Life and Death

I defend a definition of death applicable to organisms, and their relevant proper parts, accommodating the possibility that such entities, when in a state of suspended animation, are bereft of life-processes, but not dead. Further, I defend a definition of life, utilizing the notion of a goal-directed metabolic, reproductive, or psychological activity, that can accommodate living things of any possible natural kind or ontological category, e.g., living organisms (whether carbon-based or otherwise), their living cells, living persons of any metaphysically possible sort, such as living humans, reflective androids, and nonphysical souls. I remain neutral about whether instances of such natural kinds would necessarily instantiate them and about whether goal-directedness of the aforementioned kind is reducible to natural selection and inheritance.