I think that this is an important question must be answered. Now, what is the reason of death in your opinion?
Any opinion/resource is appreciated.
We do not die only of tumors or accidents, it also dies from causes related to cardiovascular disease, respiratory diseases, digestive etc ... and then we die of old age. But the main cause of death is birth. These are not just a play on prankster words, but a reality deliberately ignored by too many.
As medical science can move forward in their discoveries will extend the deadline only.
Dear Ehsan
When a person dies we just lost sight of.
Nothing is lost, unless the physical body that no longer need. Reached taking with the acquisitions made during life.
In life, each takes his load of vices and virtues, affections and dislikes, until it is settled by getting rid of it deems unnecessary. Life is made of departures and arrivals. Of comings and goings. So what seems to be the one to start, for others it is the arrival. So one day, we all departed as immortal beings we are all of us meet him who created us. (Henry Sobel)
We die because we are living creatures. A piece of stone or metal doesn´t die.
Dear Nelson is quite right, in his wise statement.
I wouldn't know and probably very few would know a practical answer to your question, that summarises much of the humanity's philosophical quests.
Dear Ehsan, it would be much easier to answer your question in a scientific way if you had started with "HOW".
How is a person considered dead...
In the way you ask, I might find answer in the thought that the reason for death is the same as the reason for life. Why are we alive???
In my quest for answers, when I have to face the burden of deaths, I often recall the famous French writer Camus in his words: "Nous sommes tous condamnés à mort" /"We are all condemned to death"
And to further comment on this, following Nelson's wise words, I always recollect a very strong and helpful idea of comfort that a priest gave me as I had to face the burden of my beloved brother's death: "Never fear to look at death. Our body is only the envelope of a letter. The letter is gone up. Don't be afraid to look at the envelope."
Hanno's piece of stone or metal have no souls, and no message to cover in an envelope, which is our living body.
Can genetics find a 'cure' for ageing and, therefore, dying, or will humans, like other organisms, always be at the mercy of nature? Fine reading by Tim Radford follows! "Organisms grow old because nature doesn't need them any more. If the purpose of life is to procreate and replicate successfully - this is the logic of the so-called selfish gene theory - then it helps to stay healthy long enough to generate children and provide them with food. Immortality arrives with your offspring, and is only guaranteed when all your children also have children."
http://www.theguardian.com/science/2008/apr/29/genetics
Death is the function of regeneration! Old thinking give way to new one! The four seasons is a nice paradigm.
Death is ultimate, can be approached in less time and delayed also by lifestyle, technological and scientific advances. Where one / so called soul / energy goes after death.......can any body say?
We do not die only of tumors or accidents, it also dies from causes related to cardiovascular disease, respiratory diseases, digestive etc ... and then we die of old age. But the main cause of death is birth. These are not just a play on prankster words, but a reality deliberately ignored by too many.
As medical science can move forward in their discoveries will extend the deadline only.
Elisabeth Kubler-Ross(Swiss-American psychiatrist & author ) quotes: “Dying is an integral part of life, as natural and predictable as being born. But whereas birth is cause for celebration, death has become a dreaded and unspeakable issue to be avoided by every means possible in our modern society. Perhaps it is that”
Seems we are all progeny of a super-expanded, hyper-light-speed colossus. Birthed again and again by way of heart-beat from singularity to bang, singularity to bang, mega-super novae - our Mother collective. All things extruded of the immortal house of energy - to which all things eventually return. Telomere lengths, like the half-lives of galaxies, wane over [space]-time. We only get but a glimpse, for a moment, a moment and a year... Make it count while wrapped in skin. The infinite 'water balloon' will reabsorb us all after our own vessels pop. Then it is back to the singularity once again, for a spell - a pure absence of isolation. But the play begins again, and the libretto returns. Death is just a word.
What is the meaning of death in the framework of the existence of an after-life?
We die because any one of three body organs fails: the brain, the heart, the lungs. WHY each of these organs fails may be environmentally related or else inwardly (existentially) related. This answer, as specific but also as general as I can make it, seems to cover all causes of death.
