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Why do we die?

misecmisc1misecmisc1 I am a HinduIndia Veteran
hi all,

you all can consider me a complete idiot to ask the above question. but why is death inevitable? or is it possible that we do not die? let us consider a scenario where a human being gets born in a good family, gets good food through out his life, good living conditions, lets assume he is a nice guy (so nobody tries to kill him) and he does not face any accident leading to any problem in his body - so will this human being still die? if yes, then why? it is understandable that as a person grows old, his organs will start to get old - but why will the organs die, cant they be healed again to restore their original condition - to avoid death.

where is science (if anyone has some latest information) on this topic of avoiding death or some way of making a dead person alive - seems like it is a very stupid question to ask, but i am not able to figure this thing out that is death really sure to come - or some way death can be avoided - and if a person dies, then after that any way that a dead person can be made alive again? please suggest. thanks in advance.
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Comments

  • RodrigoRodrigo São Paulo, Brazil Veteran
    I think it's a very sincere question. One of those that really matters. Ironically these are also the ones we cannot answer, because our human language and comprehension are not wide enough to contain the universe and its flow. But, regardless, it's still worth making these questions.
  • karastikarasti Breathing Minnesota Moderator
    Depends how you look at death, really there is no death but in terms of our relative bodies, everything dies. Of course a person will still die even if they don't meet with accidents, injuries or serious disease. Everyone dies. Everything living, dies. Eventually, cells die more rapidly than they can regenerate and they can no longer bring enough oxygen to the brain and body systems. The heart is a muscle, and just like a car part, it wears out and cannot pump blood efficiently anymore. The heart, of course, can be replaced, but we don't have nearly the organ donors to supply young people who need them much less try to get enough of them to save the lives of 90 year old people.

    Death is always going to come, and while there are science goings-on that talk about the possibility of delaying death until very old ages, or, cryo freezing people in the hopes that in the future, we could bring them back...honestly I don't think those are good things. Of course I have loved ones I miss and would like to see again, but their time on earth in that body was done for a reason. Spending a life time trying to find a way to avoid death, is a waste of a life.
  • absoluteabsolute Explorer
    edited March 2014
    because everything is changeable, even sub particles like photon mezon quark..etc there is no death, only substances that crowd in one place, we called it our body, change and scatter out that is what we called "death". i believe if science seek the knowledge more further than quark level, we may find the answers of everything or may not. scientifically we are just star dusts that forged by stars after the big bang, so everything that around is star dust or atom or sub particle and their true nature is movement, it is only my point of view on death, but who knows what death truly is
    JeffreyBunks
  • genkakugenkaku Northampton, Mass. U.S.A. Veteran
    A Zen teacher once implored his English-speaking readers in an essay to find a better word than "death." "Death" carried with it the notion that somehow things might stop or be finished or cease to exist somehow. The word he preferred or suggested was a Japanese word used when a monk dies: "Senge," a word that might be translated as "to change the place from which the Dharma is spoken."
    NirvanaChaz
  • BhikkhuJayasaraBhikkhuJayasara Bhikkhu Veteran
    edited March 2014
    This gentleman here, Aubrey De Grey, is on the forefront of scientific study to eradicate aging.

    ted.com/talks/aubrey_de_grey_says_we_can_avoid_aging

    his research is fascinating and he has theoretically proven that we could stop the aging process and that if research is put into this field, children alive today could live to 200+ years or more. He talks about humans having life spans similar to fantasy elves from lord of the rings and such, thousands of years. Well he doesn't mention the elves LOl, thats me, he just talks about 1000+ year lifespans.
  • CinorjerCinorjer Veteran
    edited March 2014
    These bodies die, yes, but all life is one self-replicating bundle of molecules being reborn and transformed over and over. As long as what we call life exists anywhere on earth in any form, then you can say that tiny bit of proto-dna from millions of years ago has achieved the only immortality this world allows.

