a hospital 92 By the start of the 21st century only about 20 to 25 of people in developed countries died outside of a medical institution 92 93 94 The shift from dying at home towards dying in a professional medical environment has been termed the Invisible Death 92 This shift occurred gradually over the years until most deaths now occur outside the home 95 PsychologySee also Death anxiety Death studies is a field within psychology 96 To varying degrees people inherently fear death both the process and the eventuality it is hard wired and part of the survival instinct of all animals 97 Discussing thinking about or planning for their deaths causes them discomfort This fear may cause them to put off financial planning preparing a will and testament or requesting help from a hospice organization Mortality salience is the awareness that death is inevitable However self esteem and culture are ways to reduce the anxiety this effect can cause 98 The awareness of someone s own death can cause a deepened bond in their in group as a defense mechanism This can also cause the person to become very judging In a study two groups were formed one group was asked to reflect upon their mortality the other was not afterwards the groups were told to set a bond for a prostitute The group that did not reflect on death had an average of 50 the group who was reminded about their death had an average of 455 dollars 99 Different people have different responses to the idea of their deaths Philosopher Galen Strawson writes that the death that many people wish for is an instant painless unexperienced annihilation 100 In this unlikely scenario the person dies without realizing it and without being able to fear it One moment the person is walking eating or sleeping and the next moment the person is dead Strawson reasons that this type of death would not take anything away from the person as he believes a person cannot have a legitimate claim to ownership in the future 100 101 Society and cultureMain articles Death and culture and Human skull symbolism nbsp The regent duke Charles later king Charles IX of Sweden insulting the corpse of Klaus Fleming Albert Edelfelt 1878 nbsp Dead bodies can be mummified either naturally as this one from Guanajuato or by intention as those in ancient EgyptIn society the nature of death and humanity s awareness of its mortality has for millennia been a concern of the world s religious traditions and philosophical inquiry Including belief in resurrection or an afterlife associated with Abrahamic religions reincarnation or rebirth associated with Dharmic religions or that consciousness permanently ceases to exist known as eternal oblivion associated with Secular humanism 102 Commemoration ceremonies after death may include various mourning funeral practices and ceremonies of honoring the deceased 103 The physical remains of a person commonly known as a corpse or body are usually interred whole or cremated though among the world s cultures there are a variety of other methods of mortuary disposal 13 In the English language blessings directed towards a dead person include rest in peace originally the Latin requiescat in pace or its initialism RIP Death is the center of many traditions and organizations customs relating to death are a feature of every culture around the world Much of this revolves around the care of the dead as well as the afterlife and the disposal of bodies upon the onset of death The disposal of human corpses does in general begin with the last offices before significant time has passed and ritualistic ceremonies often occur most commonly interment or cremation This is not a unified practice in Tibet for instance the body is given a sky burial and left on a mountain top Proper preparation for death and techniques and ceremonies for producing the ability to transfer one s spiritual attainments into another body reincarnation are subjects of detailed study in Tibet 104 Mummification or embalming is also prevalent in some cultures to retard the rate of decay 105 Some parts of death in culture are legally based having laws for when death occurs such as the receiving of a death certificate the settlement of the deceased estate and the issues of inheritance and in some countries inheritance taxation 106 Capital punishment is also a culturally divisive aspect of death In most jurisdictions where capital punishment is carried out today the death penalty is reserved for premeditated murder espionage treason or as part of military justice In some countries sexual crimes such as adultery and sodomy carry the death penalty as do religious crimes such as apostasy the formal renunciation of one s religion In many retentionist countries drug trafficking is also a capital offense In China human trafficking and serious cases of corruption are also punished by the death penalty In militaries around the world courts martial have imposed death sentences for offenses such as cowardice desertion insubordination and mutiny 107 Death in warfare and suicide attack also have cultural links and the ideas of dulce et decorum est pro patria mori which translates to It is sweet and proper to die for one s country mutiny punishable by death such as in the United States 108 grieving relatives of dead soldiers and death notification are embedded in many cultures 109 Recently in the