9/18/2023 0 Comments Grim reaper definitionBut many animals may not even know that they will soon die. Survival is the essence of evolutionary theory, so it is natural for a life form to be emotionally appalled by the prospect of death. This instinct to avoid death is written into the genetic code of every biological creature-in the very first sentence, perhaps. The instinct to do everything possible not to die characterizes the animal kingdom-and we are no exception. We tiptoe around death linguistically, resorting to a wealth of euphemisms- she’s passed away lost his life now at peace gone to a better place not with us anymore pushing up daisies cashed in his chips counting worms lying six feet under departed met her maker stepped off joined the great majority. No matter what we say to her, it always feels inadequate and upsetting. Sometimes, we don’t even know how to deal with a grieving companion or stranger. Often, we cannot deal with the death of a loved one. Hearing about death makes us feel sad, squeamish, uncomfortable, angry, horrified, mournful, regretful, frustrated and helpless. In any case, nobody really knows what happens after death-we may never know.īut death is possibly our most taboo of words. We seem to use death as a proxy for not existent in the conscious realm. A sufficiently humanoid robot might be included in the definition of life. When robots are ubiquitous, we might say they have died when their battery runs out and that, when we replace the batteries, we have brought them back to life. Whether you are a banana slug, an oak tree or a bacterium-in death, you simply cease to exist.īy death we usually mean the end of life-presumably, batteries and dreams are not alive in this way. In other words, death is just what you would expect it to be-the end of it all, the beginning of nothing, and, conversely, the end of everything. Biologists will tell you that death is the privation of all biological processes, including mental and conscious processes, shortly followed by the decomposition of organic material. Judeo-Christian theologians will tell you that death is the disposal of the physical body and the release of the eternal soul to either heaven or hell. Religious apologists and the followers of other ancient schools of thought will tell you something very similar-Christians, Muslims, Hindus, Jains, Sikhs and devotees of Socrates and Plato all have their own conceptions of reincarnation or an afterlife of some sort. For them, it represents the never mentioned end of this life and beginning of another. Parents tell their children that the dead have gone to a better place. Simba might say that death is the completion of the Circle of Life. But these latter deaths are just tricks of language. Abstract concepts like dreams and aspirations can die, too. Even inanimate objects like batteries and projects die.
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