    Whatever organism lives today will eventually fall apart to component elements because entropy rules and complicated, dynamic systems are always one accident or failure away from catastrophe. That's the nature of the universe. Self-repairing systems take a huge investment in energy and resources and we eventually reach a point of diminishing return. The self-repair of blood clotting and cell division fixes the wound, but then what fixes the self-repair when something goes wrong with the clotting? And of course repairs are seldom as strong as the original. And so on. The cold, hard fact of the universe is that everything must change, eventually. Not even the stars are immune from death.

    For a more philosophical answer, it's that in order for life to exist, we must have death. There are two sides to every coin.
  • karastikarasti Breathing Minnesota Moderator
    I was just thinking that, @Cinorjer. We could not have life, if things didn't die. Their decay provides the nutrients for life on the planet. If trees/plants didn't die, new ones couldn't grow and we'd all die as a result.
    I don't know if I'd want to live 1000 years on this planet, lol. Not to mention I wonder how it would work out for the stages of life. Would infanthood be longer? childhood? Middle adulthood? Who wants to spend twice or more as much time as a teenager? Or in old age? Even if the life span is extended significantly we'd still have to go through stages of life. Watching my grandma suffer through the effects of aging is hard enough, I wouldn't want her to have to go through them for 200 years. So I'm curious how all that would come into play.

    Interestingly, ABC I think (this is only in US I imagine) has a show coming up next week caleld Resurrection, where people who died many years before somehow come back. Looks like an interesting show, more thought provoking anyhow than Real Housewives, lol.
  • BonsaiDougBonsaiDoug Simply, on the path. Veteran
    edited March 2014
    I don't have any deep philosophical answers. But I am aware of the biological process called apoptosis = programmed cell death (PCD) that occurs in multicellular organisms; like people. Research is ongoing to try to control this process, but to date, cells are programed to die, and not much can be done to change, alter or stop this cell death. At some point in time, it just catches up with us all.
    lobsterCinorjer
  • NirvanaNirvana aka BUBBA   `     `   South Carolina, USA Veteran
    We were not born to die, but born to live. Is that not enough?

    A never-ending life trapped in a single personality? How very boring! What prison sentence could possibly be worse than that?

    Dying to self is what the spiritual life is all about. And guess what? All life is spiritual, whether we know it or not.
    lobsterCinorjerbookworm
  • genkakugenkaku Northampton, Mass. U.S.A. Veteran
    A little ditty from childhood:

    Oh, McGinty is dead
    And McCarthy don't know it.
    McCarthy is dead
    And McGinty don't know it.
    They're both together
    Upon the bed
    And neither one knows
    If the other is dead.
  • NirvanaNirvana aka BUBBA   `     `   South Carolina, USA Veteran
    genkaku said:

    A little ditty from childhood:

    Oh, McGinty is dead
    And McCarthy don't know it.
    McCarthy is dead
    And McGinty don't know it.
    They're both together
    Upon the bed
    And neither one knows
    If the other is dead.

    AH! This reminds me of the story of two or three of the Founding Fathers of the USA. Sorry I don't recall the third who died on the same date.

    Anyhow, Thomas Jefferson and John Adams both hated each other. They had issues in Paris and several in the United States. Sworn enemies, as they lay dying on July 4, 1826 (50 years to the day after the signing of the Declaration of Independence), Adams was heard to lament, "Ah, and Jefferson Still Lives!!"

    A lesson really in what Emerson called Compensation (See his Essay). We die to give up our petty resentments and wrong attachments in order to return to the primal ground. Or, we die to give back to the source from which we have always, actually, stolen so much. "Stolen," in that we call ours that which does not really belong to us in the first place.

    Death, where is thy sting? Thou art a blessed release... in the fullness of time.

