# Death by . . . **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [September 23, 2007, 3:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/death-by/420165 "2007-09-23T03:34:06Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 17\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Siam\_Sam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d78d45/32.png) [@Siam\_Sam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siam_Sam)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2007, 4:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/death-by/420165/41 "2007-09-25T04:27:22Z")
[QUOTE=zev\_steinhardt] Isn’t a suicide just a specific form of homicide? It’s just a matter of who the victim is (in this case, the murderer him/her self). Zev Steinhardt [/QUOTE] I wouldn’t go along with that. Anyway, that’s what I read. ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2007, 1:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/death-by/420165/42 "2007-09-25T13:50:12Z")
[QUOTE=Loach] What about a pointed stick? [/QUOTE] Fortunately, you’ve got a banana and have been well-trained in its defensive use. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2007, 2:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/death-by/420165/43 "2007-09-25T14:46:44Z")
[QUOTE=maggenpye] I remember a quote ( but not where from) that; when you get right down to it, every death can be classed as ‘heart failure’. [/QUOTE] In Spain the official term for “we didn’t bother with the autopsy since it wasn’t required by law or by the family” is “cardiorespiratory arrest.” While someone who dies in an accident will get autopsied, it’s not uncommon for them to get a certificate that says “cardiorespiratory arrest caused by massive trauma (description of the specific trauma).” Poisoning, drowning and bleeding to death get something else. But in most cases… “cardiorespiratory arrest.” Suicide is a form of homicide, according to the Catholic Church and others (it’s definitely sinning against the “thou shalt not kill”) but most legal codes list it separately if they do. There’s other forms of homicide that get their own term… parricide, matricide, genocide among others. ---
**Author:** ![Wee\_Bairn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/90db22/32.png) [@Wee\_Bairn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wee_Bairn)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2007, 3:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/death-by/420165/44 "2007-09-25T15:01:27Z")
[QUOTE=x-ray vision] I remember that question. I thought the answer they gave was heart failure? [/QUOTE] You may be right, I could be remembering incorrectly. ---
**Author:** ![KneadToKnow](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kneadtoknow/32/3999_2.png) [@KneadToKnow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KneadToKnow)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2007, 3:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/death-by/420165/45 "2007-09-25T15:31:01Z")
[QUOTE=x-ray vision] I remember that question. I thought the answer they gave was heart failure? [/QUOTE] “Lack of blood to the brain” ---
**Author:** ![chorpler](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chorpler/32/2888_2.png) [@chorpler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chorpler)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2007, 4:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/death-by/420165/46 "2007-09-25T16:12:46Z")
[QUOTE=Chronos] Rather an arbitrary cutoff, there. Based on the absolutes given in the definition at that Wiki link, the only possible cause of information-theoretic death would be falling into a black hole, and maybe not even that. You can’t just destroy information. [/QUOTE] Well, sure, in theory, but I’ve always interpreted it as talking about information “death” in more of a practical sense: when you’d have to have a magical computer to track all the particles that made up the neurons and related structures and what has happened to them along the way, you can safely say “information theoretic death” has occurred. [This article](http://www.alcor.org/Library/html/CryonicsAndCryptography.html) on Alcor’s site has a section on information theoretic death that may explain it better than I am. ---
**Author:** ![Nars\_Glinley](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/nars_glinley/32/8177_2.png) [@Nars\_Glinley](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nars_Glinley)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2007, 5:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/death-by/420165/47 "2007-09-25T17:31:16Z")
[Discover magazine](http://discovermagazine.com/2006/sep/20thingsdeath) says that lack of oxygen is always the cause of death. ---
**Author:** ![gigi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a587f6/32.png) [@gigi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gigi)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2007, 5:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/death-by/420165/48 "2007-09-25T17:35:13Z")
It sounds like you’re talking relatively quick methods? Following up on **Little Nemo** ’s post, we don’t need to list every fatal drawn-out illness that “would, without intervention, be fatal”? ---