We die because of accident or because of the end of natural limitations of our body system to function.
From "Bhaja Govindam" a composition of Indian philosopher / saint, Shankara:
"punar api jananam, punar api maranam
punar api janani, jatare shayanam
iha samsaare bahu dustaare
kripaya paare paahi muraare"
Translation:
"Again and again one is born
Again and again one dies
And again and again one sleeps in the mother's womb
Help me to cross
This limitless sea of Life,
Which is uncrossable, my Lord"
Each beginning has an end. The birth (the creation) means that one day it returns to its creator, its philosophy is deep... may be to enhance human knowledge or civilizations 'speedily or not' as it grows with ages. Each of us should make a part of history even limited and close to his family
From a very practical, pragmatical point of view, my main scientific research was performed on Uterus and Endometrium, the human organ that suffers from cyclic death and rebirth, angiogenesis and apoptoses.
In this sense, I very much agree with the idea of the Four seasons. What puzzled me and keeps puzzling me is the idea of Apoptoses, or programmed death, with genetic determinism.
Shouldn't we be allowed to read our own code bar, or the information of our validity code, as at the bottom of yogurt bottles? It might be helpful... or terrifying.
Dying - The loss of function of an living being to sustain system integrity? From this viewpoint, dying doesn't start with birth, insemination,... .
Our whole biological body is ca. 50 times replaced with new cells in an average human life, or not? What does 'death' mean in this perspective. Biological rebirth at least 50 times in an individual biology-based human life?
Dear Marcel,
we are asked why we die, not our cells. If you would change this point of view, every even microscopic injury would be death. No, really not. Death is the end of an individuum as complexe and whole system. Of course this individuum can be an unicellular organism, but we are not.
I´ve often thought about death and rebirth, Marcel. Obviously this question calls for a biological answer. But a "biographical" answer is possible too. Some people are existentially reborn every time they embark on a new project. On the other hand, some die a thousand deaths when they fail. Yet others never come to life! How grisly! The causes? Unfavorable circumstance, misdirected efforts, or personal inertia.
Every living thing, every thing on earth and in the universe is in relation to its surroundings a thermodynamic imbalance. The system, also called "nature", aiming for perfect balance. This means that every living being and every other objects, such as rocks or even mountains rise and fall in a never-ending cycle of growth and decay, more or less quickly.
Nothing can last forever!
That's the way it is!
If physics of enities continuously changes and is always unique in physical expression (e.g. because of the unidirectional arrow of what people might call time), does this imply that there is continuous physically-based death and birth?
People die, because their time is up! ;-)
Death is inevitable.
"Dying is also an art and just like any other art it must be learned."
Death is the mechanism that Nature found to guarantee the genetic variability of the population. That means that individuals die to assure the survival of his species along the geological time.
All living organisms complete a life cycle and die. Our cells are programmed to work harmoniously to guaranty each stage of this cycle.
I think death phenomena in human has significant difference with other organisms. In human when Spirit starts to die then body would be died. So maybe this body was very young or in opposite many old men seem very young because their Spirit was fresh and young!
"Worlds on worlds are turning over/ From creation to decay
Like the bubbles on a brooklet:/ Bubbling, babbling, borne away."
--Percy Bysshe Shelley
I think there is another world for judgment about the actions. It is the real reason for the death, isn't it??
Dear All,
Role and importance of death can be approached by the aim(s) of life. What is the aim and function of life? Does the output of life performance influence the surviving or the longevity? Are there a correlation between the positive, ethical and diligent performance/lifestyle of an individual and his/her lifetime and life quality? Is it worth being good and honest in terms of longevity? Some physicians say there is not such a correlation.
Can one tell that humans die having performed their spiritual(?), biological(?) or vegetative tasks? Are we (as individuals and partly collectively) looking during our life for the unknown sense of our existence?
