Well yes, js1138 — thank you for the clarification!
A couple thoughts. It seems to me that apoptosis and necrosis must be quantified by different information measures, since — while both lead to death — one is an "orderly" or "controlled" process, and the other a "random" process. The distinction between the two seems to be a purely "informational" one.
Another thing, "biological immortality" is, as you know, a technical term currently in favor in some circles of biology. It describes the situation where a sustained, cumulative increase in the rate of mortality as a function of chronological age is absent. Biological entities so characterized are said to be exempt from the Hayflick limit, which is essentially a description of the situation in which cells no longer divide.
But to extend "biological immortality" beyond the range of this narrow, technical understanding would be absurd.
For there is no logical sense whatever in claiming that a being incapable of death was ever actually alive in the first place. Or so it seems to me, FWIW.
I'm not sure what death is, has been determined yet..
To determine death you must shall have determined what life is..
I'm not sure any has determined that..
Romans 8 seems to imply life is in the spirit and is not physical.. So many have been dead(physically) (for many minutes) yet have been resuscitated.. How can that happen?.. Is a carrot alive?.. If so then when is a carrot dead?..
Just so when the physical body becomes non functional does that mean death?.. Is life totally functionality?.. If functionality is life then what is being alive?.. Is being alive a matter of degrees?.. Meaning are some thats alive barely functional?.. therefore almost dead?..
What is life?. seems to be a quite large question..
-OR- will all humans live forever somewhere eternally?..
Meaning death may be an illusion.. no one gets off that easy..
Single celled organisms are not immune from being killed. But your discussion of entropy seems to imply that living things die from some sort of wearing out. Feel free to clarify this.
Cells do not, for the most part, die from entropy or wearing out. Single celled organisms -- those that are living -- have never died.
For the Lurkers, I'd like to explore further why we say that information (Shannon) is that which distinguishes life v. non-life/death in nature - and how it relates to this sidebar.
Apoptosis is a programmed cell death - a functional cell within the autonomous larger organism receives the message to die now. Conversely, necrosis of a functional cell within the autonomous larger organism occurs which the successful communication does not occur, e.g. the message to isolate the dead cells as in apoptosis was not sent or received successfully.
Relevant to this sidebar, it must be noticed that a single cell organism is autonomous. It is self-contained. Except for noise, communications is internal to the single cell organism.
And some of them, e.g. bacillus anthracis (anthrax) - enter a dormant state (spore) until a food source is present (e.g. it is inhaled.) This is like putting communications (e.g. your computer) in a stand-by mode until the mouse or keyboard moves.
Once the cell - whether a functional cell in a higher organism or a single cell organism - no longer communicates (or is no longer communications capable, e.g. in standby) - it is dead.
In "information theory and molecular biology" the thermodynamic tab (2nd law) is paid by heat dissipating into the local environment when the receiver (molecular machine) of a message goes from a before state to an after state. As the old adage goes, in death a person achieves room temperature.
In sum, communications are temporal, time-bound. The 2nd law (entropy) is universal, it applies consistently over all of time, i.e. after communications stop.
This can also be envisioned by a thought experiment.
Take a live rabbit and a recently dead rabbit and hypothetically break them down. The live rabbit has a higher temperature than the dead one because it is successfully communicating.
As you break the rabbits down to their component functional subsystems all the way to the individual cells, it becomes obvious that communications has stopped in the dead rabbit. The heart is not pumping, the blood is not flowing, etc.
But as you continue breaking the rabbits down to the chemicals and then particles or fields of which they consist, you see that both the dead rabbit and the live rabbit are made of the same "stuff."
And so betty boop and I have said that the difference between life v. non-life/death in nature is information (Shannon, successful communication.)