to ask of everybody and i hope you only reply once and do not edit but i have to ask everybody what is death?
if i ask your reply as a question you can reply to that question
Member
death?
to ask of everybody and i hope you only reply once and do not edit but i have to ask everybody what is death?
if i ask your reply as a question you can reply to that question
Last edited by liflessdreamer; 2007-Aug-20 at 07:49 PM. Reason: incerting sentance
Established Member
erm... the cessation of life
Member
confused on Cessation of life
but this isnt a test im just looking for explanations not caring for simple explanations or not.
Last edited by liflessdreamer; 2007-Aug-20 at 07:32 PM. Reason: mispelling
Banned
Death is the word we use to describe the act of dieing. When in astronomy we talk of a stars death. We are talking of that stars running out of fuel or imploding, exploding or just plain old dieing.
Order of Kilopi
Member
Originally Posted by astromark
So what where things running out of gas? that doesnt seem logical
Last edited by liflessdreamer; 2007-Aug-20 at 07:48 PM. Reason: wrong emplacment
Established Member
There's really nothing to explain. You live, you die. Life is an electro-chemical process and it runs down. I assume you're looking for an underlying meaning to life and death but that is because, as a self aware being, you cannot really accept that YOU will simply cease to exist. That is something we all have in common, since everything we perceive about the world around us is filtered through our senses and related directly to our sense of self. We literally cannot imagine our own non existence. Unfortunately, there is no evidence that YOU exist in the first place, other than as a manifestation of biologically driven patterns. Any suggestion of a soul, or something that survives physical death, is simply wishful thinking without evidence to support it - and there isn't any.
Member
youve cuaght me their.id like to ask do you believe in gosts?if you do then you simply can exist after physical death and theirs always something their around us and you cant really stop existing.
Established Member
Okay, show me the evidence of one single verified manifestation of a ghost, then prove to me that said ghost is the departed spirit of a once living human being. Personally, all hoaxes aside, I think that both UFO's and ghosts are real phenomena. I do not, however, believe that UFO's are alien spacecraft or that ghosts are spirits of the dead. Then again, what I believe is irrelevent, isn't it? All that can be proven, in both cases, is that people claim to see them. That is not proof of their physical existence.
Member
hm
well you can exist without being a gost if you have 1nce lived you can always exist.
Established Member
Um, what does this have to do with astronomy?
Order of Kilopi
Liflessdreamer, over on this thread you just told us of the recent death of a family member.
So I'm prompted to say that I think BAUT-folk in general are likely to have a quite sceptical approach to the possibility of life after death. I don't necessarily want to discourage you from pursuing this topic, but you should at least be aware, going in, of the sort of discussion you're likely to get into.
Grant Hutchison
Administrator
Liflessdreamer,
I'm very sorry for your recent loss. I just don't think you are going to find the answers you are looking for here. You might wish to find someone locally and in person that you could talk about this with, either a counselor or some sort of religious or spiritual adviser.
Order of Kilopi
The key point is, there is a scientific answer to your question, and there are nonscientific answers. If you seek a nonscientific answer, don't ask on a scientific forum. Science has certain objectives, and based on what Grant said above, I don't think those are really your objectives at the moment-- take your question to a place where you can get an answer that is more meaningful to your current needs.
Banned
One way to look at it:
If a friend lived next to you, you would see eachother and talk every day.
If the friend then moved to another city, you might talk everday over the phone and see eachother occasionally.
If the friend moved to another state, you could talk on the phone but see eachother rarely.
If the friend moved to the Shiny new Moon Colony, you could send emails and not talk on the phone. There would be lag time. You might see eachother with a Webcamera but not face to face.
If the friend took a new job that went to Alpha centuri you would talk once a year at best. Even then it would be letter format like the days of old. Not real time talk.
If the friend went on a new mission to Andromeda Galaxy- Communication would be Very difficult indeed.
Whether you take a scientific view or a non scientific view
Life in itself is a journey.