**Author:** ![Baffle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/dec6dc/32.png) [@Baffle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baffle)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2007, 7:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/death-by/420165/49 "2007-09-25T19:01:14Z")
[QUOTE=KRM] [Discover magazine](http://discovermagazine.com/2006/sep/20thingsdeath) says that lack of oxygen is always the cause of death. [/QUOTE] Even in starvation? Does your body waste away until you have no muscles to draw in air? ---
**Author:** ![chorpler](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chorpler/32/2888_2.png) [@chorpler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chorpler)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2007, 11:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/death-by/420165/50 "2007-09-25T23:48:16Z")
[QUOTE=Baffle] Even in starvation? Does your body waste away until you have no muscles to draw in air? [/QUOTE] I think you suffer heart attack eventually – which of course causes a lack of oxygen to the brain that kills it. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2007, 2:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/death-by/420165/51 "2007-09-26T02:29:51Z")
> [@](#): > > What I’m getting at is that, ultimately, death is caused by the conditions I mentioned previously. So by your example, one does not die when their heart stops working. One dies when pressurized, oxygenated blood fails to reach the brain. Remove the O/P blood (or compromise the brain’s physical structure) and you have death. > > It seems to me that whatever the initial cause, whether it be poisoning, gunshot, kidney failure, or heart attack, all causes lead to the ultimate condition I’ve described. But I thought we were discussing the cause of death rather than the definition of death. In most cases, blood doesn’t spontaneously stop traveling to the brain. ---
**Author:** ![Shamozzle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shamozzle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shamozzle)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2007, 3:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/death-by/420165/52 "2007-09-26T03:46:26Z")
[QUOTE=Little Nemo] But I thought we were discussing the cause of death rather than the definition of death. In most cases, blood doesn’t spontaneously stop traveling to the brain. [/QUOTE] I guess it would make sense for us to define death before we decide upon its cause. I like the definition I’ve been using throughout, if that works for you. Also, I’m talking about the ultimate cause of death, not the initial cause. ---
**Author:** ![bbs2k](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e495f1/32.png) [@bbs2k](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bbs2k)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2007, 4:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/death-by/420165/53 "2007-09-26T04:05:19Z")
On another website I see creative methods of death mused upon almost daily. They’re a morbid bunch over there. On second thought, I probably shouldn’t repost those. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2007, 4:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/death-by/420165/54 "2007-09-26T04:06:54Z")
> [@](#): > > Also, I’m talking about the ultimate cause of death, not the initial cause. The definition creates the causation. If you define death as the point when the heart stops beating, then the heart attack caused the death. If you define it as the point when the brain stopped functioning, then the loss of oxygen to the brain caused the death. And if you define death as the decomposition of the body, then death is always caused by being eaten by microbes. ---
**Author:** ![Shamozzle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shamozzle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shamozzle)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2007, 4:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/death-by/420165/55 "2007-09-26T04:11:47Z")
[QUOTE=Little Nemo] The definition creates the causation. If you define death as the point when the heart stops beating, then the heart attack caused the death. If you define it as the point when the brain stopped functioning, then the loss of oxygen to the brain caused the death. And if you define death as the decomposition of the body, then death is always caused by being eaten by microbes. [/QUOTE] Sure. I like [Information Theoretic Death](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information_theoretic_death) as a definition, how about you? ---
**Author:** ![mamboman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ecb155/32.png) [@mamboman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mamboman)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2007, 8:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/death-by/420165/56 "2007-09-26T08:50:58Z")
being gored by Kevin Bacon? ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2007, 8:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/death-by/420165/57 "2007-09-26T20:30:16Z")
> [@](#): > > Well, sure, in theory, but I’ve always interpreted it as talking about information “death” in more of a practical sense: when you’d have to have a magical computer to track all the particles that made up the neurons and related structures and what has happened to them along the way, you can safely say “information theoretic death” has occurred. Yeah, but then you have to decide just how magical a computer you’re willing to allow. The question clearly goes beyond current technology, since it’s typically applied to cryogenically frozen heads. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/death-by/420165.md?page=2)