Can I show you something?
Define death. Like brain dead?
Luckily for me I dont need to define it, Science already has:
āDeath is the permanent, irreversible cessation of all biological functions that sustain a living organismā
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So, with that said.
I work in a hospital. Sometimes, we have patients who are certified brain dead. Say John Doe. We keep their body on life support, as they find places for the organs to go. When time, they harvest organs, and deliver them to the recipient.
Is John Doe dead by your definition? His organs are are still alive, keeping others alive.
Oh, if we are playing fantasies.
In that case you are correct.
Here are a couple more for you collectionā¦
ZOMBIES
PHOENIX
My definition doesnāt matter, but they are as the doctors define, ābrain deadā they are currently still alive, BUT they will die at some stage and remain dead , forever just like the rest of us
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How about your opinion? If John Doe has a heart in Jane, a Lung in Kyle, a Liver in Rick, etcā¦
Is John doe dead?
I see what you are getting at, I just like playing devils advocate. Plus it makes ya think.
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Did I already mention that this thread tends to lead to incredibly interesting discussions?
I tend to agree to that, simply because things donāt really disappear, they just change shapes (the old ice -> water -> steam thingy, or how energy is transformed and all thatā¦ my physics lessons are too long agoā¦). So, we die. And afterwards, we provide life again - if we rot, plants and animals will feed on us, if we get burnt, our ashes will make a soil more fertileā¦ and so on.
We are no longer a living, conscious being, but we are not āgoneā as well.
That being saidā¦ as an atheist, death is a tiny bit frightening for me. I donāt want my life to end, simply because I like the experiences I make, and it would be sooo nice if I could belive in something like ābeing reunited with all your loved ones in some afterlifeā.
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I personally like knowing that my atoms will recirculate into other organisms as they have for billions of years. Iām kinda glad I wonāt have a conscious afterlife, this one is tiring enough 
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Yes, and this is actually an impressive thing to think aboutā¦ and if we think about the beginning of the universe (or earth) - we are ultimately all made of stardust. Every human, every animal, every plant, every stone and cloud and drop of rain. Hope it doesnāt sound too esoteric (for itās not meant that way), but I feel deeply connected to everything when thinking about that. Weāre all starspawn 
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I agree with your latter statement. Iām an agnostic, and dying scares the hell out of me tbh.
Life can be truly, truly awful sometimes, but the idea of not consciously existing is far worse to me.
I really, really hope thereās some kind of afterlife, but it doesnāt seem likely in the slightest. Iām reminded of the Modest Mouse song Ocean Breathes Salty:
āAnd maybe weāll get lucky and weāll both live again.
Well I donāt know. I donāt know. I donāt know. Donāt think so.ā
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How do you know?
To say such thing youāve to comprehend what are those things we call consciousness or awareness? I ask many people about this and none could explain it. Robert Lanza has a very interesting theory on this and it makes some sense, even it has its flaws. I personally think that Richard Dawkins coms the closest in his book āThe Selfish Geneā.
I guess itāll be forever a mystery. Weāre like the chips on a circuit board of a 4K TV set, we have no idea why we exist and weāll never find out about the awesome pictures we help to produce.
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I donāt - it was just my guessing about what might or might not happen after death
I like the theory that awareness is actually some by-product of the brain itself, so, the brain does tons of things, and while doing that, something like awareness appears. I have no clue if that is true, for it is (currently) not possible to verify or falsify that, but I like the idea. And since Iām atheist, I like the fact that this theory doesnāt need a soul or something like that
I think of death like of sleeping, but not waking up or dreaming. If you fall asleep, you donāt ārememberā it, you just wake up and the night is goneā¦ so, death could be similar, I donāt know.
But what frightens me most is no longer being able to be near my loved one(s)ā¦ so I can understand why religions provide some āafterlifeā or at least the possibility to meet again in later reincarnations or something like that.
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Interestingly, thatās roughly the same reason why for a little while, I had a deathly fear of sleep. From a psychology POV, thereās no real way to disprove that every time you go to sleep, a new version of you with the same memories wakes up in the morning, with the old incarnation of you dying upon falling asleep.
This is kind of similar to the Star Trek transporter problem. From the outside, you would seem identical, with all the same memories, but internally, the true you would be dead.
A core part of that fear is due to the memory fogginess surrounding sleep (not remembering falling asleep mainly). What is consciousness if not a continuous movement through life with the same consistent memories? This is why diseases like Alzheimerās are so horrific to me. Your very sense of self dissolves in the span of months and years. In theory, the mind wiping device from films like Men in Black would induce a similar kind of consciousness death IMO. Losing the memories of your current self means that that self stops existing.
This actually led to me having a major psychological breakdown about 2 years ago, likely due to a combination of not sleeping (due to the fear itself) combined with intense stress from school and family. Was out of commission for about 6 months (with the trifecta of disassociation, depersonalization, and derealization at varying times), still not quite back to where I was beforehand. Developed a full-on anxiety disorder afterwards 
mental fog too. Took me a while to be able to go out in public again, makes college a bit rough tbh.
Eventually I was just forced to acknowledge that thereās no way of knowing for certain (about sleep or death), and that thereās nothing I can do to change it, so I might as well just try and cope with it, and do the best I can to make every day worth it.
Thatās why I say Iām an agnostic. I have no way of knowing for certain if thereās an afterlife, or what itās like, Iām just along for the ride at this point 
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Why does this scare you, you wouldnāt know it.
Itās scary to believe that one has a soul, you would know about the ones you left behind.
The āafterlifeā is the same as the time before you was born, remember?
Hope this helpsā¦
Iām kinda weird in that I consider religion and science to be the same thing.
For ex.
The eternal soul is, to me, explained by the first law of thermodynamics. Energy can be neither created or destroyed, only changed from one form to another.
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Of course not, but I do know now. I donāt think the dead care about death, itās only the living who do.
I just donāt want the time with those near me to end. And I think thatās a pretty normal feeling
Thatās actually not that unusual - well, maybe in the intensity you experienced it, but in a (lot) less intense way, I can really relateā¦ I have this strange sensation of literally āfallingā asleep sometimes, like, falling into some bottomless abyss. Itās not really frightening to me, but it is a strange feeling for sure.
Iām always a bit touched if people speak that open about such problems and hard timesā¦ big respect for what youāve gone through, hope your journey goes the way you want it to 
Totally agree. Thatās my stance towards death as well - it might happen, some day, and until then, I will enjoy my life at its fullestā¦ sounds pretty hedonistic
Maybe the afterlife is just exactly what a person believes it to be? Would be an interesting solution to conflicting religions
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MY opinion truly doesnāt matter, but let me answer you this way.
I view it like grandads axe
When the handle breaks and he replaces it, then the head gets damaged and he replaces that, is it still grandads axešŖ ?
Then your grandad dies, and is gone forever, you inherit the axe, is that still grandads axe 
?
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I find the concept of circulating flesh to be an argument about the self and itās boundaries, rather then itās functions only.
On that note some might reply: We are all 
just as well.
@ODaily, interestingly a sanskrit teaching backs your point rather well. (I think.)
It describes consciousness as a window that light passes through. If the window goes blind only one room becomes dark. But there is still light out there.
ā¦ ā¦ ā¦ ā¦ ā¦ ā¦ .
Once I tried to solve the mystery of death and made stop-motion animation about the topic.
Disclaimer: I didnāt come to any interesting conclusion. I still have the same questions, plus I acquired some more on the way.
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Ummmmmmā¦we are all waiting
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