Discuss the boundaries between life and death.

Answers will vary. Death is commonly defined as the cessation of life. Many people think of death as a part of life, but death is the termination of life and not a part of life. Dying, though, is a part of life. It is the end stage of life in which bodily processes decline, leading to death. Medical and legal professionals generally use brain death as the standard for determining that a person has died. The most widely used criteria for establishing brain death include absence of activity of the cerebral cortex, as shown by a flat EEG recording. When there is no activity in the cortex, consciousness-the sense of self and all psychological functioning-has ceased. The broader concept of whole brain death includes death of the brain stem, which is responsible for certain automatic functions, such as reflexes like breathing. Thus, a person who is "brain dead" can continue to breathe. On the other hand, in some cases people have been kept "alive," even though they were whole-brain dead, by life-support equipment that took over their breathing and circulation. Death is also a legal matter. Most states rely on some combination of these criteria in establishing the legal standard of death. In most states, a person is considered legally dead if there is an irreversible cessation of breathing and circulation or if there is an irreversible cessation of brain activity, including activity in the brain stem, which controls breathing.