    Albeit I'm with the Preacher when he prayeth, "O Lord, protect us from a sudden and unprepared death!"
  • BhikkhuJayasaraBhikkhuJayasara Bhikkhu Veteran
    edited March 2014
    Jefferson and Adams did not "hate" each other. They had a friendly rivalry and were close friends for most of their lives, although there was some political intrigue post revolution once the politics turned into parties(Federalist(adams) and Republicans(Jefferson)). In fact the last few years of their lives they exchanged 150+ letters.

    it is true that Adams thought Jefferson died first, where as Jefferson had died a few hours before. They were the last two members of the founding fathers alive. Its one of those things that sounds too good to be reality instead of a story lol, who knows.

    also back on topic. Nirvana I too find the idea of living forever quite distasteful and boring. Pretty much how I feel about an everlasting heaven lol.
    Nirvana
  • NirvanaNirvana aka BUBBA   `     `   South Carolina, USA Veteran
    Thanks for that, Jayantha. Just the way I've always heard it —what I wrote above.

    But the story is true of lots of people so I'm not retracting my argument. But it is nice to be enlightened on the actual facts, and I thank you for that.
  • howhow Veteran Veteran
    Perhaps I've just drunk too much Buddhist Kool aide but....
    If we are just the means of karmic resolution, then an expiry date (deadline) is just an understandable inducement towards the reason why we exist at all.
    Nirvana
  • vinlynvinlyn Colorado...for now Veteran
    Jayantha said:

    ...

    it is true that Adams thought Jefferson died first, where as Jefferson had died a few hours before. They were the last two members of the founding fathers alive. Its one of those things that sounds too good to be reality instead of a story lol, who knows.

    Actually, as Adams lay dying, he expressed that Jefferson still survived.
  • BhikkhuJayasaraBhikkhuJayasara Bhikkhu Veteran
    vinlyn said:

    Jayantha said:

    ...

    it is true that Adams thought Jefferson died first, where as Jefferson had died a few hours before. They were the last two members of the founding fathers alive. Its one of those things that sounds too good to be reality instead of a story lol, who knows.

    Actually, as Adams lay dying, he expressed that Jefferson still survived.
    I just noticed that i reversed that! Thanks for clarifying my mistake.
    vinlyn
  • yagryagr Veteran
    I've heard death described as a change that is slightly more radical than puberty. I like that description as it seems to describe death as part of a continuum, which is in keeping with my experiences. It's probably noteworthy that we don't seek to delay or prevent puberty.
    anatamanNirvana
  • anatamananataman Who needs a title? Where am I? Veteran

    hi all,

    you all can consider me a complete idiot to ask the above question. but why is death inevitable? or is it possible that we do not die? let us consider a scenario where a human being gets born in a good family, gets good food through out his life, good living conditions, lets assume he is a nice guy (so nobody tries to kill him) and he does not face any accident leading to any problem in his body - so will this human being still die? if yes, then why? it is understandable that as a person grows old, his organs will start to get old - but why will the organs die, cant they be healed again to restore their original condition - to avoid death.

    where is science (if anyone has some latest information) on this topic of avoiding death or some way of making a dead person alive - seems like it is a very stupid question to ask, but i am not able to figure this thing out that is death really sure to come - or some way death can be avoided - and if a person dies, then after that any way that a dead person can be made alive again? please suggest. thanks in advance.

    Death cannot be avoided - every conditioned thing has a beginning a middle and an end. We inhabit a self that arises conditionally - you dwell in the middle bit, and an end approaches.

    Contemplating death formerly gives deep insight into impermanence and conditional arising. This is basic buddhism. This tends to be ignored.
    pegembara
  • The main question is, what are you going to do about it?
    anataman
  • ChazChaz The Remarkable Chaz Anywhere, Everywhere & Nowhere Veteran
    fivebells said:

    The main question is, what are you going to do about it?

    Actually the OP asked "why do we die?", and that,i think is a legit question. The Buddha asked similarly. He saw that there was an ongoing cycle of birth, old age sickness and death. It happens to all of us. He came to see that the cycle he saw was due to birth. If you aren't born you won't get old, sick and die and the cycle would end.

