I’m sure all of you would have least experienced losing a relative, family member or a best friend and I’m truly sorry for your loss if it happened to you today. You and/or your family and friends will write a tribute post on their timeline and present a sobbing tribute speech and end it with the phrase Rest In Peace or RIP. You see this expression engraved in headstones in cemeteries too. But what does it mean to say this phrase? It comes from the Latin Requiescat in pace, meaning a short epitaph or idiomatic expression wishing eternal rest and peace to your truly beloved one. It was found inscribed in Hebrew on gravestones dating from the 1st century BC, in the graveyard of Bet Shearim. It speaks of the righteous person who passed away because they could not stand the evil surrounding them. These words were then transferred to the ancient Talmudic prayers, in a mixture of Hebrew and Aramaic of the 3rd century AD. However this phrase did not appear on tombstones before the 8th century AD. It finally became ubiquitous on the tombs of Christians in the 18th century, and for High Church Anglicans and Roman Catholics. Nowadays this phrase is conventionally used, that its absent reference to the soul led people to infer that the physical body is enjoined to lie peacefully in its grave.
Death is when all biological functions that sustain a living organism cease. They are often brought about by natural causes like ageing (senescence), cancer, disease, malnutrition, suicide, homicide, starvation, dehydration, hypothermia, accidents, trauma and predation. I know that the death of someone we love dearly or cherish on our televisions and movie screens is truly heartbreaking. We never get to hear their voice again. We never again get to observe the personality and attitude exhibited through their facial expression and body language hidden within the depths of their brains. Then our feelings take over our thought processes. We fear of sharing the same fate with them. We may feel necrophobic, anxious, sympathetic, grieved, pain in our chests, depressed or compassionate. Then we post emotional tributes with compilations of photos of them reminiscing the nostalgic memories you have spent with this person. We get into this state of mind we can not say anything but positive compliments and adjectives describing their their personality, attitude and memorable moments that made them unique and special to them.
The word death comes from the Old English deaõ, which comes from the Proto-Germanic dauthuz. This then comes from the Proto-Indo-European stem dheu- meaning “The process, act of, or condition of dying.” This is where I start to sound scientifically cryptic. The clear indications of a senesced organism are:
(a) Respiratory arrest = Your lungs fail to function and you stop breathing.
(b) Cardiac Arrest = Your heart fails to contract and blood flow to your organs, muscles and skin ceases.
(c) Pallor Mortis = Paleness or whitening of your skin in the first 15 - 120 mins after confirmed death. This is caused by cessation of capillary circulation throughout your body.
(d) Livor Mortis = Gravity settles blood in the lower portion of your dead bodies
(e) Algor Mortis = Reduced Body Temperature
If you watch CSI, you will always hear autopsy reports include the estimated time of death using rate of decline of body temperature. The Glaister Equation below illustrates this by estimating the number of hours elapsed since senescence:
(f) Rigor Mortis = After around 4 hours post mortem, your limbs stiffen making them virtually immobile or unable to be manipulated
(g) Decomposition = Reduction of your corpse’s dead cells into simpler forms of matter, mainly with the help of maggots and bacteria, accompanied by a strong unpleasant, rotten egg, odour.
Stages: Fresh > Bloat > Active Decay > Advanced Decay > Dry remains
(1) Fresh Stage
Once your heart stops contracting and blood can no longer supplied to your muscles and skin bringing oxygen and removing carbon dioxide from your tissues, your cells would still be alive and well for a little longer as the remaining volume of blood in your blood is utilised as per usual via cellular metabolism and aerobic microbes. Nevertheless, your physiological pH will decrease due to increasing concentrations of Carbon Dioxide and your cells will begin to lose its structural integrity, allowing the release of cellular enzymes from your lysosomes and mitochondria which are capable of breaking down surrounding cells and tissues. This process is also known as autolysis. Then your body begins to produce energy via anaerobic metabolism by catabolising your carbohydrates, lipids, proteins which produces a whole range of harmful substances like Propionic Acid, Lactic Acid, Methane, Hydrogen Sulfide and Ammonia. This process of microbial proliferation is known as putrefaction. The first insects, blowflies and flesh flies arrive at your dead body seeking a suitable oviposition site.
(2) Bloat Stage
The accumulation of gases like Hydrogen Sulfide, Carbon Dioxide, Methane and Nitrogen within your body cavity causes distention of your abdomen which gives cadavers its overall bloated appearance. As partial pressures of gases increases, fluids have no choice but to be forced out through its natural orifices such as the nose, mouth and anus. This buildup of pressure combined with the loss of integrity of your skin may cause your body to rupture. Anaerobic bacteria deep within your intestines will transform Haemoglobin into Sulfhemoglobin and other coloured pigments: Hydrogen Sulfide + Haemoglobin —> Sulhemoglobin
By then, maggots will hatch and begin to feed on your tissues confining themselves to natural orifices like your nostrils, anus and mouth. They then dig under your skin causing it to slip, and its hairs will be detached from its follicles. As your skin ruptures in random locations, oxygen will re-enter the body providing more surface area for fly larvae to develop and aerobic micro-organisms to roam around.