Or is the notion of 'death' really one of 'transformation'? On the grand continuum of things, matter morphs into energy, energy morphs into matter. Aren't we all merely one of the possible palpable extrudes from out this seemingly immutable continuum? The universe aware of itself - in 'human' form. Being made from the very dust of stars, by no fault of our own do we already know something about the true nature of things - perhaps even the meaning of the notion of bodily "death." Will we miss being human when we go? If the proposed notion of a 'multiverse' is true, perhaps we might seek to make the one we are aware of better than all others. Art, science, music, quality inter-personal interactions, non-violence-based spiritual quests based on intelligence, caring and the boundless, countless configurations of loving human-kindness - there are millions of constructive ways to pursue this; ways to sweeten this dimension before we plunge away into the common dark/unknown. Death is only a word. A miniscule, static slice of the grand continuum. Dance away - each of us get two unique strands to animate for about 36,525 days if we're lucky and pain-free enough to last a century. Dr Enzo states eloquently above: "the main cause of death, is birth". On a continuum, this may also indicate that 'death' is also a doorway to birth. The notion of an energy-based after-realm may indeed be unavoidable. In the meantime, Life is the thing to focus on.
We are born with known life span that depends on our genetics. Chromosomes get shorter with each division which is called chromosome erosion. Darkness plays essential role in the primary stages of our development. After death, we need another phase of darkness to transform.
I am no expert in this field but my perception is that:
1) Death can be looked at from a competitive standpoint where the more mature organism competes for the same limited resources as the younger organism. If death were not present then the younger organism would be at a disadvantage from the more mature organism. This then becomes a mechanism of equilibrium in an environment that is constrained by scarce resources.
2) Death comes from the inability of the organism to compensate for an unbalance and therefore homeostasis cannot be regained to maintain the required state to keep on functioning.
Dear Prof. Krishnan: Tamil poet Valluvar indeed said the same many centuries ago:
"உறங்குவது போலும் சாக்காடு உறங்கி
விழிப்பது போலும் பிறப்பு " (Kural 339)
மு.வ உரை:
இறப்பு எனப்படுவது ஒருவனுக்கு உறக்கம் வருதலைப் போன்றது, பிறப்பு எனப்படுவது உறக்கம் நீங்கி விழித்துக் கொள்வதைப் போன்றது.
English Translation:
Death is like sleep, and birth is the awakening from it.
Commentary:
Death and Birth are like sleep and awakening; only the intervals are longer and the circumstances more poignant. It is said that this Kural is one, which Mahatma Gandhi liked very much and used to quote now and then. Shakespeare called sleep 'the ape of death' and also described death coming at the end of life as 'our little life is rounded off in a sleep'. (Cf. Kural 337)
I agree with @Cecilia and @Sundarapandian. To me their explanation are complementary.
Each living being is programmed for a period of life. Coming to life (be born or be created) is a decision from the creator who certainly decides its period as he decides its date. Be alive means that the brain and the heart in the body are still functioning. However modern medicine could enables to maintain an inert body alive for a period of time till its real death. This means that not the body who dies but the soul of the person who dies. The soul is the intelligence and the destiny that the creator has built in each one for some purpose of human being destiny or history which could be at small, medium or large scale ( in the family, the village, the town the country, or worldwide). There are people who their destiny and purpose is only close to their family (good or worst), to their job or profession ( to maintain it or enhance it),...., others in their village, .... and some to human worldwide (as some great politicians (for the good or the worst) , intellectuals, scientists, researchers.. etc..).
The greatest challenge to scientists is death as one can hardly see how to go exploring the banks of the Styx river and report back with a well informed high impact point publication :-) It seems that we'll have to cope with that mystery still for some time and learn how to handle our frustration.
Dear Eman,
What is darkness? The expression you used as dark is too obscure for me.
Dear Cecilia,
Can you explain me the followings of your comment “it joins a larger body of different energy from life-energy. I would like to call this "our destiny"”?
An unsolved question! Some people say that death is coming after a long non-satisfactory time period!
