this post was submitted on 04 Sep 2023
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Showerthoughts
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A "Showerthought" is a simple term used to describe the thoughts that pop into your head while you're doing everyday things like taking a shower, driving, or just daydreaming. A showerthought should offer a unique perspective on an ordinary part of life.
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I think I know what you mean, but plenty of terms have relative definitions ("behind", "bright", "x+1", "etc"... etc). If you're looking for an absolute point, you won't find one, because their meaning is the relationship itself.
Both "life" and "death" define a state relative to another. The definition of "life" is a particularly tricky one, because it includes multiple relative definitions like "growth", "reaction", "functioning", and a "reproduction" that includes both cloning and "imperfect" cloning. Being "death" the opposite, it's necessarily as relative and tricky too.
Which is the crux of this whole conversation. We don't have an actual definition of death. It's all relative and changing over time.
What surprises me, is you wouldn't accept the relative/changing definition as a valid definition itself.
Guess that could be an interesting conversation, potentially shedding some light on different worldviews... but I don't really know where to begin. Curious.
I refer you back to my original comment involving the impact of not having a good definition of death and what that causes.
Your definition does not clarify any of the resulting problems arising from trying to define all the other concepts.
It's a good definition for some scenarios, but not at all or in any way, this one.