    But the reason we die is because we are born.

    What do you do about it? End birth.
    Nirvana
  • anatamananataman Who needs a title? Where am I? Veteran
    edited March 2014
    Lets just end everything! But we can't can we @Chaz, because you and I share something that binds us together, in a knot that you have to untie :)

    Mettha
  • zenffzenff Veteran
    Death is functional. Instead of being static, our genes evolve in time and adapt to circumstances. This can only work if we clear the way after reproducing.
    Individual death is part of survival of the species.
    In other words: death is life.

    BhikkhuJayasaralobster
  • anatamananataman Who needs a title? Where am I? Veteran
    No I have to disagree - death is not life - and death is not functional; it is about all functions ceasing; it is a REAL ENDING, Death is the end in itself.; it has everything in it that arises because of something else (i.e. your mum and dads lust - trace that back!)

    So to put it in another context - your self has an expiry date... you are going to die; the universe will end - really it will, so what are you going to do about it.

    But let's not pull the rug from your feet just because you are not ready for it.

    Let me express it in another way: 'YOU WILL DIE. Maybe not today, Maybe not tomorrow, but YOU will DIE!'

    That means YOU will no longer exist - no matter how you perceive it (I'll freeze myself and then some clever person will learn how to save my brain forever (and the associative ME) Please - that's just another delusion.

    The reality is, the reality.

    The Sun has a shelf life too! As does the galaxy and, the universe has an ending as well. You won't see it in your current incarnation

    The END
    yagrDharmaMcBumlobsterjayne
  • yagryagr Veteran
    edited March 2014
    anataman said:


    Let me express it in another way: 'YOU WILL DIE. Maybe not today, Maybe not tomorrow, but YOU will DIE!'

    You say it like it's a bad thing. ;)

    Been there, done that;
    Some other 'you' got the rebirth.

  • anatamananataman Who needs a title? Where am I? Veteran
    It's not bad and death should be better understood and talked about; society may become better for it - the point is it has to be a realisation, but most people skirt around or deny the subject matter.

    We don't remember birth; likely we will not remember death. What is the present about then? Is it pure delusion? Is it good or bad; or is it just a perception of the void between something that is and what is not.

    Metta
    yagr
  • genkakugenkaku Northampton, Mass. U.S.A. Veteran
    The Brit Christmas Humphreys once observed approximately, "The opposite of death is not life. The opposite of death is birth. The opposite of life is form."

    Gautama is alleged in The Dhammapada to have said, "All fear dying./All fear death." But one of the instructive things about meditation practice is it underscores the reality: Fearing death means fearing life and living in fear is a pretty unhappy situation.
    yagranatamanlobster
  • yagryagr Veteran
    genkaku said:


    Gautama is alleged in The Dhammapada to have said, "All fear dying./All fear death."

    I have come to believe, that for myself, all fear is fear of death.

    Zerolobster
  • zenffzenff Veteran
    anataman said:

    No I have to disagree - death is not life - and death is not functional; it is about all functions ceasing; it is a REAL ENDING, Death is the end in itself.;....

    Life moves on.
    A good corpse is full of life. The only thing missing is this particular perception of me.
    But what is that?
    Epicure said it perfectly. “Death is the least of my problems, because as long as I am here death is not and when death is here I am not.”
  • seeker242seeker242 Zen Florida, USA Veteran
    Human beings die because the ecology of the planet requires that we die. Imagine if human beings just stopped dying. New ones would still be born and you would have an astronomical population explosion. All the food would disappear, all the fresh water would disappear. You think the smog in China is bad now? Ha! Wait until there are 50 billion people on the planet rather than 7. The whole world would be like that. All the natural areas would be destroyed. All the forests would be cut down. All the animals would be hunted out to extinction. Humans would have to descend into cannibalism just to have food or starve. Human beings not dying would literally cause a worldwide apocalypse!

