How do we define Death?

Death has always fascinated humanity; its finality and its mystery pervade all cultures and all age groups. The loss and the pain of death have a universal effect on humanity. But when it comes to defining death, we falter and fail. The basic problem is that we’ve never really been able to define what is "living". When we don’t know what is alive we really can’t define death.  

There are many scientific approaches to the concept. Brain death, as practiced in medical science, defines death as the point at which the entire brain, including the brain stem, has irreversibly lost all function." The legal time of death is "that time when a physician has determined that the brain and the brain stem have irreversibly lost all neurological function.".

Today, where a definition of the moment of death is required, doctors usually turn to "brain death" or "biological death" to define a person as being dead.

In these cases it is presumed that the end of electrical activity indicates the end of consciousness. However, suspension of consciousness must be permanent, and not transient, as occurs during certain sleep stages, and especially a coma. In the case of sleep, EEGs can easily tell the difference.

There is a group of neuroscientists who believe that only the frontal lobes of the brain are necessary for consciousness. They argue that only electrical activity in these areas should be considered while defining death.            

Eventually it is possible that the criterion for death will be the permanent and irreversible loss of cognitive function, as evidenced by the death of the cerebral cortex. All hope of recovering human thought and personality is then gone given current and foreseeable medical technology.

However, at present, in most places, the more conservative definition of death – irreversible cessation of electrical activity in the whole brain, as opposed to just in the frontal lobes – has been adopted.

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