Death

==== Defining life to define death ====
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.<ref>{{cite magazine |title=Crossing Over: How Science Is Redefining Life and Death |url=https://www.nationalgeographic.com/magazine/2016/04/dying-death-brain-dead-body-consciousness-science/ |author=Henig, Robin Marantz |author-link=Robin Marantz Henig |magazine=[[National Geographic (magazine)|National Geographic]] |date=April 2016 |access-date=23 October 2017 |archive-date=1 November 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171101071129/https://www.nationalgeographic.com/magazine/2016/04/dying-death-brain-dead-body-consciousness-science/ }}</ref> 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.
[[File:StillLifeWithASkull.jpg|thumb|left|alt=Symbols of death in a painting: it shows a flower, a skull and an hourglass|A flower, a skull, and an hourglass stand for life, death, and time in this 17th-century painting by [[Philippe de Champaigne]].]]

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.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Animal Ethics |date=2023 |title=What beings are not conscious |url=https://www.animal-ethics.org/beings-conscious/#:~:text=Non%2Dsentient%20animals%20would%20then,and%20even%20engage%20in%20locomotion. |access-date=February 14, 2023 |website=Animal Ethics |archive-date=8 November 2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141108091811/https://www.animal-ethics.org/beings-conscious/#:~:text=Non%2Dsentient%20animals%20would%20then,and%20even%20engage%20in%20locomotion. |url-status=live }}</ref> Another problem is in defining consciousness, which has many different definitions given by modern scientists, psychologists and philosophers.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Antony |first=Micheal V. |date=2001 |title=Is 'consciousness' ambiguous? |url=https://philpapers.org/rec/ANTICA#:~:text=It%20is%20widely%20assumed%20that,consciousness%2C%20to%20name%20a%20few. |journal=Journal of Consciousness Studies |volume=8 |issue=2 |pages=19–44 |via=PhilPapers |access-date=14 February 2023 |archive-date=6 March 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230306150630/https://philpapers.org/rec/ANTICA#:~:text=It%20is%20widely%20assumed%20that,consciousness%2C%20to%20name%20a%20few. |url-status=live }}</ref> Additionally, many religious traditions, including [[Abrahamic religions|Abrahamic]] and [[Dharmic religions|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.<ref>{{cite book|year=1991 |last1=Metcalf |first1=Peter |last2=Huntington |first2=Richard |title=Celebrations of Death: The Anthropology of Mortuary Ritual |publisher=Cambridge Press |place=New York}}{{page needed|date=January 2014}}</ref>

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.<ref name="DeGrazia-2017" /> As it pertains to human life, death is an irreversible process where someone loses their existence as a person.<ref name="DeGrazia-2017">{{Citation|last=DeGrazia|first=David|title=The Definition of Death|date=2017|url=https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2017/entries/death-definition/|encyclopedia=The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy|editor-last=Zalta|editor-first=Edward N.|edition=Spring 2017|publisher=Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University|access-date=2019-02-19|archive-date=18 March 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190318071254/https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2017/entries/death-definition/|url-status=live}}</ref>