 Although a realistic picture of organismic functioning must be holistic, according to this updated traditional approach, it should also portray certain functions as central. Tradition is correct that respiration and circulation are especially crucial, but respiration is not simply lung function and circulation is not just a working heart. Both organs, after all, can be artificially replaced as the organism maintains integrated functioning. Respiration and circulation occur throughout the body as oxygenated blood circulates to different organs and bodily systems—a condition necessary and sufficient for the integrated organismic functioning that constitutes life. Unlike whole-brain and higher-brain death, loss of respiration and circulation leads relentlessly to the breakdown of cells, tissues, organs, bodily systems, and eventually the organism as a whole. Hence an updated traditional standard, which we might call the circulatory-respiratory standard: death as the irreversible cessation of circulatory-respiratory function.