    Unless of course, you are counting on scientists figuring out a way for humans to live without eating, without drinking and without breathing. However, that sounds like a science fiction fantasy movie, not reality. Forget about the fantasy. Come back to reality. Trying to avoid reality is a guaranteed way to bring pain to yourself.
  • NirvanaNirvana aka BUBBA   `     `   South Carolina, USA Veteran
    edited March 2014
    anataman said:

    Let me express it in another way: 'YOU WILL DIE. Maybe not today, Maybe not tomorrow, but YOU will DIE!'

    "No I have to disagree," as anataman said above. You are fooled if you think you are YOU. Your body will die, but that's something that merely belongs to "you." But there is no "you" in you that is really any different than the "I" in me. If we really do cling (and of course we really do) to separate identities, we are really, absolutely stealing something from the universe that really does not belong to us.

    So what are all us "I's" but thieves? Death is not the robber, death is the liberator.

    But what is Life if all we do is to save our own lives? Is it not a living death?
    anatamanRodrigopegembara
  • Because old age and sickness is suffering. Luckily death comes along and ends the old age and sickness, or else it would be one pretty nasty living hell, litterally.
  • anatamananataman Who needs a title? Where am I? Veteran
    Perhaps I might have named the op as 'what is the impact of your death on others?
  • yagryagr Veteran
    wangchuey said:

    Because old age and sickness is suffering.

    How is this different from life at any age?
    wangchuey said:

    Luckily death comes along and ends the old age and sickness, or else it would be one pretty nasty living hell, litterally.

    I believe that young or old, healthy or sick, we have a choice whether we see life as a living hell or an opportunity.

  • howhow Veteran Veteran
    Everything born has an expiry date.

    Ones denial of that defines Ego.
  • how said:

    Perhaps I've just drunk too much Buddhist Kool aide but....
    If we are just the means of karmic resolution, then an expiry date (deadline) is just an understandable inducement towards the reason why we exist at all.

    @how can you go a bit deeper in this answer? I'm not sure what you are trying to say. (My fault,not yours!). I appreciate your wisdom on things like this.
  • howhow Veteran Veteran
    .

    how said:

    Perhaps I've just drunk too much Buddhist Kool aide but....
    If we are just the means of karmic resolution, then an expiry date (deadline) is just an understandable inducement towards the reason why we exist at all.

    @how can you go a bit deeper in this answer? I'm not sure what you are trying to say. (My fault,not yours!). I appreciate your wisdom on things like this.
    @mfranzdorf
    If each of us are just the coalesced inertia of unresolved karma, and the purpose of our existence is to bring resolution to such an inheritance, then birth/old age/disease & death are simply what induces us to work towards that purpose.

    The failing of heaven (relative deathlessness in the Buddhist realms) is that it's members lack the motivation to resolve their karmic and so will eventually become subject to it again, whereas the human realm with birth, old age, disease & death offer the possibility of finding true deathlessness through following the Buddha's practice.

    Just a long winded way of saying that from the spiritual perspective, death itself is one of life's greatest offerings.
    Nirvana
  • I have come to believe, that for myself, all fear is fear of death.
    How wonderful. How terrible.
    How intense. I am almost fearful to go on . . .

    A lot of truth in that. It is why we cling to reanimation of dust, (the heaven for thy permanently meditating corpse). Rebath/rebirth for the karmically unwashed and humour in the face of adversity . . .

    yagr
  • genkakugenkaku Northampton, Mass. U.S.A. Veteran
    I have come to believe, that for myself, all fear is fear of death.
    @yagr -- Maybe you'd agree ... what is feared is frequently if not always mixed with what is longed for.
    lobsteryagr
  • NirvanaNirvana aka BUBBA   `     `   South Carolina, USA Veteran
    Q: Why do we die?
    A: In order to receive a new lease on life and perhaps have an opportunity to get a different personality? (The present one being too quirky...)
  • pegembarapegembara Veteran
    edited March 2014
    Everything that is born has to die. The old has to make way for the new. Imagine being born as a helpless baby and remaining like that for eternity!

