Definitions of Death
The "Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy" in an article published on October 26, 2007, includes a comprehensive definition of death. The article is titled, "The Definition of Death," and addresses the following topics and offers additional research information in related bibliographic entries:
1. The Current Mainstream
View: The Whole-Brain Approach
2. A Progressive Alternative: The Higher-Brain
Approach 2.1 Appeals to the Essence of Human Persons 2.2 Appeals to Personal Identity 2.3 The Claim that the Definition of Death is a
Moral Issue 2.4 The Appeal to Prudential Value 3. A Proposed Return To Tradition: An Updated
Cardiopulmonary Approach 4. Further Possibilities 4.1 Death as a Process, Not a Determinate Event
4.2 Death as a Cluster Concept not Amenable to
Classical Definition 4.3 Death as Separable from Moral Concerns Bibliography References Cited Other Important Works Other Internet Resources Related Entries
Saliba's Metaphysics of Death
I base my views
about the metaphysics of death on the ideas about the mechanics of
dying (see "Saliba's Mechanics of Dying.")
Even though I was formally trained in religion, I am not one who
immediately gravitates to ideas based solely on faith. That’s
probably because of my personal attraction to the scientific method.
Though I rarely reject ideas out of hand, I prefer to ponder them at
my leisure and get a feel for how well they hold up to my own
scrutiny or doubting mind. One idea that has fascinated me for many
years is the possibility of life after death. For that reason I
organized and designed ScepticThomas to explore that and similar
ideas.
The question about
life after death is a complex one that has required a great deal of
pondering, research, and analysis. But the question itself is overly
general. There are really three questions of interest:
1.
Does something akin
to life continue to exist after the death of the body?
2.
Does a recognizable
identity of the human being continue after death?
3.
Does the
individual’s consciousness continue after death?
After all vital
organs cease to function and the body dies, it seems that something
of the individual who possessed the body continues to exist. That
something appears to be what remains of the life energy that flowed
through the circulatory system, kept the heart beating, coursed
through the nervous system, and powered the muscles. At the time of
death that energy is released into the surroundings. In view of the
Laws of Conservation of Matter and Energy this idea seems plausible.
So given that some
form of energy leaves the body after death, which can never be
created nor destroyed, what if anything of the person who inhabited
the body constitutes this disembodied energy? If you ask people who
consider themselves “sensitives,” they attest to seeing or sensing
that energy often in the form of the dead person; even dressed in
the clothes they died wearing. Those “sensitives” who claim the
ability to communicate with this energy often say that the energy
communicates via the identity of the departed individual. But those
cases are relatively few, given the numbers of people who have died
through the millennia. And even if a “sensitive” claims the ability
to communicate with a disembodied energy or spirit, it is difficult
to prove that what the “sensitive” sees or hears is an actual
remnant of a particular human being.
Ghost hunters who
generally do not consider themselves “sensitives” or seers go to
great lengths to prove or disprove the existence of spirits. They
employ the latest technological devices to help study Electro
Magnetic Fields, unusual temperature variances, or auditory
peculiarities. They even distinguish between apparitions and
hauntings, explaining that hauntings are imprints or recordings
somehow left behind by some significant event that lacks the
characteristics of true apparitions. They view true apparitions as
energy that communicates to the living and is capable of receiving
communication from the living. In such cases, the energy seems to
retain some of the identity of the original deceased.
But of the millions
of human beings who have passed from the living to the dead and who
have never shown any unusual signs so typical of apparitions, what
of their existence? Have they simply died and disappeared into a
world described by classic religion or metaphysics? Do they retain
their original identities and simply go to heaven or hell beyond
view of the living? Do they transmigrate into a newly forming zygote
or fetus to be born anew? Do they displace the “souls” of people who
are already alive (spiritual walk-ins)? These are questions we
cannot answer without the ability to communicate with those
particular energies.
There
is life after death. The
same energy that flows through our living bodies continues to exist
after we die. It permeates the world around us and perhaps travels
through space. It mutates as it energizes inanimate objects or other
living beings; it traverses the atmosphere whole or it dissipates
into the heavens, but even in an entropic state it never ceases to
exist. That life energy that once kept our hearts beating and our
brains thinking ultimately, as the say, becomes one with the
universe.
The question about
whether or not an individual’s consciousness continues intact after
death is central to understanding our inevitable fate. Who cares if
we exist as disembodied spirits and retain our identities in the
eyes of seers and other “gifted” people who have “special powers.”
The answer to that question is true Transcendentalists. The problem
is that most of us are not true Transcendentalists. What is vital to
the mass of humanity is the reassurance that if our life energy
continues to live after death it retain its consciousness and
self-awareness. Why? Because conscious self awareness is what makes
us human; consciousness and self awareness are what make us
cognizant of our personal identities and those of others. Our basic
instinct to survive is inseparable from our need to retain our
identity. Our fear of aging and losing the vitality of our youth
stems from that same drive. Perhaps we have invented our heavens and
hells in a desperate attempt to protest to the universe that we
somehow want to live forever and keep our awareness about it—“or
what’s a heaven for?” Eternal life is meaningless without a faculty
for conscious awareness.
Meaningless. I will come back to this point.
Because
consciousness and self-awareness are part and parcel of the physical
body, once that body ceases to function no consciousness or
self-awareness exists. The mechanism for the devolution of self and
mind starts when the body dies and the brain loses its capacity to
think. At that point consciousness fades and takes with it our self
awareness. Consciousness sinks into a state of personal
unconsciousness, where our initial and basic instincts reside. As
the energy that once gave us vitality exits the body, what is left
of our personal unconsciousness finally reverts to the condition of
“collective unconsciousness.” And according to Jung’s theory of
psychology, all that remain are the patterns, analogies, and
archetypes common to all human minds.
As the life energy
exits the body to pass into another existence, the conscious mind
returns to its original and eternal state of unconsciousness. In its
return to a collective unconscious state the conscious mind deposits
something of its personal identity into that sea of collective
unconscious. What the individual consciousness contributes is an
imprint perhaps, or something akin to the same patterns, analogies,
and archetypes that characterize the collective unconscious of
humanity. It contributes some identity marker, like the fragment of
a genetic code, to index its former existence. What is left of a
former conscious existence returns to the unconscious where it can
contribute to future emerging conscious beings. In that sense there
is eternal life after death. The identity of the deceased exists only in
the constellated memories of
all the living who have been or, at some point in the future, will
become aware of the deceased's
identity.