western world with the increase in terrorism following the September 11 attacks but also further back in time with suicide bombings kamikaze missions in World War II and suicide missions in a host of other conflicts in history death for a cause by way of suicide attack and martyrdom have had significant cultural impacts 110 Suicide in general and particularly euthanasia are also points of cultural debate Both acts are understood very differently in different cultures 111 In Japan for example ending a life with honor by seppuku was considered a desirable death 112 whereas according to traditional Christian and Islamic cultures suicide is viewed as a sin nbsp Santa Muerte the personification of death in Mexican tradition 113 Death is personified in many cultures with such symbolic representations as the Grim Reaper Azrael the Hindu god Yama and Father Time In the west the Grim Reaper or figures similar to it is the most popular depiction of death in western cultures 114 In Brazil death is counted officially when it is registered by existing family members at a cartorio a government authorized registry Before being able to file for an official death the deceased must have been registered for an official birth at the cartorio Though a Public Registry Law guarantees all Brazilian citizens the right to register deaths regardless of their financial means of their family members often children the Brazilian government has not taken away the burden the hidden costs and fees of filing for a death For many impoverished families the indirect costs and burden of filing for a death lead to a more appealing unofficial local and cultural burial which in turn raises the debate about inaccurate mortality rates 115 Talking about death and witnessing it is a difficult issue in most cultures Western societies may like to treat the dead with the utmost material respect with an official embalmer and associated rites 105 Eastern societies like India may be more open to accepting it as a fait accompli with a funeral procession of the dead body ending in an open air burning to ashes 116 Origins of death Main article Origin of death The origin of death is a theme or myth of how death came to be It is present in nearly all cultures across the world as death is a universal happening 117 This makes it an origin myth a myth that describes how a feature of the natural or social world appeared 118 119 There can be some similarities between myths and cultures In North American mythology the theme of a man who wants to be immortal and a man who wants to die can be seen across many Indigenous people 120 In Christianity death is the result of the fall of man after eating the fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil 117 In Greek mythology the opening of Pandora s box releases death upon the world 121 ConsciousnessMain article Consciousness after death Much interest and debate surround the question of what happens to one s consciousness as one s body dies The belief in the permanent loss of consciousness after death is often called eternal oblivion The belief that the stream of consciousness is preserved after physical death is described by the term afterlife Neither is likely to be confirmed without the ponderer having to die Near death experiences are the closest thing people have to an afterlife that we know Some people who have had near death experiences NDEs report that they have seen the afterlife while they were dead Seeing a being of light and talking with it life flashing before the eyes and the confirmation of cultural beliefs of the afterlife are all themes that happen during the moments they are dead 122 In biology nbsp Earthworms are soil dwelling detritivoresAfter death the remains of a former organism become part of the biogeochemical cycle during which animals may be consumed by a predator or a scavenger 123 Organic material may then be further decomposed by detritivores organisms that recycle detritus returning it to the environment for reuse in the food chain where these chemicals may eventually end up being consumed and assimilated into the cells of an organism 124 Examples of detritivores include earthworms woodlice and millipedes 125 Microorganisms also play a vital role raising the temperature of the decomposing matter as they break it down into yet simpler molecules 126 Not all materials need to be fully decomposed Coal a fossil fuel formed over vast tracts of time in swamp ecosystems is one example 127 Natural selection Main articles Competition biology and Natural selection The contemporary evolutionary theory sees death as an important part of the process of natural selection It is considered that organisms less adapted to their environment are more likely to die having produced fewer offspring thereby reducing their contribution to the gene pool Their genes are thus eventually bred out of a population leading at worst to extinction and more positively making the process possible referred to as speciation Frequency of reproduction plays an equally important role in determining species survival an organism that dies young but leaves numerous offspring displays according to Darwinian criteria much greater fitness than a long lived organism leaving only one 128 129 Death also has a role in competition where if a species out competes another there is a risk of death for