    All conditioned things(sankhara) has to die in order for a new one to take its place. Sights, sounds, tastes, touch, feelings, thoughts etc. has to undergo death. Otherwise there will be no new phenomena to experience.

    Conditioned things are dependent on conditions which are also dependent on other conditions. All of which are impermanent since conditions are always changing - sun rises, rain comes, flowers bloom etc.

    Sabbe sankhara anicca

    Sabbe sankhara dukkha
    
Sabbe sankhara anatta

    All conditioned things are impermanent,
    All conditioned things are suffering,
    
All conditioned things are without a self.
    Jeffrey
  • ZaylZayl Veteran
    My thinking on it is, even if your body could go on and on and on, I think the human mind, at most, might only have a few centuries in it. Eventually what we are begins to break down. You can see this in many people.

    Would I like to live longer than 100 years? yes. Would I like to live for more than a 1,000 years? possibly. Would I want to be immortal? I don't think so.
  • yagryagr Veteran
    genkaku said:


    @yagr -- Maybe you'd agree ... what is feared is frequently if not always mixed with what is longed for.

    @genkaku -- Perhaps I agree. I can certainly see that on one level; but my perception of what you mean might not be what you mean. How many important understandings do I misinterpret by running the message through my filters/perceptions?

    In fearing death, I long for and cling to life.
    In fearing poverty, I long for riches.
    In fearing hunger... that one opens a can of worms, doesn't it?

    Did you mean something different? If you did, would you tell me that you did without explaining it for a bit, allowing me to contemplate it further?

  • anatamananataman Who needs a title? Where am I? Veteran
    So the lesson: perhaps this is a place to develop spiritually and the. Move on to a more developed but still conditioned existence.

    Wonderful thought!
  • anatamananataman Who needs a title? Where am I? Veteran

    In the words of Sir George Trevelyan's favourite poem:

    "Will you wake, for pity's sake'
    http://www.worldgathering.net/wwwmp3/geotrevelyanwake.
  • DairyLamaDairyLama Veteran Veteran

    ..if yes, then why? it is understandable that as a person grows old, his organs will start to get old - but why will the organs die, cant they be healed again to restore their original condition - to avoid death.

    I think I'm right in saying that ageing is part of the genetic code, in other words there is no reason biologically why organs couldn't just keep regenerating themselves - this happens with some of our tissues anyway.

    I'm guessing that ageing and death are a by-product of the evolutionary process.
    lobsteranataman
  • misecmisc1misecmisc1 I am a Hindu India Veteran
    edited March 2014
    just now i watched on TV on Discovery Science channel (which comes in India) , a programme called - Through the Wormhole with Morgan Freeman - today's episode heading was - can we resurrect the dead? - in today's program (it was a long program without any advertisement in it, so now whatever i am able to remember currently, i am typing it, so the below is based on what i remember was shown), the approaches which were showed in it for making a dead person alive included -
    1. a doctor saying the defective parts of heart and brain can be resubsituted with healthy parts, but i think it said that it takes nearly 1 hour for the decay in brain to start, so if an operation can be done within that time, then a person can be made ok, though during that time the person will have no heart-beat and no brain activity, meaning during that time the person will be brain-dead, which is categorized as dead.
    2. a person who is working on cloning said - if a live cell of a dead person can be taken out of the dead body and then injected in the woman's egg artifically, then a clone can be obtained - but the person though looking similar, will behave differently as per the bringing in which he is grown up, like 2 twins who look similar but have their own behaviours and likes and dislikes.
    3. as far as body is concerned, a lady doctor was saying that part-by-part the parts of human body can be developed separately and then it can be reassembled - though the most difficult part shall be to connect the brain to the spinal cord and the remaining part of the body.
    4. a person, who i think was a neuro-scientist said if the brain is taken out of the dead body and sliced into micro-slices and then ionized further to get the data encoded on the neurons, then it can be possible to digitize the human brain.
    5. a person was saying that research is going by collecting the data which a human being perceives and then recording it in form of images through camera to store the information a person receives while he is alive - something like taking a backup of data of a live person in a hard drive - then later using artificial intelligence, the likes and dislikes of the person can be analyzed based on the memory which is in the images.
    6. a scientist in japan said that the way robots are being made using synthetic material and artificial intelligence, similarly a human body can be created and the digitized brain can be implanted in it and via artificial intelligence, the brain can connect to the different parts of the body to make them work.

