Talk:Death

Talk:Death (Archive 2004)

New technology

I recently heard about a new technology which allowed for the deceased person's ashes to be transformed into diamonds which could afterwards be placed in pedestals and so on. Anyone heard about this?

nope. What I heard is they're making synthetic diamond(human-made diamond). If you have these kind of questions you could go to Wikipedia:Reference desk, they'll come up with answers pretty soon. Roscoe x 19:05, 9 Jan 2005 (UTC)

A note: ashes almost by definition contain no or very little carbon. One would have to use a special reducing crematorium, and either collect some of the pyrolysis products during cremation or try to avoid the more mineralized portions of a charred corpse...probably the former for CVD processes, and the latter for more traditional "bomb" processes. So many old folks have titanium implants of one sort or another, I think it would be easier just to make jewelry from those, if you're so inclined...Polyparadigm 23:12, 5 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I was bored.... Cool page though. :)

:-(

I still don't understand. I lost. What is life. Why are we here? Why do we have to die, and so young. It's so inpossible. It's not right. There's not point to us if we're going to die. So quickly. So unexpoictadly.

WHat is Life? The atomos. I'm not looking for a bio. answer, or a religion answer. I'm looking for the truth. Where does somebody go for the thruth?

I'm a religious person so here's what I feel, Life is an opportunity to make others happy(and of course yourself) with what you have, as a weak human. You ask truth to a human... while you only believe in what you believe. What's the point asking. Just cheer up... Here's a quotation for you:

Life is "trying things to see if they work" - Ray Bradbury

Roscoe x 18:52, 9 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Sorry I didn't catch your question in December. If you are still here, I'll tell you how I think you can arrive at a satisfactory answer in a general, non-partisan way. Tom H. 05:25, Jan 12, 2005 (UTC)

The truth is not something we can describe with words. Every time we use words, we leave something out. --Eleassar777 18:37, 16 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Very nice and true, Roscoe and Eleassar. Tom Haws 18:03, Feb 25, 2005 (UTC)

To me, the biological answer IS the answer to life. We are here simply to BE ALIVE. Like the song, "I was born, born, born; born to be alive!" It's not a matter of what we do, it's a matter of not being dead while we do it. Citizen Premier 10:45, 29 July 2005 (UTC)

You are here because you are and, when you are dead you are still here, you are just dead. Dead means you don't think about stuff, you can't move, and your body ceases to grow anything. Beleiving that there is something else and, that that something lives on is just silly and typical of a selfish lonely species like humans. This, right now, is it , SO GO DO SOMETHING.

Epikur said once: Death is none of our buisness, because death is a absolute lack of consciousness, but as we all know, e need our senses see if something is bad or good. So the Death can't be bad nor good. Also isn't our death important for us, because the whole time we exist, our death doesn't and the moment we die, we don't live anymore. So as long as we live we don't die, and as showed, the death isn't bad and cant be feared as bad. would we live eternal, Life would be less worth. it's just a opinion of a greek mate, but in my opinion it's a good one, if you dont wanna get mad, sometimes one have to forget about the "conditio humana" or he will end in absurdity, seeing that human desires (the seek for a sense) and his life (the non-existense of a meaning) create absolute confusion. i'll stop at this point, good evening Asesino Asesino 21:35, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

Cause of Death

I think it is important to know a list of cause of death in certain area or country. So, maybe someone could write the, say, top 10 or 20 cause of death in US or Europe or Asia. Cause beside thinking where we going after death, I'm also thinking much of how am I going to die. So I think it's kind an important topic in wikipedia, if someone would like to write about it. So if other wikipedians think it's an important topic too, I could gather data from the internet and write stub about it.Roscoe x 18:36, 9 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Saying that "brain activity is a necessary condition to legal personhood, and, perhaps with the exception of the fetus, it is a sufficient condition for legal personhood" is incredibly biased! Also listing abortions as a cause of death assumes that everyone agrees that a fetus is a person. I would like to see the author's personal politics seperated from this article. The study of death is like any other science and must be objective. JinarMarie 11:17, 27 July 2005

Reexistance

I was thinking of creating an article with this name, but I think it may constitute original research, what do you guys think... here is a draft:

When you die, following the philosophy of materialism, all perception ceases. As time can no longer be perceived the universe can collapse or spawn new universes. Trillions or more years can pass and at some point a universe similar or even identical to the one you died in reemerges; "you" (a genetic twin) is born to live a life of free will and this pattern continues for eternity.

