What an interesting topic.

I see some form of death every night, from the peaceful to the violent.

Last night was the violent.
You would think as much death I have seen and dealt with every night for the past year I would have an answer, but I don't.

I like to say/believe that it is the end of one journey and the beginning of a new one.

quote:

Originally posted by arcwelder76:
What is Death?

It is an end, beyond that no one knows. Those who claim to know, can't provide evidence of what lies beyond.

My own opinion, is that nothing does, so we all best make the most of our time here.

My faith tells me that it is a transition, from one form of life into another.

You are, of course, right: I can't provide evidence of what lies beyond. I guess that's why they call it faith.

The more natural state of matter. It is life which is an aberration, especially consciousness.

Je pense, donc je suis - _{René Descartes}

Death, I will be what I once was.

My only concern about an afterlife... How could I possibly pet all those cats?

The end of the line, before all that's left of the conscious you is photos and memories in others heads or remnants of some work you did or contribution you made.

I don't fear it, but I do hope it's wayyyyyy into the future.

I love living, even on its worst day.

This life is it, and all there will ever be. Better make the most of it.

Just want to go where all the dogs go.

quote:

Originally posted by Woodman:
The more natural state of matter.

One could say this is so. Evolution and Creation make for a good argument also. I have yet to see Evolution win out over Creation when Thermodynamics tags along just to make it fun.

Death would be the end of your life as you know it. How close you come to death and how many times it happens is the most influential thing that can happen in ones lifetime. Having done this myself, it is easy to refer to the before / after as a previous lifetime because it fundamentally changes ones worldview. Death will always come knocking. I have opened the door twice, but I have yet to take her by the hand.

I'm single and have no children. So Ive only had brief moments that I felt I must live for their sake, child & mother.
I have a lonely feeling when I think of my own death. I suppose that's what most all feel.
Being a farm boy that hunted and fished, took care and dispatched farm animals of all kinds I see death as a much of life as living is.
When I don't have a God I'm even more lonely. So it's comforting to have a source, a friend, companion .... But ???....
Other than that I think dust to dust just like any other creature.

For a practical way of dealing with the question, I like Arcwelder's statement:

"What is Death?"

"It is an end, beyond that no one knows. Those who claim to know, can't provide evidence of what lies beyond."

I think attempting to explain it is futile. Not knowing does not bother me. I don't mind living with the unknown.

We each deal with this big question in our own way as is our right.

quote:

Originally posted by .38supersig:

quote:

Originally posted by Woodman:
The more natural state of matter.

One could say this is so. Evolution and Creation make for a good argument also. I have yet to see Evolution win out over Creation when Thermodynamics tags along just to make it fun.

Death would be the end of your life as you know it. How close you come to death and how many times it happens is the most influential thing that can happen in ones lifetime. Having done this myself, it is easy to refer to the before / after as a previous lifetime because it fundamentally changes ones worldview. Death will always come knocking. I have opened the door twice, but I have yet to take her by the hand.

I,ve pondered this aspect occasionally. Evolution, on its face, seems to be at odds with the 2nd law.

But when considered more deeply, isn't.

I'll use an easy analogy to illustrate my view, then apply it to evolution.

A car is a reversal of entropy. Iron, polymers, copper, rubber and various other atoms and molecules, which have existed for almost all time, were rescued from entropy and arranged to form a car, at a tremendous cost in energy.

Entropy can be halted or reversed, temporarily, but at a comparatively large energy cost.

Biological reproduction is the ultimate temporary reversal of entropy. Diribonucleic recombination is an elegant process that corrects the effects of entropy on a complex system, by combining the undamaged parts of 2 DNA sets, while discarding the parts damaged by entropy.

But, like the car analogy, it takes a tremendous amount of energy to do so. A living thing spends an entire lifetime consuming energy, expending energy in an attemp to stay alive, all in an effort to reproduce.

The ultimate source of the energy needed to reverse entropy and create the car, house, dog, cat, etc, is the sun, in our up-to-now closed solar system.