In it we accpet the joys and the consequences of the journey- even when sometimes it takes someone far away...
Honored Member
On the other hand, I from time to time speak to deceased relatives. By this I mean that I have a way to call up internal memories of the dead in my own mind and query them, in a sort of half-wordless way, for advice.
To my way of thinking this is 'ghostlike' or 'spiritlike', although I don't see anything supernatural about it. You might say that while these memories do not have their own self-consciousness, the imprinted facts and personalities of these people live on with me.
Established Member
I've never been happy with the use of the word "death" to describe a star running out of fusible materials. It's certainly the end of an era for the star, but it's life is just beginning. Some stars are still stars afterwards, such as a neutron star or a white dwarf star. Generally, if it becomes a black hole we no longer use the word star to describe it so maybe BH producing supernovas could qualify as dying.
Banned
Excellent point
Order of Kilopi
I thought you were going to object to the very use of the terms "life" and "death" of stars in the first place! Those kinds of anthropomorphisms are of dubious value. I think it's fine to use analogies, like "if stars were people then the main sequence would be like adulthood", but stars neither "live" nor "die", so it's kind of silly to debate how those words should best be applied to them!
Established Member
Easy. Death is the end of conscious thinking in the form it once was.
Your body stops working the way it did... and (if given the chance outside of a tomb) it will recycle and become food for other things.
Your memories, your personality...everything that you were no longer exist. (for YOU)
Try to ask yourself "WHO" you were before you were born. All of what makes you was there from the time of the Big Bang.
But what made you "you" is a collection of experiences and decisions, and when you stop doing that...those go away.
"ME" is a very difficult question.
Bury me un-encumbered in the yard and I may become part of a tree... but the tree will never know what I knew.
Order of Kilopi
Ah. I wanna be cremated for an electrical power generator. That way, I can seep into the Internet. It will know more than I ever could.
Order of Kilopi
Actually, you're already in that tree-- your atoms are interchanged with your surroundings constantly, in life as much as in death. Life is not a condition so much as a process, involving constant regeneration. Who was it that said he who is not busy being born is busy dying? Dylan?
Established Member
That is truly beautiful... as is the thought that no matter how hard we try...to die...or not to... we will always exist. Because we always did.
Carl Sagan in Cosmos "because... we are made of Star Stuff"
Banned
Im suddenly thinking of Asimovs "Foundation" Series
and Final Fantasy's gaia
Administrator
From the Shawshank Redemption is the line:
Andy Dufresne: Get busy living, or get busy dying.
Order of Kilopi
Death is Nature's way of telling you to slow down.
Order of Kilopi
Oh, and remember the chicken at Tretsky's? Death is worse.
Banned
So when you asked about death you meant it. I jumped to the wrong conclusion again and, assumed you were asking of the end of stellar output. Sorry to hear of your loss.... Oops,
Bearded one and Neverfly... Its perfectly reasonable to say a star has died. Astronomers have been saying this for over a hundred years. You may as a point be right in that a star does not die but, more simply enters a different phase of its life. As for that other point that suggests that stars do not live or die... The English language is full of stupid odd little twists. The stars are out. When they are visable... make sense of this I can not... understand it, I do... Mark.
Established Member
Sure stars can be born live and die.
If the definition of life is something that can reproduce, grow, eat, and eliminate waste... then Stars pretty much do that.
Nothing in the universe is not recyleable.
Sentience has nothing to do with life.
Heck... Stars even colonize and organize!
Order of Kilopi
A big "if". A raindrop does all those things too-- is it alive? The question is, are we using "life" purely as a metaphor, or are we using it as a scientifically defined concept. Popular scientific descriptions often mix in metaphors with the scientifically defined parts, to add "color" and "personality" to the descriptions. I do the same with analogies, but I think it's important to stress the difference between an analogy and a scientific description, or confusion can emerge-- not just about the thing being studied, but about what science itself is.
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