This hypothesis relies on a specific assumption:

The universe is cyclical in some fashion, meaning the universe will be created, exist and collapse to be recreated or give rise to new universes. As a result there is no meaningful beginning or end to time, although its possible that time from our perspective could be dependant on this instance of a universe.

"You" has no connection to this instance of you. This is not reincarnation; merely another instance of your existence. From the perspective of the person dying there may be some near-death experiences as the brain shuts down, then nothingness, which transitions to the blackness of the mother's womb.

- RoyBoy ⁸⁰⁰ 01:58, 19 Feb 2005 (UTC)

In my opinion this is a speculation that does not belong into Wikipedia. It could be included however, in the context of an article about some religious group or similar, if that is their belief. Sorry. --Eleassar777 12:04, 19 Feb 2005 (UTC)

No problemo, I appreciate your honesty, I may put the question to the village pump at some point. But I would say in its defense it is an attempt at a scientific hypothesis of death, rather than a belief, even though I acknowledge it probably cannot be tested. However more to the point... even though I did originate this idea and title, I think its safe to assume there are many people out there who have also thought up something similar to this. So despite not being a religion I'd say our opinions/beliefs on death are as valid and as the next man. As notable, well... its not my fault atheists don't make a habit of collecting money to build monuments and spread their beliefs. ;"P What could be notable is an article on "Atheist's beliefs of death", where Reexistance would be one option? - RoyBoy ⁸⁰⁰ 16:57, 19 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I think you should put your question to the Village pump, to prove this is not just trolling. I am not going to discuss this anymore. Read also wikipedia:Importance, Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not and Wikipedia:Policies and guidelines. No offense. --Eleassar777 17:54, 19 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I surmised as much... hence the posting to the talk section instead of just creating the article. Will do. - RoyBoy ⁸⁰⁰ 01:16, 20 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Eleassar777 could use a chill pill. I'd be hesitant to call this original research without a good bit of research into science fiction. Attempt a posting on the science fiction newsgroup asking for similarities? --Alterego 17:47, Feb 20, 2005 (UTC)

Good suggestion, I put it on alt.atheism to cover all the bases and will await possible references. Thanks! - RoyBoy ⁸⁰⁰ 20:08, 20 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Here is some responses I got so far from alt.atheism:

The idea of a cyclic universe is actually becoming quite mainstream - here is just one example from a google

http://www.actionbioscience.org/newfrontiers/steinhardt.html

If it is the case that the universe is constantly reborn in an infinite cycle then a consequence of this is that all possibilities become inevitable - including the possibility that a future universe will follow an identical course to the one we are in now. In this scenario an identical version of you and me will re-occur an infinite number of times - but before you rejoice in this atheistic concept of life after death there are other consequnces - all possible histories will happen an infinite number of times including a life were you win the lottery, but also including a life were you die in agony of some horrific disease at an early age

- torch

Nietschze suggested something like this. He concluded that if the universe is somehow eternal (e.g. repeating random but finite combinations of events), then we must repeat our lives eternally.

- Kermit

- RoyBoy ⁸⁰⁰ 01:55, 21 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Found it, its called Eternal return. - RoyBoy ⁸⁰⁰ 22:35, 22 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I think it might be appropriate to add a short subsection in the "definition" section linking to Terry Schiavo and mentioning the relationship between these definitions and the abortion debate. Or it might not be appropriate...any thoughts?--Polyparadigm 23:07, 5 Apr 2005 (UTC)

i always thought this was a possibility also

If one cannot exist 2 places at once then one cannot share ones conciousness with another human being. But what happens when ones conciousness ceases to exist,then couldnt one easily spawn conciousness again in another body. But then we would have to understand more about the seperation of conciousness through quantum mechanics to be able to answer this. wtf is whoever wrote that babblin about.

abortion

Under cause of death in the United States, it lists 1,293,000 abortions. Are these actually counted as fatalities by the United States government? Also, what about when a few eggs are matched up with sperm and then only the healthiest one is placed into a woman's uterus, does this count as an abortion? Humorusly, why can't ejaculation be counted into this?

