If birth is the opposite to death . . .?

Question

what is the opposite of life ?

Answer 1

afterlife

Answer 2

If birth is the opposite of life, this does not mean all things have opposites. I mean, what is the opposite of milk? I don't even think that birth is the opposite of death, though I can see where you're coming from: as birth is considered the beginning of a human life, so death is considered its end. But life does not begin with birth, because the foetus is also alive. And it does not begin with conception, as the sperm and egg cell are also alive. And, ultimately, there is no real distinction between organic and anorganic existence. The word "organic" already says it: an organism is just an organisation - of what? Ultimately, of anorganic stuff, of course - molecules, atoms, etc., and, ultimately, energy. If energy is life, however, then life never ends, according to the law of the conservation of energy.

Answer 3

Birth is not the opposite of death. Life is the opposite of death. Have you ever heard of something called still birth? The baby is born dead.

Answer 4

Thought (and thus language ) tends to see things as 'right/wrong ','good/bad' etc. It's a useful tool to edit out things which do not seem relevant to our survival . Even ideas such as 'me/you', 'inner/outer' etc are born from this ,but they are not fundamentally true .
We can say that the opposite of life is 'not-life', but these two must exist together ,if at all .
In fact there is no 'life' ,outside our concepts of separate beings that arrive and pass . Every aspect of any being you chose will continue after the 'death' of that being ,in other beings ,even awareness ,like a virus will continue in others .
As ,say a human ,we are expressions of a general pattern of humanity , that pattern ,although always altering will continue regardless of the birth and death of it's fruits .

But even such a pattern as 'humanity' is balanced by that which it excludes , necessary to complete the circle of 'everything-and-nothing', and so has no ultimate reality .
'Ultimately', in my opinion we have 3 aspects to the mystery : with regard to life these would be : Life, Non-life,and Neither-life-nor-non-life.

Answer 5

If birth is the opposite to death . . .?
then life is opposite to eternity since life has a beggining and an end
and eternity doesnt

Answer 6

It is also death.

Birth is an action, just as dying is. Birth begins life and dying ends it. On the other hand, Life is a state - the state of living, whereas Death is the state of being dead.

How's that?!

Answer 7

Your question may presuppose the view that each thing has at most one opposite. Plato held this view, and he used it to make arguments about folly and wisdom in his dialogue GORGIAS. Unfortunately, the "one thing - one opposite" theory is not correct. The opposite to some terms varies with the context in which we consider them. For example the opposite of 'life' could be 'death' if we are considering biological process, but the opposite of 'life' could be 'afterlife' (as one answer suggests) if we are considering theology.

Some other examples:

The opposite of bravery could be foolishness OR cowardice depending on which extreme you contrast it with.

The opposite of knowledge is either ignorance or opinion, depending on whether our context is certainty or just cognitive awareness.

The opposite of good could be evil (moral context) or bad (technical or aesthetic context)

and so on.

So the answer to your question is that we can't always speak of
THE opposite of a term, because there may be many, depending on context.

Answer 8

Krista M is right.

It's just an ambiguity in terms.

But then again, no one experiences death--
so the quality of non-existence is not available.
And by virtue of this-- life loses contextual meaning.

Unless you understand death as a very real possibility of Nothingness, you can't come to know either side of the polarity.

Answer 9

death

Answer 10

Existence

Answer 11

It would be appetite, yet birth is opposite to joy, and death is opposite to help. Birth is not terminated after death, it only changes into chain control, something very appreciated and helpful for begginers.