My conclusion form all given answers: some answers are concerned with the causes of death while others are about the reason of death. causes of death are explained in more precise words and are all based on physical explanations. however when we come to the reasons of death, words get more ambiguity and meta-physical explanations start. Am I right in making such conclusion? why it happens? does reason implies that there should be a decision maker who decides our death? if yes, who is this decision maker? The nature? the whole energy? the God? ourselves? if we are the only decision makers of our death, do we have the program (reason) for death from the beginning (birth) or we develop it gradually? if someone else decides, when and how? or maybe we should just speak about the causes of death without any reason behind it?
Some information about the question:
Why do we die?
http://www.theguardian.com/science/2008/apr/29/genetics
Death:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death
What happens after we die?
TED: http://www.ted.com/conversations/11986/what_happens_after_we_die.html
Or, one could possibly vacillate in the following multiple directions at once:
In the beginning of all beginnings, an infinite mass resided within an infinite lack of space ... timeless and void and/or infinite with temperature... This juxtaposition is understood to be the very recipe which cooks up only one thing in all possible Universes ... In fact, it is this bare thing alone ("xyz-alpha"; the pre big-bang state of singularity) which represents the nature of that which would be called by many exalted names later - and in many different tongues - all in effort to pay tribute ... in beautifully blind rite ... In all honestly-informed retrospects, the nature of this prime mover is itself birthed out of one thing which can shape-shift into everything else -- with a sense of purpose and destiny ... but without a sense of obligation to those subject fears which serve only to cheapen its pure dimension ... In the beginning of beginnings, my friends, the Mother of all Black Holes gives birth to a radiation... It is ‘ZERO' giving birth to ‘ONE' ... We are all derived from its ‘everywhere’ ... Feel the comet beneath your skin... and Understand the egg planets impregnated thereby…
So are we all joined by distance immeasurable ... To a point of breath in common -- All of ‘We’ – the Moth, the Snake, the Flame and the Tree ... Unfailingly derived of Unity ... -- The Seed of all Seeds hatched the ldea of all Ideas, and by winged messengers [the grand house of particles] did word get about...? And in the End of all Ends, where the Just meet the Just, the Lost can still find their way home on a trail of Butterfly Dust. Quantum pollen, like M&M’s strewn across spacetime's forest. Giving forth hints and allegations all along the way...
1.) The 5 forms of Galaxies... double swirl, beachball, cigar, single swirl, complex swirl, mimic verbatim, forms of DNA... A, B/C, Z, single-stranded & super-coiled ...
(In succession: Primordial Soup, Amino Acids, Proteins, RNA, DNA... )...
2.) When stretched out like a slinky, a galaxy looks like a double (or single) helix: (Rosalind Franklin, with the 'help' of Watson & Crick uncovered DNA structure(s) in ~1952)... (every "hurricane" has a unique fingerprint) ...
Comets, Stars, Planets... Sperm, Ovaries, Eggs... (note the mobility of comet and sperm; one's path toward a sun, the other toward an ovary; respective targets: planet, egg ...)
3.) Cosmic fertilization mimics biological fertilization ... (remember the splintered comet that rang Jupiter's bell ~17 times) ... Shoemaker-Levi …
4.) During the early times of Earth's formation, -100,000,000 comets pelted the planet... 'many sperm ‘competing for the egg so to speak' ... ( Hale-Bopp, Temple-Tuttle, Persiad, Leonid, Hyakutake, Kahoutek, and Halley's are relatively distant reminders of the fertility motif which has already completed itself on this planet; Earth ...) ...
From the very dust of the stars…
Being among the woven, from the very elusive fabric of the universe,
By no mistake of our own do we already know something about it ...
The dust in our hearts -- so like pheromone from a gravid star,
Informs us of nameless things and how familiar they are ...
No matter how small, and no matter how seemingly far,
It's megallanically delicious - upstream caviar.
With an infinitely fertile universe... "death" must amount to only a minor perception.