    But in the above approaches(3 to 6), i think there is a flaw - which as per me is - even though the above people will be able to create a human body, but how will they ever be able to put consciousness inside the human body to make it alive? what is consciousness - this itself cannot be found in the external world by looking outside, as all the religions point us to go inside us to know the truth and not to search anything outside - so if consciousness can only be found inside us and not outside us, then how can we touch consciousness (when we even cannot see it outside us) , then how can consciousness be transplanted inside a material body to make it alive? i think the best science can reach is to create a robot, which looks exactly like a human body on the outside, make it work through artificial intellingence, but that robot will still depend on a battery to make it active and when the battery dies, the robot will die - so still the problem of death will still remain unavoidable.
    Cinorjer
  • From one of my first novels published, The Weaving. This issue was explored a bit because one of the characters claims to be immortal. The reader is left to decide if Keyotie is lying or not.

    Keyotie sat down on the steps and sighed. "Old ghosts? Girl, you've got no idea. I've stood in the midst of sand-covered ruins and remembered when it was lush farmland, and then realized I stood in the same spot when the land was locked in an age of ice. I've buried so many..." He trailed off, lost in an avalanche of memories.

    Rose looked at this little man, with his dark skin, long braided hair and fringed leather outfit, and knew that whatever he looked like, he wasn't human. She tried to imagine what it must be like, to see entire civilizations come and go, and shuddered.

    Lonely. Unbearably lonely. This man had to have been driven insane long ago.
  • hi all,

    you all can consider me a complete idiot to ask the above question. but why is death inevitable? or is it possible that we do not die? let us consider a scenario where a human being gets born in a good family, gets good food through out his life, good living conditions, lets assume he is a nice guy (so nobody tries to kill him) and he does not face any accident leading to any problem in his body - so will this human being still die? if yes, then why? it is understandable that as a person grows old, his organs will start to get old - but why will the organs die, cant they be healed again to restore their original condition - to avoid death.

    where is science (if anyone has some latest information) on this topic of avoiding death or some way of making a dead person alive - seems like it is a very stupid question to ask, but i am not able to figure this thing out that is death really sure to come - or some way death can be avoided - and if a person dies, then after that any way that a dead person can be made alive again? please suggest. thanks in advance.

    I read about Frankenstein. Did you?
  • how said:

    .

    how said:

    Perhaps I've just drunk too much Buddhist Kool aide but....
    If we are just the means of karmic resolution, then an expiry date (deadline) is just an understandable inducement towards the reason why we exist at all.

    @how can you go a bit deeper in this answer? I'm not sure what you are trying to say. (My fault,not yours!). I appreciate your wisdom on things like this.
    @mfranzdorf
    If each of us are just the coalesced inertia of unresolved karma, and the purpose of our existence is to bring resolution to such an inheritance, then birth/old age/disease & death are simply what induces us to work towards that purpose.

    The failing of heaven (relative deathlessness in the Buddhist realms) is that it's members lack the motivation to resolve their karmic and so will eventually become subject to it again, whereas the human realm with birth, old age, disease & death offer the possibility of finding true deathlessness through following the Buddha's practice.

    Just a long winded way of saying that from the spiritual perspective, death itself is one of life's greatest offerings.
    Thanks!
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