Firefighter here. I was reflecting on a fatality I attended recently. My thoughts wandered to how a body looks like it is ‘just matter’ in a way that a living thing does not, even when sleeping. Previously I assumed this observation was just something to do with traumatic death, but this person seemed to have died peacefully and the same, ‘absence’ of something was obvious.

I’m not a religious person, but it made me wonder if there actually is something that ‘leaves’ when someone dies (beyond the obvious breathing, pulse etc).

I’m not looking for a ‘my holy book says’, kind of discussion here, but rather a reflection on the direct, lived experiences of people who see death regularly.

  • 😈MedicPig🐷BabySaver😈@lemmy.world
    247·
    11 months ago

    Medic 30+ years.

    Life “energy” is gone. Of course no one knows what happens to the electrical energy in a human upon death… but, it definitely leaves the body.

    This is where people’s belief system kicks in. I’m not religious and don’t believe in heaven/hell. I do personally believe in a spirit world.

    I kind of like the most remote possiblity of becoming a ghost.

    • Kalash@feddit.ch
      151·
      11 months ago

      Of course no one knows what happens to the electrical energy in a human upon death… but, it definitely leaves the body.

      Of course we know.

      Cells create electric potential by pumping different kind of ions in or out of the cell. That requires ATP which is produced during metabolism. If you’re dead your cells stop producing ATP and everything, including the ion pumps, stop working. So no more electricity.

      It doesn’t “leave” the body. The body stops generating it.

        • TheDoctorDonna@lemmy.world
          6·
          11 months ago

          Everyone is entitled to their belief. I also kinda like the idea of maybe being a ghost one day and while I don’t necessarily believe in ghosts I also don’t believe that they don’t exist either. I want to haunt an amusement park.

    • hddsx@lemmy.caEnglish
      91·
      11 months ago

      I mean, even in a big capacitor or battery the charge leaves eventually

    • medgremlin@lemmy.sdf.org
      81·
      11 months ago

      I’ve been in enough futile codes that I hope there isn’t any consciousness beyond the “lights out” point. Especially since most of the codes I participated in were in a pediatric hospital. It doesn’t matter that the brain shut off more than half an hour ago…you just have to keep doing compressions and pantomiming the code until the parents consent to calling it. I’ve seen it get dragged out an extra 45 minutes past where the physician would have called it because the mom didn’t want T.O.D. called until after the dad got to the hospital from work. It’s better with adults, but not by much. There’s only been a handful of times where caving in the sternum was actually worth the destruction involved.

    • dyslexicdainbroner@lemmy.world
      105·
      11 months ago

      You “personally believe in a spirit world” - that is exactly heaven/hell - religion is belief in a spiritual world…

      Semantics -

      • Mouselemming@sh.itjust.works
        4·
        11 months ago

        They didn’t say “spiritual,” they said “spirit” and “ghost.” Ghosts are not in any heaven or hell but unseen among us on Earth. Not necessarily something to worship or fear either. I think it’s a step apart from religion.

      • throwsbooks@lemmy.ca
        3·
        10 months ago

        Eh, I don’t think it’s fair to erase all nuance between spirituality and religion.

        Heaven/Hell are these ordered places where some sentient divine being is supposed to judge you at death and sort you into. Whether it’s Anubis or God or whatever. It places a sort of human sense of control over the natural world.

        Thinking there might be some sort of spiritual something or other, at least on my end, is thinking that well, we’ve got energy in our bodies that dissipates as we die. That energy ends up recycled in some way, first law of thermodynamics and all that. I don’t know if that energy can linger around as ghosts, or act as some new “soul” in some reincarnation cycle, or if it just gets dispersed or what, but you don’t need to believe in religion to consider it.

        Though there’s definitely some overlap.

      • idiomaddict@lemmy.world
        1·
        10 months ago

        Religion is a set of organized, ritualized practices based on spiritual belief. You can be spiritual without being religious, and I know a bunch of active, practicing Catholics who don’t believe in anything supernatural, so I would say you can be religious without being spiritual.