Big to a human yes... but in the grand scheme of things? It is probably better called a sleep of sorts like significant others have mentioned throughout history.
Or... one could choose to not vacillate in all of these multiple directions at once, and instead choose to get a good night's sleep. We all have a hard day's night eventually. And taxes ;]
It is an inevitable event in Life; let the transition happen peacefully
Dear Cecilia,
Thanks for the excellent circumlocution.
Are we more developed than ancient humans? Do not mythical things influence our mind and life? I think one should not to be frightened to pronounce the word God.
Final destination: metamorphosis as a butterfly ,sublimation and fly to paradise, If we are living as a real human
@ Jack
I agree with the crayon use on our life canvas. Every picture is unique with same crayons.
Dear Cecilia,
Nature to me is a mystery too. Nature, from nascere (Latin, to be born), translates phýsis (Greek phýein, to grow), yet the two concepts obviously differ. Then there is "natura naturans" (nature qua active) and "natura naturata" (nature qua passive). Moreover, if we wish to humanize nature, we speak of "natura artifex," nature the artisan, gilding pears and painting sunsets. I´ve used the term "nature" in my publications because the authors I study use the term. But when I think about "nature," I think I know as little about it as I do about death! To say that life is "timed" is to apply another skillful human action to nature the artisan.
Death is definite. you can't run away from it. It can be of various reasons which is mystery to everyone. and i believe, when there is a beginning then there will be an end. nothing lasts but Allah.
Word-ghosts fluent on silence' page, dream the super-string Elohim. Energy wrapped in skin... I think there will always be conjecture about it. Or art and music reaching for expression of what it's all about. Perhaps there is great folly in the pursuit of the 'grasp-entire' - only to find ourselves stuck in a continuous, prolonged mime of sorts - where words themselves become the strangest things of all. Intent and meaning often depart once written. I enjoy your posts Dr. Kausel.
LAST MOMENTS BEFORE DEATH
The work mapping these circuits in the whole mouse brain is quite heroic - Yuste, professor of biological sciences and neuroscience at Columbia University and a leader of the Brain Activity Map Project
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/next/body/last-moments-may-imprinted-brain-death/
@Ehsan and all, what a great question, congrats. I just had time to read a few great answers, and I think on the same lines, and I won't have to repeat the answers of Profs Kamal, Nelson, Enzo and others. Biologically, our cells are programmed to die.
Although we, humans, value life I have met relatives of friends in great pain due to illnesses that they prefer to die. Visiting them in hospital near the end of their lives was one of the great PRIVILEGES that God has given to me. It teaches me to learn to live well! (Since you appreciate any resource and you include religion as one of your topics, let me include this pic.)
Cardiovascular diseases, viruses, cancer, MVA, suicide, child mortality...The data of S.V.Netyosov (Novosibirsk) http://art-science-world.com/science/virusy/viruses-in-human-life.html To Zanussi (Poland), "Life is a fatal illness, passing by sexual way"
In reality, everyone wants to live life happy. The end state is mourned for documenting a life history.
For believers they may ask God! For the rest they should read about evolution and how nature renew herself!
"Flowers are much like us humans. Each year some of them die wilt. Not because they choose to but because they don't get enough of what they need" e.a.http://www.wattpad.com/58497520-a-collection-of-thoughts-not-mine-%E2%99%A1%E2%99%A1%E2%99%A1-withered
Birth and death are the two sides of the same coin. In the life of any cell, death is inevitable. That's why, protozoa and prokaryotes also die. This is actually law of nature.
Very simple - Project finished.
Did I met all work-packages with good results?
Measuring how many people die each year and why they died is one of the most important means – along with gauging how diseases and injuries are affecting people – for assessing the effectiveness of a country’s health system.
Cause-of-death statistics help health authorities determine their focus for public health actions. A country where deaths from heart disease and diabetes rapidly rise over a period of a few years, for example, has a strong interest in starting a vigorous programme to encourage lifestyles to help prevent these illnesses. Similarly, if a country recognizes that many children are dying of malaria, but only a small portion of the health budget is dedicated to providing effective treatment, it can increase spending in this area.