(3) Active Decay Stage
This is when most of what you have left is reduced to ashes. As maggots and decomposition fluids consume everything that is part of you, all your memories, ideas, dreams and, human structure and function will be destroyed, decommissioned and ultimately destroyed. It’s unfortunate your brain cannot act as a computer hard drive so a close friend or family member can download and store all the data that codes your personality, attitude, memories, skills, talents, knowledge and ideas generator. By this stage what is remainder will begin to smell.
(4) Advanced Decay Stage
When there is sadly close to nothing of what is left of you, all maggots and insects hatched will retreat and move on to their next meal. Your site of decay, known as a Cadaver Decomposition Island (CDI), will increase the soil’s carbon and nutrients such as Phosphorus, Potassium, Calcium, Nitrogen and Magnesium.
(5) Dry/remains, Skeletonisation Stage
All that remains are nothing but bones, cartilage and dry skin which eventually will be bleached when exposed to mother nature. Plants and nature’s growth will begin to surround your remains and over time will bring you down to the depths of its root system.
All the elements and complex chemicals making up the integrity of your cells and skin which has made you you are nothing but broken up, lost and buried deep underground. Your remains are now embedded in the Earth’s crust, along with the millions of skeletons buried around you. You are now classified as a fossil fuel but when will society dig you out and use what you have left as fuels for their private transport? For the next several millennia, your remains will be shifted under the Earth’s mantle due to heat convection from the hot magma core below. Depending on whether your remains are underground on a tectonic plate, near a fault line or a tectonic border, or beneath the seabed, your remains may one day be consumed or broken down into smaller fragments by shifts in tectonic plates which causes earthquake tremors or geysers through the surface and erupting volcanoes erecting from the surface. But only time will tell. What I’ve laid out to you is the detailed processes of natural death. It would be gruesome, disgusting and uncomfortable for me to describe the processes that spontaneously occur when your body experiences excessive g-force, household accidents, a ramming object, poisoning, a bullet to vital organs or limb muscles, excessive laughter, deep penetration from a sharp object or strangulation. I’ll leave that to the homicide detectives, archeologists and investigators.
It’s apparent that a permanent sleep, loss of neural stimulation and loss of consciousness are the final nails in your coffin before laid to rest in a grave ready for cremation. But what do people feel and see in their last moments of being alive? Has anyone came back from being dead and remembered what it feels to be senesced and actually lived to tell the tale? I read stories about people recounting their blurred experience of being dead. Some said they saw a bright light, some saw nothing but blackness with no thoughts nor dreams whatsoever whilst others cannot even recall passing away temporarily. Not only is this phenomena quite extraordinary and frightening because it reminds us of scenes from the Walking Dead, but also it is intriguing to believe that the brain can resurrect the body itself especially its vital organs like the heart after temporary death. There are fears dead people are resurrected as zombies who may possess a contrastingly cannibalistic personality whilst walking stutteringly with its arms outreached. However this is not the case, because after waking up from their dreamless sleep, they continue living the way they used to without any memory of being dead whatsoever. Many doctors and scientists around the world are too shocked and bewildered to explain how a person becomes resurrected seconds to days after they were presumed dead.
http://theweek.com/articles/474803/7-bizarre-tales-people-coming-back-from-dead
I once discussed with a good friend of mine named Lucy about the soul, reincarnation and resurrection in a story she shared with me. Although she is an atheist, i personally do not feel any attachment to any religion despite my parents supporting Buddhism. My first thoughts about our bodies having a soul and the possibility of reincarnation was nothing but science fiction and creative religious writing. Because she was optimistic that one’s soul may be transferred from one organism to another in the afterlife, I was curious enough to research this. Though I still had doubts over this religious, philosophical and mythological phenomena ever been proven scientifically. Honestly I have a fear of dying like some people. I’m afraid of the trauma and struggle to breathe prior to the end of my life. How long will my name last into the future before I am completely forgotten? Will there be another person born to be just as identical as me in terms of background, DNA, personality, attitude, life choices and intelligence? If miraculously, I was to be reincarnated in a different body, would I carry memories of my previous life with me or would my mind be reset and I have start a new life all over again? What are the chances I’ll be reborn in an animal, insect, or a human of the opposite gender? What is there to do if I’m dead besides seeing black? I’m starting to feel that this afterlife where heaven and hell exist according to religious beings may be wishful and creative fiction to ease our nerves and fears of our personality from dying out. There are so many unanswered questions about consciousness and understanding the philosophy behind it is still complicated and controversial. Nonetheless I’m willing to discuss consciousness, the soul (if it is proven to exist), reincarnation and resurrection hopefully in scientific detail in another post.
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