Definition of death

Both religion and mythology concern themselves with what happens after death. They usually involve reincarnation or some form of an afterlife.

Arts are, perhaps, the very oldest disciplines to explore death. Historically, the average human had a significantly lower standard of living and lifespan in the past than today. Wars, famine, and disease always kept death close at hand. Artists, authors, and poets often employed the universality of death as a motif in their works and continue today.

The social sciences are often involved on both the individual and on the cultural level. The individual level is primarily covered by psychology, the study of individual minds. Avoiding (or, in some cases, seeking) death is an important human motive; the fear of death affects and effects many individuals’ actions.

Sociology is the study of social rules. Every society has developed attitudes towards death. Sub-disciplines within sociology, such as the sociology of disaster, focus more narrowly on the issue of how societies handle death. Likewise, cultural anthropology and archeology concern themselves with how current and past cultures deal with death, respectively.

Last but not least, medical science and medicine are also very important fields of study of death. The biological study of death helps explain what happens, physically, to individuals in the moment of dying and after-death bodily changes. Pharmacology investigates how prescription drugs can ease death, and in some cases prevent early deaths. Psychiatry, the medical application of psychological principles and therapeutic drugs, is also involved.