Death

Death is the permanent cessation of all biological functions that sustain a living organism. Phenomena which commonly bring about death include biological aging (senescence), predation, malnutrition, disease, suicide, murder and accidents or trauma resulting in terminal injury. Bodies of living organisms begin to decompose shortly after death.

In human societies, the nature of death has for millennia been a concern of the world's religious traditions and of philosophical inquiry. This may include a belief in some kind of resurrection (associated with Abrahamic religions), reincarnation (associated with Dharmic religions), or that consciousness permanently ceases to exist, known as oblivion (associated with atheism).

The response after death includes various feelings of grief or emotional suffering one feels when something or someone the individual loves is taken away. Commemoration ceremonies after death may include various mourning or funereal practices. The physical remains of a person, commonly known as a corpse or body, are usually interred whole or cremated, though among the world's cultures there are a variety of other methods of mortuary disposal. In the English language, blessings directed towards a deceased person include rest in peace, or its initials RIP.

The most common cause of human deaths in the world is heart disease, followed by stroke and other cerebrovascular diseases, and on the third place lower respiratory infections.

Read more about Death:  Etymology, Associated Terms, Senescence, Signs of Death, Causes, Life Extension, Location, Society and Culture, Death and Consciousness, In Biology

Famous quotes containing the word death:

    Since the death instinct exists in the heart of everything that lives, since we suffer from trying to repress it, since everything that lives longs for rest, let us unfasten the ties that bind us to life, let us cultivate our death wish, let us develop it, water it like a plant, let it grow unhindered. Suffering and fear are born from the repression of the death wish.
    Eugène Ionesco (b. 1912)

    Will you see the players well bestowed? Do you hear, let them
    be well used, for they are the abstracts and brief chronicles of the time. After your death you were better have a bad epitaph than their ill report while you live.
    William Shakespeare (1564–1616)

    The child who enters life comes not with knowledge or intent,
    So those who enter death must go as little children sent.
    Nothing is known. But I believe that God is overhead;
    And as life is to the living, so death is to the dead.
    Mary Mapes Dodge (1831–1905)