Imagine building a house of cards on a roadside sidewalk. Some energy is expended creating order from chaos. Then time takes its toll and a few minutes later a breeze destroys it.
You spend even more dnergy building a windbreak, and the house of cards will persist through time a little longer.
You spend a week building a concrete dome to protect it and it will persist through time even longer.
But, in 8 billion years, the sun will engulf the earth and destroy it. We could go on almost forever expending energy conserve this version of order.
We could put the domed house of cards on a starship, and go to a new planet, a new sun. And the energy used woul halt entropy even longer.

As long as we have the sun feeding plants, feeding animals, we can use tremendous amounts of energy to undo entropy and create a new DNA set, which will then consume energy staying alive (another cheating of entropy) untill that DNA set recombines with another, discarding the portions effected by entropy, and continues through time, expending huge amounts of energy to cheat entropy.

Energy, time, space and matter are governed by thermodynamics. Technically, as long as there is plentiful energy, it can be sacrificed to halt the 2nd law

But, as a balanced set of sliding scales; time, energy, matter and space all require that as organized matter persists through time and space, energy must run down.

The universe itself may provide a beautiful symmetry and in the end, undo entropy. If expansion runs out of steam, and the universe's space, time and matter begin to gravitationally contract back to a singular point, all entropic space, time and matter would be recombined in a new primordial singularity, releasing all entropy into its base elements, allowing a new beginning with no matter and near limitless energy.

Again, matter would be allowed to form at the expense of energy, throughout time, entropy could be temporarily cheated by life, at the expense of even more energy.

Kinda the cyclical universe theory.

I believe death is the end of a preparatory state for that which is to come.

quote:

Originally posted by armored:

quote:

Originally posted by jimmy123x:
My mate (69 y/o) had a massive heart attack 30 minutes after we pulled into the dock last night in key west. He had no pulse, no breathing, his eyes and mouth were wide open and his skin turned dark/grey in a minutes time. He was dead.

911 was called immediately by the dockmaster who was talking to him. I performed chest compressions for almost 10 minutes until the crew from another yacht brought and hooked up an AED, we shocked him once, no pulse, continued chest compressions and a minute or so later his eyes started moving, he started breathing, and he had a pulse, just as paramedics arrived and took him to the hospital.

I went to the hospital and brought his bag with his personal belongings after notifying family. The pilot and air nurse were there along with 2 nurses and they were about to load him in the helicopter in a few minutes. The nurse asked what happened, because he didn't remember anything. I told the story above to her, after that. Fred who is a real jokester says to me "Why did you have to wake me up? It was so peaceful. My chest hurts like a motherF'er from you beating on it. Then he laughed and said thank you to me several times. He had another cardiac event later last night, they rushed him into surgery and put a stent in his left artery that was completely blocked.....he is sedated and recovering but they say he has a blockage somewhere else. I can only pray for him.

This is someone who has done 120,000+ miles on the ocean with me over the past 11 years and someone that is close to me. I did a cpr refresher a year ago, but it is incredibly different actually doing it on a human and you remember very little of what you're actually doing as there is so much adrenaline flowing. I thought I was doing chest compressions for 30-60 seconds and everyone at the marina said 10 minutes. I just hope he's alright. But I really believe he was in another place and we brought him back.

OMG Jimmy, please wish Fred the best. Cheryl and I enjoyed the short time we spent with you and Fred when you were in Chicago. We both thought Fred was a GREAT, VERY interesting guy.
We will pray for his fast, complete recovery.

Thank You.

We both enjoyed lunch with you and Cheryl. I'm still pretty shaken up by what happened.

It just so happened, that it couldn't have happened at a better place. An hour to three earlier and we were 30 miles from land in any direction. He was standing in the cockpit talking to the dockmaster when it happened. Dockmaster got me immediately, dockmaster called 911 immediately, and there were a bunch of guys (crew and owners) very close by on the dock and neighboring sportfish and one of them had an AED and brought it to us.