We need a note on this fact, and a debate on whether or not the death of a fetus counts as human. By the way, I'm not trying to offend anyone, but this is an encyclopedia and we need to discuss thought freely. Citizen Premier 10:43, 29 July 2005 (UTC)

These definitions may involve concepts of different levels of life such as fertilisation, embryonic development, infant, etc, but I don't see any logical reason why a fetus is not a human. Whether any human is a sophisticated form of sentient being is a somewhat different matter. Shawnc 08:49, 11 October 2005 (UTC)

Hopefully I have solved this problem. I took out the note, and changed the heading to "human and non-human" deaths (as opposed to the "top 10" being just human). Then I added animal deaths. Now people in favour of abortion rights can say: yes, human (murders, death penalty) and non-human (abortion, roadkill, hunting, lab experiments) and people against abortion can say: yes, human (murders, death penalty, abortion) and non-human (roadkill, hunting, lab experiments). So everyone will be happy (I hope). I also included miscarriages (medically, spontaneous abortion), because we're talking about death, not making a moral judgement about it, so all should be included.

The animal deaths are not meant to be making a moral or political judgement, either. They are included because they are indeed deaths. If we can add a larger number of causes of deaths, hopefully it will become less politically charged, since it will become clearer we're talking about many facets of death rather than making a moral judgement.

It would be good if someone had world statistics; they would look a lot different than U.S. stats.24.64.223.203 00:51, 19 November 2005 (UTC)

I don't see any point in adding US death at all. That information is relevant under US demographics section but not under Death. The section listing abortion figures is completely POV and I have deleted it. Logically speaking if fetus is a human, then abortion is currently legalized murder and the America is a country which allows for murder. That is a political message and has nothing to do with the subject matter. 68.163.103.9 23:23, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

Citizen Premier is there any reason to keep US abortion rates under the definition of "death" at all? As you have stated this is an encyclopedia and info appearing on this page should be considered relevant "facts". It has not been established as a fact that fetuses are humans, and even if that fact were established these figures are still irrelevant to the subject of death which applies to every animal on this planet. The place for this information is under the term "abortion". Why would you revert the page so to prolong the political controversy on this entry?68.163.103.9 04:20, 16 December 2005 (UTC)

I agree with CP's reversion. Everyone knows that fetuses are human, therefore these are examples of human death. Leave the facts in, but leave the political discussion for another article. RossNixon 10:28, 16 December 2005 (UTC)

I think the main purpose of the "Cause of death" section is to give people an idea of how people die. If we could replace these statistics with global instead of U.S. that would be nice, but if we can't find any reliable source then U.S. should stay. Also, and if you define fetuses as "people"--it's important that the article not state if they are or aren't, that's a matter of values--then intentional abortion would be of interest to you. Incidentally, does anyone have a statistic for non-intentional abortions, i.e. miscarriages? Citizen Premier 03:25, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

Until someone finds the statistics for unintentional abortions, it seems biased to have just that figure for intentional abortions included. How would people here feel about taking the abortion figure out until then? --Allen 05:55, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

Leave it in. And if anyone finds a good source for a good estimate of miscarriages, then it would seem to belong here also. RossNixon 11:05, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

I know the first person to leave a note in this section sort of asked this, but I'm still not clear on it: does this number include prevented implantations? Or death of extra zygotes created during in vitro fertilization? The note on the article itself may be intended to make this clear, but to me it doesn't. --Allen 17:53, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

Rossnixon seems to keep readding the "National Right To Life" link as a source even as other users remove it. The source (even if you just go by the name of the link) seems very biased. If someone added "National Right to Choice" or "National Right to Family Planning" links as sources for abortion statistics, I would question those sources also. Does anybody have a better link with more accurate numbers? ~a

I changed it once to: MMWR Abortion Surveillence Summary 2002 but Rossnixon reverted. I do belive the CDC source is even cited by the anti-abortion sites as their source. Unfortunately, the metodology of the CDC report is such that it requires careful reading to see that they are claiming about 1.2 million per year, as the most obvious number in the report is 850,000 per year. Osmodiar 00:05, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

Add a warning?