High-income countries have systems in place for collecting information on causes of death in the population. Many low- and middle-income countries do not have such systems, and the numbers of deaths from specific causes have to be estimated from incomplete data. Improvements in producing high quality cause-of-death data are crucial for improving health and reducing preventable deaths in these countries.
http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs310/en/
A person can die in many ways like war, accident, murder, assassination, natural death etc. Think the question is asking why we human beings need to go through death. Like an Asian saying every human beings typically go thru the lifecycle of: birth - grow old - ill - death. It is also stated in scripture that it is destined everyone to die once. Sounds like no one can escape death (not sure is there any empirical evidence to show otherwise) that demotivate me to pursue further the real reason why we need to die. Even though the advancement of medical science can prolong our lives but based on my interaction with very old people, some of them willing to die sooner as their physical body keep deteriorating. From this question asked - it reminds me 2 things:
1) we still have limited understanding on the matter of death & life after death from scientific standpoint albeit we achieve a lot in terms of scientific discovery throughout the history of mankind (some of us even preserve our death body so that one day in future science can resurrect the body) - not sure is there any sphere / realm that beyond what we can comprehend or control?
2) since we are destined to die once - we should do the best we can in this life so that our contribution, discovery & legend can remain throughout other generations (there are ample evidence of this).
When your all organs stop working its physical death, when your dont follow ethics you are morally dead, when you have negative thoughts in mind and less confident you are mentally dead.
Birth & Death remain the coin of two side .With our birth the death is certain but its time passage is not in our hand .Any individual must accept the reality of the death & with this acceptance ,his preparing inside for the death but outside he comes with his determination ,faith & will power to carry the day to day action of his own life.
This is very important for every individual to develop his own life line in his selective way .
Birth & Death remain the coin of two side .With our birth the death is certain but its time passage is not in our hand .Any individual must accept the reality of the death & with this acceptance ,his preparing inside for the death but outside he comes with his determination ,faith & will power to carry the day to day action of his own life.
This is very important for every individual to develop his own life line in his selective way .
Well, even we do not know why we were born? It is natural that we have no clear idea of what we are doing in this world! So go on and make families, and enjoy your life without asking questions. Life is like a dance. You enjoy dancing and of course the dance has an ending!
See this article: Causes of death statistics Data extracted in April 2015. Most recent data: Further Eurostat information, Main tables and Database. Planned article update: April 2016.
This article gives an overview of recent statistics on causes of death in the European Union (EU). By relating all deaths in the population to an underlying cause of death, the risks associated with death from a range of specific diseases and other causes can be assessed; these figures can be further analysed by age, sex, country where the death occurred / residency of the deceased, and region (NUTS level 2), usingstandardised death rates.
http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/mobile/index.php#Page?title=Causes%20of%20death%20statistics&lg=en
Evolution and progress of humanity could only occur through the death of an individual. Please see: My answer to the question of Vitaly Voloshin in RG: ‘Is the end of our civilization encoded in human genome?’ DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.1.2634.1605
The universe behaves by cyclical conversion; also stars are born and die. For the human being, redemption and salvation comes from spiritual growth to understand the hidden laws of harmony. Concerning the resources of the earth, only generational change can limit its full depletion. Concerning cellular cycles of the living human body, aging and disease can be discoupled, in medical terms. The reason of human death is to achieve ethical perfection, while alive; it seems to be the will of the supreme scientist and greatest healer. Before the bird falls from the tree, it should learn to sing the nicest songs.
Natural death is a natural process which happen for charge as change is continuous process whwew as unnatural death is caused of lack of proper care, balance diet and proper slip in different proximity
Death is diffusion and delusion.
Diffusion, because death appears as dispersed or lost vitality.
Delusion, because death is a transfer of vitality, not the end of it.
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