Death is the end of our physical existance.

Where our body is broken down and continues the circle in life...typically this occurs within a coffin.

Whether there is another conciousness waiting on the other side... well why would this apply to humans alone and not other animals and insects? Why don't dogs go to doggie heaven if we get one? [img]tongue.gif[/img] :D

I never quite understood what people meant when they said that... what does it mean? </font>[/QUOTE](To expand on Dirty Meg's post): Descartes was the first major figure to try applying mathematical reasoning to the less concrete sciences. In proving the existence of everything around us, a difficult task, he takes the obvious logical approach:

Proof by Contradiction!

So, assume that nothing exists; prove it. One here runs into a bit of a logical fallacy -- and a gap in math's definition of proof. See, they'd never realized that something has to do the proving...

... very well, so if I, Aleph-null, the first of the infinite cardinalities, am to prove the nonexistence of the universe, then I must exist!

(He then tried to prove the existence of, among other things, God, but his logic had basically broken down after this first, excellent point.)

these are difficult questions to answer without religion.

life: is eternal, we've always had it from the beginning of time and will always have it. no man, no god, no thing, can remove us from eternity.

death: is non existent. it's kinda like moving and not leaving a fwding address. but we're still alive.

animal (aka non intelligent) life: see "life" answer above.

animal (aka non intelligent) death: see "death" answer above.

*note* calling animals non intelligent is not how i feel, but on such a diverse board i thought it a good idea to help others identify whcih creatures i am speaking about, as many believe animals as unintelligent.

death is nothing, absence of everything, like a blind person that has never been able to see, they don't have "black" where their vision should be, they have nothing, like when there is lack of sound, there is silence, but much more absoloute.
And i guess with death, because there is no thought, you would have no way of knowing you were dead, or ever alive for that matter, or anything, complete, utter nothingness.
To me, even thinking about that feels "suffocated".

Or we might go to some happy afterlife, where we are rewarded for all the good deeds of out life, live through our happy memories, and enjoy that time with our loved ones.

It's obvious which is more appealing, but which is right??? well, we don't know because we haven't seen it, we can only assume, and personally i would assume that cat in the box to have died because it obviously would have, but.... there is allways the possibility of anything, and i think it will allways be an unknown.
But believe what you want, just don't base everything on there being something after all this, and wasting the life you've got now.

life.... sometimes i wonder about that, the question that confuses me the most is "how did my mind/my thoughts get into this body".
That thought is sometimes faith inspiring, of confusing, or mayby it can be answered by science as being a series of random events leading to my creation, and that is also random, maybe it's whatever you believe it to be (as lame as that sounds).

Death is the triumph of entropy, the breakdown of our ability to reproduce on the cellular level. It marks the point where cells can no longer divide, and instead of dividing, they age, and eventually break.

Whether the "life force" is technically an aspect of this or not is principally a religious debate.

Ilander, funnily enough you've pasted your head over the quintesson "face of death"!

Who woulda thunk it! :D

Death is the death of our physical bodies, more than that I don't know.

Life is a dog, a bitch to be exact. At least that's what i keep hearing. :D

I think the essential thing to consider when discussing mankind's existence and advancement is the nature of Mankind itself. To do this, we begin with a look to the meaning of these two words that make up the word "Mankind." Mankind breaks down into two basic ideas imbedded in these words: "Mank" and "Ind." The problem is that no one knows what these words mean. And, thus the nature of Mankind will forever remain a mystery.

(Credits to Jack Handy)