If death is the absence of life...?

Question

....then wouldn't the time before we are born and before we are concieved also be considered death?

Answer 1

Then obviously death is more than just the absence of life. it's the cessation of life.

Answer 2

It's like waves of the ocean. The waves are born from the body of the ocean and propagate toward the shore (prior to life). When the wave reaches the shore (Life), it thins out and scurries up the sand in an exquisite rippling activity in a function or interplay with the sand and air and shore debris. Then, the wave retreats (death) and is drawn back out into the body of the ocean to reform into another propagating wave.

What we perceive to be Life is a consciousness / awareness of the world around us. That consciousness or awareness is actually a function or interplay between us and the "sand and air and shore debris" of the world around us, so to say. Life is the exquisite rippling of the wave as it scurries across the sand. The shape of the ripples is formed by how the water slides across the sand and through the air. When that truly unique expression each time between the water and sand and air is finished, the "Life" or expression of that unique combination is completed and will never be recreated exactly the same way again. That momentary unique expression comes to an end. But, the elements of that expression, the wind and sand and water and shore debris, will propagate over and over again in new expressions.

There is no real "death" as much as there is a completion of one of many unique expressions of something much larger than the momentary wave it forms of itself. The ocean does not "die". It just completes one breath or expression and then draws in for another breath and yet another expression.

Answer 3

What you have obviously discovered is that Death is not the absence of life. After all you would have to begin describing a rock as "dead" or air in the upper stratosphere "dead" or light waves "dead", etc etc even though they don't really have the potential to be alive. Similarly, you would find it very challenging to view the body's component organs, cells, molecules and atoms and begin asking yourself if they were "dead" or alive. After all, absent the present of a sustaining set aren't they "dead"? Maybe life should be seen as "a system producing a sustained increase in organization and order over time"? Perhaps you should consider defining death as "the cessation of life", or "the increase in disorder of a system to such point as it is no longer considered stable or sustainable."? All in all, playing psymantics (intentional error) with it can be a real headache.

End note, it is inadequate to describe death simply as the absence of life.

Good journey.

Answer 4

No. For something to be dead it must die; to die it must be alive.

Before conception, there is only non-existence. Death too is non-existence, so in that there is a similarity with a difference, or a difference with a similarity.

One of the Psalms expressed this point by saying "before I am not." Perhaps that is what inspired the famous, "to be or not to be, that is the question?"

Answer 5

To me, death means that something that was alive has ceased to exist. Something has to exist before it can die. So an unfertilized egg exists (though I don't know if it can be considered alive), but until a fertilized egg contains a soul, mind, and spirit, I see it as an unoccupied vessel.

For those who believe in reincarnation, because we've always been and always will be, even without physical bodies, we never cease to exist.

Answer 6

Death is the loss of life, or the absence of life after one has lived. Rocks aren't dead.

Answer 7

Maybe death is "real life" with what we perceive as life being death ?

life ?

Physical life

Spiritual life

Is the body Life or just a shell ? Our senses limit us to this reality unless one is brave and overcomes fear. I myself perceive death a little like going to the dentist. We fear the pain but when it's all over, we are liberated again. Life as we know it is just a sore tooth.

Answer 8

Good question.
What is the time BEFORE you were 'born'?
Weren't you alive inside your Mother's womb?
And Before you were inside your Mother's womb, a part of you was in her egg and your Dad's gonads.
Don't pay any attention to me.
I don't even know what we are talking about.

Answer 9

Death is of the body only.

Love and blessings Don

Answer 10

no....
Death is the absence of life, after life has occurred....The time prior to conception is not death, as life has yet to occur....