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    LoyalLoyalJusticeJustice
    Made withinDC&Austin
    Statements
    321,452
    Perspectives
    108,905
    Topics
    42
    Being dead consists in unviability (the loss of the capac... — Carmelics
    Home/Afterlife & Death
    HistoryEditSee Inverse

    Being dead consists in unviability (the loss of the capacity to deploy vital activities).

    Afterlife & Death
    ?Rate how convincing each reason is below to see the overall strength.
    1 reason for
    2 reasons against

    Reasons For

    1 perspective
    Reason for
    ?
    • 1.The loss of life account is thoroughly established in ordinary usage.
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    • 2.When we say that something is dead, we mean to emphasize that the capacity to deploy vital activities has been lost.
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    • 3.When we deny that frozen embryos are dead, we mean to emphasize that they have not lost the capacity to deploy their vital activities.
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    Reasons Against

    2 perspectives
    Reason against 1 of 2
    ?
    • 1.A organism in suspended animation (e.g., cryonically preserved) has lost the capacity to deploy vital activities yet is not straightforwardly dead.
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    • 2.If unviability is sufficient for death, then suspended organisms must be classified as dead, which contradicts both scientific and ordinary usage.
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    • 3.The loss of life account therefore either misidentifies the necessary condition or conflates temporary incapacity with permanent loss.
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    Reason against 2 of 2
    ?
    • 1.Aristotle's hylomorphic account identifies death with the permanent dissolution of the soul-form, not merely the suspension of its functional expression.
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    • 2.A corpse that retains structural integrity momentarily after cardiac arrest has lost vital activity but has not yet undergone the formal dissolution constitutive of death.
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    • 3.Unviability thus tracks a symptom of death rather than its metaphysical constitution, confusing epistemological indicators with ontological conditions.
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    Afterlife & Death

    Related

    A corpse that retains structural integrity momentarily after cardiac arrest has ...A organism in suspended animation (e.g., cryonically preserved) has lost the cap...Aristotle's hylomorphic account identifies death with the permanent dissolution ...If unviability is sufficient for death, then suspended organisms must be classif...
    +5 moreShow less
    The loss of life account is thoroughly established in ordinary usage.The loss of life account therefore either misidentifies the necessary condition ...Unviability thus tracks a symptom of death rather than its metaphysical constitu...When we deny that frozen embryos are dead, we mean to emphasize that they have n...When we say that something is dead, we mean to emphasize that the capacity to de...

    Similar

    When we say that something is dead, we mean to emphasize that the capa...86%To die is to lose the capacity to engage in vital activities.82%Something can be revived only if it is alive—only if it has the capaci...78%Being dead is neither intrinsically nor extrinsically bad for a person...73%

    Source

    AI-extracted3/3 agreementValid
    SEP: death
    loss of life account discussion
    View source passageHide passage
    However, the loss of life account is thoroughly established in ordinary usage, and is easily reconciled with the possibility of suspended vitality. In denying that frozen embryos are dead, it is clear that we mean to emphasize that they have not lost the capacity to deploy their vital activities. When we say that something is dead, we mean to emphasize that this capacity has been lost. Having used ‘dead’ to signal this loss, why would we want to use the word ‘alive’ to signal the fact that something is making active use of its vital activities? Our best option is to use a pair of contrasting t...
    Extraction notes

    Validity: The premises are faithfully drawn from the passage and collectively support the conclusion that being dead consists in unviability, as the passage itself states "What seems relatively uncontroversial is that being dead consists in unviability," grounded in the ordinary usage considerations captured by the premises.

    Confidence: High confidence; the author explicitly argues for this characterization.

    Details

    Type
    claim
    Perspectives
    3 (1 for, 2 against)
    Edits
    1 edit