Points Of Death

I know, I know. I deal with this topic a lot. But of course, mortality is such a fascinating topic to ponder. Right now my focus is towards what one could think of as conceptual death. By conceptual death, I mean how can we map out with some certainty the boundaries that split the living from the dead in the conceptual sense.

For example, someone may be "dead" to others by becoming so overwhelmingly evil that others are horrified into denying that person's status as a living human. That person's personality has been destroyed, and the person becomes conceptually dead. Alternatively, someone may be brain dead and have effectively no personality while lying on the bed, yet this person may well be conceptually alive, as evidenced by the general unwillingness to end this person's life.

As with most conceptual things, we probably already know that different people put different weightages to different acts and statuses. Like a highly religious person may deem another to be conceptually dead for apostasy. However, the fact remains that there is most certainly a tipping point beyond which one is deemed to be too far gone. Also, it may be possible to map out the point values for each individual person, and thus derive just how many "life points" each person really has in the eyes of others. I have not actually created a life points table at this juncture, though.