Spyke
Are you technically dead if you hold in your breath?
crazy_kat_lady avatar
@crazy_kat_lady

I mean no.

But to decide what does mean you're technically dead depends on who you ask.

Some would say it's your heart stopping. Others would say it's lack of brain activity. Still others would say that neither can be definitive, and there's some other indicator you'd have to look for.

and then there's the theory that you never truly die. Your soul just transfers to a new body (which would be reincarnation).

Personally, I'd go with brain activity. If there's no brain activity, there's no consciousness. there's no you. If you come back from that, then you came back from being dead. It happens, but not often.

4
karanftw avatar
@karanftwreply

Not sure about souls, but the same atoms that form our body eventually at some point will for another body . So in a certain sense we have never “died”. Basically it would boil down to if you replace all parts of the ship while it’s sailing does that mean it’s the same ship?

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pyrochazm avatar
@pyrochazm

Nah, youre conscious and your heart is still beating.

5
uzumakibarage avatar
@uzumakibaragereply

What about sleep? Consciousness certainly wouldn’t define alive now would it?

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crazy_kat_lady avatar
@crazy_kat_ladyreply

it's not that being unconscious means being dead, but that you can't be dead while you're still conscious.

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steve avatar
@stevereply

Key part here is the heart is still beating. Kinda hard to sleep with a still heart…

3
akorn avatar
@akornreply

Theoretically a brain could countinue running without any issue in an external environment if given a blood supply. I've even seen these old Soviet dog experiments try to do that. So no, heart is definitely not the best way to determine if a person (who is really just a brain at the end of the day) is dead.

1
salimshady avatar
@salimshady

Where do you draw the line? Isn't sleeping also in a way "death"

1
d00phy avatar
@d00phyreply

I would say no since your brain, and heart for that matter, are still functioning. Someone earlier suggested sleeping == unconsciousness. I’m not a doc, but I don’t think that’s true.

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salimshady avatar
@salimshadyreply

Someone else also mentioned that a brain could essentially work no problem if given a blood supply. So heart beating is certainly not a necessity. Brain death is truly the only real form of death if you ask me

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viridiannott avatar
@viridiannott

I am a biologist - no.

“Breathing” is a quick vital sign that can can be used on someone who is incapacitated. It can help guide what medical intervention is needed.

But physically breathing using your diaphragm muscles is not a requirement for something to be alive… your body is still using oxygen while you hold your breath, after all. Lots of animals don’t need to physically breathe at all, and there are tons of organisms other than animals that don’t even need oxygen to live.

6
koooooooyel avatar
@koooooooyelreply

In that case. Do you consider a single cell to be "alive". Or is it just a bunch of molecules moving about in a very precise way without any sort of self awareness whatsoever.

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viridiannott avatar
@viridiannottreply

The definition of life is a little argued about, but all biologists do consider a single cell to be an example of “life”. Self-awareness and higher intelligence are not requirements.

The main rules that everyone agrees about are that a living thing

  1. Must be able to replicate using its own cellular machinery

  2. Must have a mechanism to uptake/consume energy from its environment

  3. Must react to changes in its environment in a strategic manner (so as to not die)

Single cells fit all of those criteria.

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viridiannott avatar
@viridiannottreply

I should clarify that living things must uptake Energy AND resources, such as nitrogen

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crazy_kat_lady avatar
@crazy_kat_ladyreply

Well, defining what constitutes life and what makes a human "dead" are two very different conversations.

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d00phy avatar
@d00phyreply

That’s what I was thinking. We are made up of cells, but if I remember high school bio class, our brain kind of keeps all of that stuff running. If it stops working, all those other systems, including the cells that make them up, eventually start shutting down/dying. Could be completely wrong though.

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entasaurus avatar
@entasaurus

No, holding your breath doesn’t count as death- death is the cessation of brain activity, cardiac arrest, and respiratory arrest

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