the population Especially in the case where they are directly fighting over resources 130 Extinction Main article Extinction nbsp A dodo the bird that became a byword in the English language for the extinction of a species 131 Death plays a role in extinction the cessation of existence of a species or group of taxa reducing biodiversity due to extinction being generally considered to be the death of the last individual of that species although the capacity to breed and recover may have been lost before this point Because a species potential range may be very large determining this moment is difficult and is usually done retrospectively 132 Evolution of aging and mortality Main article Evolution of ageing Inquiry into the evolution of aging aims to explain why so many living things and the vast majority of animals weaken and die with age However there are exceptions such as Hydra and the jellyfish Turritopsis dohrnii which research shows to be biologically immortal 133 Organisms showing only asexual reproduction such as bacteria some protists like the euglenoids and many amoebozoans and unicellular organisms with sexual reproduction colonial or not like the volvocine algae Pandorina and Chlamydomonas are immortal at some extent dying only due to external hazards like being eaten or meeting with a fatal accident In multicellular organisms and also in multinucleate ciliates 134 with a Weismannist development that is with a division of labor between mortal somatic body cells and immortal germ reproductive cells death becomes an essential part of life at least for the somatic line 135 The Volvox algae are among the simplest organisms to exhibit that division of labor between two completely different cell types and as a consequence include the death of somatic line as a regular genetically regulated part of its life history 135 136 Grief in animals Animals have sometimes shown grief for their partners or friends When two chimpanzees form a bond together sexual or not and one of them dies the surviving chimpanzee will show signs of grief ripping out their hair in anger and starting to cry if the body is removed they will resist they will eventually go quiet when the body is gone but upon seeing the body again the chimp will return to a violent state 137 Death of abiotic factors Some non living things can be considered dead For example a volcano batteries electrical components and stars are all nonliving things that can die whether from destruction or cessation of function A volcano a break in the earth s crust that allows lava ash and gases to escape has three states that it may be in active dormant and extinct An active volcano has recently or is currently erupting in a dormant volcano it has not erupted for a significant amount of time but it may erupt again in an extinct volcano it may be cut off from the supply of its lava and will never expected to erupt again so the volcano can be considered to be dead 138 A battery can be considered dead after the charge is fully used up Electrical components are similar in this fashion in the case that it may not be able to be used again such as after a spill of water on the components 139 the component can be considered dead nbsp Kepler s Supernova after the death of what could have been a white dwarf Stars also have a life span and therefore can die After it starts to run out of fuel it starts to expand this can be analogous to the star aging After it exhausts all fuel it may explode in a supernova 140 collapse into a black hole or turn into a neutron star 141 Religious viewsBuddhism See also Anussati The ten recollections In Buddhist doctrine and practice death plays an important role Awareness of death motivated Prince Siddhartha to strive to find the deathless and finally attain enlightenment In Buddhist doctrine death functions as a reminder of the value of having been born as a human being Being reborn as a human being is considered the only state in which one can attain enlightenment Therefore death helps remind oneself that one should not take life for granted The belief in rebirth among Buddhists does not necessarily remove death anxiety since all existence in the cycle of rebirth is considered filled with suffering and being reborn many times does not necessarily mean that one progresses 142 Death is part of several key Buddhist tenets such as the Four Noble Truths and dependent origination 142 Christianity See also Soul in the Bible Second death and Resurrection of the dead Christianity nbsp In Dante s Paradiso Dante is with Beatrice staring at the highest heavens While there are different sects of Christianity with different branches of belief the overarching ideology on death grows from the knowledge of the afterlife After death the individual will undergo a separation from mortality to immortality their soul leaves the body entering a realm of spirits Following this separation of body and spirit death resurrection will occur 143 Representing the same transformation Jesus Christ embodied after his body was placed in the tomb for three days each person s body will be resurrected reuniting the spirit and body in a perfect form This process allows the individual s soul to withstand death and transform into life after death 144 Hinduism See also Reincarnation Hinduism Naraka Hinduism and Yama Hinduism nbsp Illustration