We were on one of Fred's favorite boats, flat seas, perfect sunny weather, new 70' Sportfish, doing 34 knots at cruise From Naples to Key West. Was just a perfect day. We had planned to go to his favorite restaurant (Half SHell) in about an hour from when it happened.

As of right now, Fred is still on 100% life support and the cooling process has been completed. The sedation will be lowered today to check consciousness and responsiveness, will have an update later, and then they will put him back under to rest his heart.

I will keep you and Cheryl updated when I know more.

I had this very conversation a while back with a good friend, coworker, scientist, who is atheist. He believes that when we die our bodies become food/fertilizer for the next living organism.

I firmly believe we lived in a pre-mortal realm before coming here to mortality, and when we die we move to a post-mortal realm. All is part of the plan of the Creator for our benefit. I reminded my friend of alpha and beta errors from statistics. If he was right, after we both die, he would never know he was right, couldn't brag. If I was right, I could always say to him "told you so".

So in 100 years, if I am right, I will buy lunch for all SigForum members.

quote:

Originally posted by Scoutmaster:
So in 100 years, if I am right, I will buy lunch for all SigForum members.

Thank You (in advance).

quote:

Originally posted by ersatzknarf:
Just want to go where all the dogs go.

LOL. We may.

Thirty years ago a friend of my Wife's had some surgery and died on the table, they were able to bring her back. She was out for 3-4 minutes.

Afterwards she said she would never be afraid of death again. She said she was in the most peaceful of states. And surrounded by friends and family who had passed, most notable her Mother.

But the part that I liked; She was with ALL the dogs she grew up with and had lost over the years.

That right there is my hope.

These people might have a clue.

http://www.nderf.org/Archives/NDERF_NDEs.html4

They correlate pretty close to what my revived Father talked about. He had arrested at Shands teaching Hospital in the early 70's and was clinically dead for 20 minutes after a botched operation. Then they hit him with the paddles multiple more times for training purposes. According to his written records. He said he was over there for eons communing with His passed relatives. And his memory of it was that everything "was alive" and he said that did not come close to describing the conditions and consciousness even down to the grass level. He said all words were inadequate to describe it. His last memory was setting on one of the benches at a park and having a talk with Jesus. who had just put his arm around his shoulder and told him he had to go back and raise his new born son. He said he had already been over there for eon's and did not want to go back. He said it was with tears in his eyes he begged not to be sent back. But he was,and he lived for another 40 yrs.

quote:

Originally posted by FN in MT:

quote:

Originally posted by ersatzknarf:
Just want to go where all the dogs go.

LOL. We may.

Thirty years ago a friend of my Wife's had some surgery and died on the table, they were able to bring her back. She was out for 3-4 minutes.

Afterwards she said she would never be afraid of death again. She said she was in the most peaceful of states. And surrounded by friends and family who had passed, most notable her Mother.

But the part that I liked; She was with ALL the dogs she grew up with and had lost over the years.

That right there is my hope.

My grandmother (who has long since passed) had a similar experience during surgery. She was also able to recall seeing herself on the table while the doctors and nurses worked to revive her.

Brain games as a result of trauma or something truly extra spiritual? I don't know. I do know that when grandma was in the last stages of dying from cancer years later, she was not only not afraid but was looking forward to being reunited with everyone (including her animals) that had passed before her.

I like to think we continue beyond this mortal existence. I believe we do. What that means and how it works, I have no idea.

“I do not fear death, in view of the fact that I had been dead for billions and billions of years before I was born, and had not suffered the slightest inconvenience from it.”

— Mark Twain (Attributed, but if not something he said because people were unlikely to have known that the universe had been in existence for billions of years in his day, true nevertheless.)

For me life is like a candle flame: Certain conditions cause it to come into existence, it persists for a time, and then ends. It may come into existence again if conditions are right, but it won’t be the same flame.

Baby don't hurt me
Don't hurt me
No more

Buzzards gotta eat, same as worms.