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20 jun 06 "When do we start "dying"? Is is it from the moment of conception, the moment of birth, or soon after puberty when we stop growing and start the slow deterioration process?" unfortunately, you elaborated on your question quite effectively (even though you're presenting one that's multiple-choice -- perhaps a fallacious false dilemma); i would have hoped you'd ask simply "when do we start dying?", so i could quibble with myself over definitions and variables for a few paragraphs. but now, we have to cut right to the chase. i see you put "dying" in quotes -- good. "scare quotes," i suppose, which serve to tell the reader "this may not mean what you think it means, but you have to figure it out for yourself because i'm too lazy to ellaborate." i do it all the time. scare quotes also allow the reader (in this case, me) to define the term however he likes, and consequently answer however he likes. if dying means what a normal, un-pretentious, not over-educated person thinks it means {ie, the body's progression towards death), then i apologize for not knowing enough about what the body is doing and when it does it during "death" to give you a more conclusive answer. one of my first instincts is to agree with the last of your stated possibilities: "soon after puberty." but, i'm not sure about that. i think the opinion that "we start dying the moment we stop growing" is a little bit far-fetched, and too concerned with avoiding conceptual boundary-drawing; these need to be drawn in the best places we can, because without them, nothing ever gets done, said, or analyzed -- an "answer" is impossible. intuitively, if one weren't bent towards debilitatingly close examination of definitions and general useless philosophy, one might say "we start dying when a life-sustaining organ or organ system begin to fail." see, this question was somewhat relativistic and fruity, so my response is going to be very pragmatic and simple-minded, because i have oppositional-defiant disorder (ODD). also, because were i to pick one of the asker's options, then this would be one damned short answer/essay. it's useful to look to "common law" definitions, rather than strict logical or scientific ones. basically, imagine a jury of seven sane people, sane everyday people, and imagine what their consensus would be. this is the essence of legal debate, of course, because that's whom you're trying to persuade. it's an effective system, because it eliminates the sort of logic-trickery that anyone with shifty eyes can pull -- it's possible to argue anything -- no argument is irefutable, i believe as a consquence of language and it's imprecise nature. one can just keep talking, no matter what one's argument is; i'm intimately familiar with this phenomenon. my feeling is that a reasonable jury would deduce that a person begins dying when they begin dying -- when their body starts to fade due to organ or system failure. of course it's obvious they're going to die at some point, but the process of death hasn't yet begun. perhaps we need the help of a dictionary. after checking it out, i find that a problem lies in dictionary.com's second definition:
die: To cease existing, especially by degrees; fade specifically, the problem lies in "by degrees." where and how are you demarcating these degrees? if we go with a celular level, we're forced to define death as "the point at which cellular death outstrips the formation of new cells." i'm not sure this ever happens, and even if it did, it doesn't constitute a whole body's (a person's, someone's) dying. finally, and i believe most essentially, comes the question "what causes a body to die?" system or organ failure, unless a body is instantly crushed in a trash compactor. it's my contention that we begin to die when organs or systems start to fail. take it or leave it. i understand the logic behind your different scenarios, though, even if i think they're a little bit silly. but i don't think "deterioration" can be equated with "dying" -- it just means the thing in question doesn't function quite as spiffily as it used to, or maybe doesn't look as non-wrinkly (skin becoming less elastic due to breakdown of connective tissue), but it doesn't, in my opinion, have much bearing on death or dying. even if one's heart is "deteriorating," this isn't the same as one's heart "failing." just my opinion, folks. i like these philosophical questions -- they're hard to get wrong (notice that i didn't enclose the word "wrong" in quotes). |
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