 One might insist that death can be defined, as the competing definitions demonstrate. But, of course, the trick is to define the term adequately. For example, the organismic definition—death as the irreversible cessation of functioning of the organism as a whole—makes no reference to consciousness. Yet surely, one might argue, any organism that maintains consciousness should count as alive even if the organism as a whole has irreversibly ceased to function (whether or not this possibility is merely theoretical). Definitions associated with the higher-brain approach—such as human death as the irreversible loss of mind—implausibly imply that a PVS patient is dead despite exhibiting spontaneous breathing and circulation, brainstem-mediated reflexes, and the like. The best explanation for the shortcomings of leading efforts to define death, the argument continues, is that death is not amenable to definition in terms of necessary and sufficient conditions (Chiong 2005). Let's consider two distinct ways this thesis might be developed.