L'absent
À ma manière 🪦
- Aug 18, 2024
- 1,188
The transition from life to death, when analyzed with ontological rigor, does not manifest as a gradual process but as a point-like event, an epiphany of nothingness that irreparably severs the continuum of being. The idea that a person "passes" from life to death in a matter of seconds erroneously implies an interval, a kind of liminal zone between two states. Yet this perspective is inherently flawed. There is no temporal fraction, however infinitesimal, in which an individual can be simultaneously alive and dead. Life and death are not poles of a gradient but dichotomous conditions, mutually exclusive. One is either alive or dead.
From a philosophical standpoint, we may invoke Aristotle's reflections on act and potentiality: a living organism is in act as long as it persists as such, but it ceases to exist instantly once it loses the systemic integrity required to sustain its vital functions. This transition does not imply a process but an event: the moment of death is not a progression but a rupture. Heidegger, in Being and Time, defines death as the most personal and inescapable possibility of the human being, one that interrupts all further possibilities, thereby underscoring the definitive and unsmeared nature of dying.
Psychologically, the idea of a gradual "passage" might stem from our difficulty in conceiving of death as an instantaneous event. The human mind, constrained by its interpretation of the world through the lens of temporality, tends to fragment even that which is indivisible. Witnessing someone's death may give the illusion that it is a process, as we observe progressive signals such as the slowing of the heartbeat or the waning of breath. However, these are pre-mortem indicators, not part of the event itself. Death, in essence, is indivisible: it is a moment that, in its occurrence, annihilates all other dynamics.
Anthropologically, various cultures have sought to define death through metaphors that often betray its incomprehensibility. Some imagine it as a "journey," a "threshold," or even a "bridge" to another realm of existence. Yet, these narrative images, however poetic or consolatory, tend to mask the brutal truth: death is a total rupture, the radical implosion of meaning and experience. There is no room for interstices or gradations.
From a neurophysiological perspective, the event of death can be understood as the precise moment when all coordinated activity of the central nervous system ceases. When the brain stops functioning as an integrated system, there is no graduality: the living organism instantly becomes an aggregate of inert matter. Even here, there is no "in-between" state. The entropy that follows is not death but decay.
In summary, the concept of a gradual "passage" from life to death is a human construct, a narrative designed to bridge the void of the incomprehensible. The reality, beyond our interpretative categories, is that death is the event that severs all temporal duality, annihilating in an instant what until that moment was the living being. It is the moment when being ceases to be, leaving no residue, no transitions, no margins. Perhaps it is precisely in this instantaneous nature that its most vertiginous characteristic resides: the absolute negation of becoming.
From a philosophical standpoint, we may invoke Aristotle's reflections on act and potentiality: a living organism is in act as long as it persists as such, but it ceases to exist instantly once it loses the systemic integrity required to sustain its vital functions. This transition does not imply a process but an event: the moment of death is not a progression but a rupture. Heidegger, in Being and Time, defines death as the most personal and inescapable possibility of the human being, one that interrupts all further possibilities, thereby underscoring the definitive and unsmeared nature of dying.
Psychologically, the idea of a gradual "passage" might stem from our difficulty in conceiving of death as an instantaneous event. The human mind, constrained by its interpretation of the world through the lens of temporality, tends to fragment even that which is indivisible. Witnessing someone's death may give the illusion that it is a process, as we observe progressive signals such as the slowing of the heartbeat or the waning of breath. However, these are pre-mortem indicators, not part of the event itself. Death, in essence, is indivisible: it is a moment that, in its occurrence, annihilates all other dynamics.
Anthropologically, various cultures have sought to define death through metaphors that often betray its incomprehensibility. Some imagine it as a "journey," a "threshold," or even a "bridge" to another realm of existence. Yet, these narrative images, however poetic or consolatory, tend to mask the brutal truth: death is a total rupture, the radical implosion of meaning and experience. There is no room for interstices or gradations.
From a neurophysiological perspective, the event of death can be understood as the precise moment when all coordinated activity of the central nervous system ceases. When the brain stops functioning as an integrated system, there is no graduality: the living organism instantly becomes an aggregate of inert matter. Even here, there is no "in-between" state. The entropy that follows is not death but decay.
In summary, the concept of a gradual "passage" from life to death is a human construct, a narrative designed to bridge the void of the incomprehensible. The reality, beyond our interpretative categories, is that death is the event that severs all temporal duality, annihilating in an instant what until that moment was the living being. It is the moment when being ceases to be, leaving no residue, no transitions, no margins. Perhaps it is precisely in this instantaneous nature that its most vertiginous characteristic resides: the absolute negation of becoming.