depicting Hindu beliefs about reincarnationIn Hindu texts death is described as the individual eternal spiritual jiva atma soul or conscious self exiting the current temporary material body The soul exits this body when the body can no longer sustain the conscious self life which may be due to mental or physical reasons or more accurately the inability to act on one s kama material desires 145 During conception the soul enters a compatible new body based on the remaining merits and demerits of one s karma good bad material activities based on dharma and the state of one s mind impressions or last thoughts at the time of death 146 Usually the process of reincarnation makes one forget all memories of one s previous life Because nothing really dies and the temporary material body is always changing both in this life and the next death means forgetfulness of one s previous experiences 147 Islam See also Islamic view of death The Islamic view is that death is the separation of the soul from the body as well as the beginning of the afterlife 148 The afterlife or akhirah is one of the six main beliefs in Islam Rather than seeing death as the end of life Muslims consider death as a continuation of life in another form 149 In Islam life on earth right now is a short temporary life and a testing period for every soul True life begins with the Day of Judgement when all people will be divided into two groups The righteous believers will be welcomed to janna heaven and the disbelievers and evildoers will be punished in jahannam hellfire 150 Muslims believe death to be wholly natural and predetermined by God Only God knows the exact time of a person s death 151 The Quran emphasizes that death is inevitable no matter how much people try to escape death it will reach everyone Q50 16 Life on earth is the one and only chance for people to prepare themselves for the life to come and choose to either believe or not believe in God and death is the end of that learning opportunity 152 Judaism See also Bereavement in Judaism There are a variety of beliefs about the afterlife within Judaism but none of them contradict the preference for life over death This is partially because death puts a cessation to the possibility of fulfilling any commandments 153 LanguageThe word death comes from Old English death which in turn comes from Proto Germanic dauthuz reconstructed by etymological analysis This comes from the Proto Indo European stem dheu meaning the process act condition of dying 154 The concept and symptoms of death and varying degrees of delicacy used in discussion in public forums have generated numerous scientific legal and socially acceptable terms or euphemisms When a person has died it is also said they have passed away passed on expired or gone among other socially accepted religiously specific slang and irreverent terms As a formal reference to a dead person it has become common practice to use the participle form of decease as in the deceased another noun form is decedent Bereft of life the dead person is a corpse cadaver body set of remains or when all flesh is gone a skeleton The terms carrion and carcass are also used usually for dead non human animals The ashes left after a cremation are lately called cremains See alsoDeathbed Death drive Death row Death trajectory Dying declaration End of life care Eschatology Faked 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Vincent s Manual John Murphy amp Co Liguori Alphonsus 1868 Preparation for Death Rivingtons Marques Susana Moreira 2015 Now and At the Hour of Our Death Translated by Sanches Julia And Other Stories ISBN 978 1908276629 Massillon Jean Baptiste 1879 On Death Sermons by John Baptist Massillon Thomas Tegg amp Sons Rosenberg David 17 August 2014 How One Photographer Overcame His Fear of Death by Photographing It Walter Schels Life Before Death Slate Sachs Jessica Snyder 2001 Corpse Nature Forensics and the Struggle to Pinpoint Time of Death 270 pages Perseus Publishing ISBN 978 0738203362 Warraich Haider 2017 Modern Death How Medicine Changed the End of Life St Martin s Press ISBN 978 1250104588 External linksDeath at Wikipedia s sister projects nbsp Definitions from Wiktionary nbsp Media from Commons nbsp Quotations from Wikiquote Death at Curlie Death Metaphysics Research Lab Stanford University 2016 a href Template Cite book html title Template Cite book cite book a website ignored help Death Encyclopaedia Britannica Vol 7 11th ed 1911 pp 898 900 Best Ben Causes of Death BenBest com Retrieved 10 June 2016 Schels Walter Lakotta Beate Before and After Death LensCulture com Archived from the original on 11 October 2014 Retrieved 19 September 2016 Interviews with people dying in hospices and portraits of them before and shortly after death U S Census Causes of Death 1916 AntiqueBooks net scanns Archived from the original on 18 September 2004 Retrieved 19 September 2016 How the medical profession categorized causes of death Wald George The Origin of Death ElijahWald com A biologist explains life and death in different kinds of organisms in relation to evolution Death video 10 18 by Timothy Ferris producer of the Voyager Golden Record for NASA 2021 Retrieved from https en wikipedia org w index php title Death amp oldid 1189264683, wikipedia, wiki, book, books, library,

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