The section named Physiological consequences of human death may be inappropriate for some readers, and contains explicit images. I think we should add some kind of template warning about it, but I don't know any such templates. Any ideas?

Maybe— Though I think this was discussed before. Readers know what they're looking up, it might be comon since to think when you look up 'death' it's a safe bet that there might be explicit images. It might be a good addition, but it's not EXTREMELY necessary. DaemonDivinus 00:34, 12 August 2005 (UTC)

There you go— Warning added! :) DaemonDivinus 23:47, 13 August 2005 (UTC)

Second Law of Thermodymanics

"However, this aspect of the Second Law of Thermodynamics only applies to closed systems, which a living organism obviously is not."

I strongly disagree. Living organisms are not closed systems, ok, but they live in a closed universe, where resources are limited, so you cannot avoid the loss of energy and death.

But if you offer me to live 10^60 years, I will not complain that I'm not immortal...

You're absolutely right. Sofixit, please. -- Ec5618 13:35, 27 September 2005 (UTC)

What does the Second Law of Thermodynamics have to do with death? It seems widely off-topic.

US-centricism

This is only really true in the US:

Legally, a person can be pronounced dead in three different ways. By far the most common is by a medical doctor or a doctor of osteopathy. Second most common is by a coroner or a state medical examiner. The third way a person can be pronounced legal dead is by the courts; after a person has disappeared for some time, the courts will pronounce them dead so that their property can be distributed appropriately. A death certificate is a legal document which states how and when a person died, and who pronounced them dead.

e.g. in Australia, I don't think we have medical examiners, and a coroner is a judge, which renders (2) & (3) the same thing....

Perhaps the information could be moved to something like Death in the United States or be just more isolated in a section here. Theshibboleth 09:19, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

Adding a chapter to this article

I Like to add a chapter on this article. At the moment i'm reading a book about the roll that death played in Western thought. It is the book 'Death, Desire and Loss in Western Culture' by Jonathan Dollimore. It will be a small summary about christianity, Shakespeare, Marx, the Nazis, Nietzsche, postmodernism and homosexuality from the viewpoint of Dollimore with a link to a mian article on this subject. Any objections?--Daanschr 16:15, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

The book is too complicated and to much a POV, so i will not write the article. To give some highlights:

Western culture has a tradition of death obsession.

Socrates desired death, because: the truth is contaminated by the imperfection of the body. 'A true philosopher desires death.' This was the beginning of a long tradition. Christianity sees the material world as contaminated, because of the change which leads to death.

Gregory: 'The very sweetness of their life is the formenting of their grief. For as long as men, these mortal and perishable creatures, exist and look upon the tombs of those from whom they came into being, they have grief inseparably joined to their lives even if they take little notice of it.'

Shakespeare: 'Desire is death.'

Richard Wagner: 'The genuine longing for death, for absolute unconsciousness, total non-existence. Freedom from all dreams is our final salvation.'

Analysis of Dollimore (if i summarize it correctly): He sees a conection between desire and death. Eliot: 'Desire itself is movement, not in itself desirable.' The very nature of desire is what prevents its fulfilment, what makes it impossible. This contradiction becomes profoundly important in the formation of identity and gender in western culture.

Dollimore argues that Marx and social-darwinists wanted to control change. Marx wanted a better future and social-darwinists wanted to prevend the destruction of civilization. They deny death according to Dollimore. They are talking about future and past without mentioning death. Their ideas led to a so called social death during the regimes of Stalin and Hitler. Is this analysis too subjective?

It isn't very clear. I should work on this text to make it clear. I am afraid that others will delete it after i worked on it for a long time.--Daanschr 09:30, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

organisation of article

I think death should be discussed as a concrete concept (causes, medical definition, etc) before getting into "interpretations of death" (ie symbolic)00:11, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

suicide?

No mention of suicide? 129.62.32.48 22:05, 11 January 2006 (UTC) There's a statistic of suicides in America, and a link to the main article. Citizen Premier 06:52, 15 January 2006 (UTC)