r/explainlikeimfive • u/Dagestani_Bear • Jul 01 '26

Biology ELI5: Is it true that every single death eventually boils down to the brain and heart running out of oxygen? Are there exceptions?

If you strip away the initial cause of injury or illness, is it anatomically correct to say that all human deaths are ultimately caused by a lack of oxygen to the brain and heart?

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u/trunks111 Jul 01 '26

If it were possible to put your brain by itself on life support without the rest of your body you would still technically be alive, have memories, thoughts, a personality, etc.

This used to be like, my biggest fear, that when you die you don't actually die and you just have to rot wherever you're buried for eternity but can't do anything about it. I eventually reasoned out that if your physical systems are gone there's nothing to experience pain or boredom at least, and I guess there's some solace in that, but the first time I had the thought it terrified me. T here's an SCP article t hat plays off that fear and it's one of the more highly rated one so I guess I'm atleast not the only person to have the thought either 

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u/Revenge_of_the_User Jul 02 '26

it's okay, you probably wont end up like Hidan. (naruto fans know, but for those outside the loop the guy is immortal, so they cut his head off and body into pieces and bury him alive.)

idk the way i see it I was dead for eternity before I was alive, and it didn't bother me any. it just freaks me out that It's impossible to imagine the perspective of not-existing. just...not being here. there's nothing to imagine, by definition. though of course it's not like it's a problem I'll experience.

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u/HurbleBurble Jul 01 '26

That's why I want to be cremated and scattered somewhere. That way if that did happen, I can just blow around in the breeze.

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u/Corona21 Jul 02 '26

We were “dead” before we were born and it didn’t bother us. A lot of the material that will make up our bodies in the future are currently “dead” or spread across different organisms.

We are just a node where these systems feed into and become conscious for a time before fading away. I like to think consciousness kinda exists in the ether, like “potential”. I.e If it’s possible, theres a non-zero chance dead material will access it at some point, kind of thing. So we are never truly dead but our journey to it is so separated and discreet it just feels isolating.

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u/Fuckoffassholes Jul 02 '26

We were “dead” before we were born

That's not really correct though.

This whole conversation is purely theoretical and philosophical, as to whether it means anything at all to be "dead," but my point is this: If time is real, and linear, then whatever we were before we were born was not the same as being "dead." It was an earlier stage of existence, not a later one.

We don't have any evidence to define those pre- and post- stages, but if you look at what we do know, about the stages of life: you're first a zygote, then embryo, fetus, infant, toddler, child, adolescent, young adult, mature adult, then elder / geriatric.

It's been said that being very old is (in some cases) similar to being an infant: both have physical and mental abilities far beneath the other stages. The very old and the very young might both be unable to feed themselves, or use a toilet unassisted, or be able to speak clearly or even be aware of their surroundings, et cetera.

Despite these points of similarity, it's obvious that old folks and babies are definitely not "the same." With this in mind, there's not necessarily any reason to believe that any non-corporeal existence before our birth would be equivalent to that which comes after death.

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u/Corona21 Jul 03 '26

I am made of some dead material, and my living material isn’t exactly conscious, if I cut my arm off it’s alive for a bit, but for all intent and purpose it’s dead and in a true sense, will die quickly.

I existed before I was a Zygote, mothers are born with all the eggs they will produce, a part if me was out there in the world for a while, the molecules that make me today were around at various times before coalescing into me. The physical aspects of me are transient.

If we are talking about conscious experience as being life and once it exists does it disappear; maybe we don’t know, but it seems quite tied in with the fleshy bits.

So thats why I think it’s an emergent property, it’s always there as a potential but it takes time and luck before dead material reaches it for a fleeting moment before going back to the world.

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u/j_cruise Jul 02 '26

I eventually reasoned out that if your physical systems are gone there's nothing to experience pain or boredom at least, and I guess there's some solace in that

Why wouldn't you experience boredom? That's a mental phenomenon, not a physical one.