How does a person exactly die?

Question

What causes a person to die? If it's something like heart failure, then that person can get a new heart right? So is it possible to live forever? What is it exactly that is out of our control? If it is something physical, doctors can reproduce it using stem cells.

By the way, I mean a natural death.

I'm going to try to rebut some answers.
If your breathing stops on YOUR own, doctors can provide equipment that does the breathing for you.

Your skin is an organ so you can get transplants. This may be excruciating and you may look like frankenstein but I'm just wondering if it is possible to live forever. Nearly everything can be replaced. (physically)

Well Northstar, a soul is not yet proven to exist. Would you say that a person in a coma have a soul?

Answer 1

Hey, noones really answered your question so I'll give it at shot. It ultimately comes down to the brain. You can have cancers in every single organ but if your brain isn't affected (indirectly or directly) then you're not dead. Yes you can have a heart attack, you can even stop breathing but until your brain is dead, you're not officially, or biologically dead. It has been said that our body and our brain live together in a symbiotic relationship. The body works for the brain, and the brain tells the body what to do. It is the brain which really determines us as people, the brain make us what we are and determines what 'life' is. Everything we percieve as life (from our perspective) comes from the products of what our brain does. So if you had a heart attack, your heart would be dying, but is it the heart which determines your life? Well yes in a sense, but your heart doesn't create what we percieve as life, its our brain. Its only until the blood flow is insufficient to our brain so that it does not recieve enough oxygen, nutrients, remove waste etc that our brain begins to die and so do we. So to conclude, you aren't fully and completely officially dead until your brain ceases to produce any activity. To sum up in a sentence "you're not dead till you're brain dead". Have a nice day! lol

Just read your additional details. We can't live forever yet. Its just because we dont have the technology to do brain transplants, and even if we could we would be removing what really makes you you. So would that really be living forever? It wouldn't really be you because its not your brain. The reason we'd have to change brains eventually is because as we age we acquire more and more spontaneous mutations in our DNA which makes the cells work worse and worse. The cells would eventually be in such a state they would fail to work and eventually the brain would die. There are also a lot of innate faults with the cells in a brain such as producing plaques or aggregates of protein such as those in Alzheimers disease. This is not due to mutation but a natural aggregation of products that the brain uses for other stuff. But you never know, we may have a cure for this in the future. But it is going to be extremely difficult, likely impossible, to repair every single DNA fault in our brains neurons.

Nice question

Answer 2

First, in the tissue that is native to your body, if you live long enough it will eventually all turn cancerous. To date, I know of no one who has lived long enough to have a majority of their body tissue become cancerous. You'd have to be able to replace all parts of the body, because our cells _will_ eventually wear out and become if not cancerous, at the least very toxic, weak and non-functional.

The only time we're really going to stand a chance of living indefinitely will be when we become capable of both replacing our body tissue with synthetic, possibly non-organic tissue -and- when we can transfer the contents of our brain into a non-organic unit. In order to truly be an extension of one's life, the process would have to be such that consciousness is maintained during the transfer without interruption as the consciousness in the donor body is slowly shut down and the consciousness in the receiving unit is slowly activated. Otherwise, it will be the same as if your original self had actually died and a new self was built to replace it, that new self not really being "you", at least not of being the -original- "you" (psychologically speaking) is important to you.

Even then, nobody's really going to want to live -forever-. Eventually, you're going to be tired of living and will choose to die.

Answer 3

i'm a firefighter on accountability genuine now. They the two die in there sleep or wide awake attempting to flee. The smoke is termed a great heated gasoline, and in case you breath one breath you start up choking and pass out and die. The smoke generated in a fireplace is extremely poisonous and an extremely speedy killer. The flames burn human beings as quickly as they have died from the smoke. until they are trapped in a automobile from an twist of fate that brought about a fireplace

Answer 4

Every second of every day, your cells are dividing, but each cell can only divide a certain amount of times. So it would be impossible to live "forever"- even by transplanting every organ in your body. You are still using the same skin, etc.

Answer 5

Thats a good question.

I dont know. I guess if its the heart, and you could get a heart replacement with in time, you'd come back maybe?

But would you really wanna live forever?
I wanna die before im 100

Answer 6

Death occurs when the soul leaves the body.

Answer 7

To be dead (not alive):

Your heart must stop, your resperations must stop, all brain function must ceast.

No, we can not live for ever. There are no "brain" replacements (yet).