On Thursday morning, the family of Archie Battersbee announced his life support would end.

In April, his parents found him unconscious at home. He was rushed to hospital. Doctors said he had no chance of recovery, and kept him temporarily alive in a comaA state of unconsciousness in which a person is unable to respond and cannot be woken up..

In June, after an MRI scan, a judge ruled he was legally "dead" and that support should stop. Battersbee's family fought a legal battle to continue life support, ultimately they lost. His mother Hollie Dance has asked to move him to "a peaceful hospiceA medical facility that focuses on providing care and comfort for those with untreatable conditions.  to say goodbye".

A conventional scientific view of death regards it as a physical event. Our heart stops. We stop breathing. Our body cools down and we become unable to respond.

The story of Archie Battersbee reveals how hard it can be to decide when death occurs. He was declared dead by a court, yet kept alive by medics. Doctors dispute whether death can occur before a heart stops, such as when a brain stops working.

Medicine sees death as something that occurs in a moment. When death happens in hospital, medical staff record the time of death.

Many religions believe death is a one-time punctuation. In Christianity, our body dies but our soulIn many religious and philosophical traditions, the soul is part of a person, often separate from our bodies, which contain our essence. arrives in Heaven or HellMany Christians believe that faithful Christians are rewarded with an afterlife in Heaven, while the evil and non-believers are tortured in Hell.. This afterlife is eternal: as Moliere quipped: "We die only once, and for such a long time." But, for mortals, it is also irreversible.

The Ancient Egyptians held that people had two souls. One passed into the afterlife, the other remained in the body. They created mummies to preserve this part-dead, part-alive state.

Japanese tradition says life and death is a cycle. And Hindus, Buddhists and Sikhs believe in reincarnationThe idea that, after we have died, our soul or essence is reborn into another being.. Our actions in our life - known as karma - determine what we will become in the next life.

Others think true death only occurs when we have stopped influencing the world. George EliotThe pen-name of the great Victorian novelist, poet and journalist Mary Ann Evans, best known for her masterpiece Middlemarch (1872).  wrote: "Our dead are never dead to us, until we have forgotten them."

Thinkers have started talking about digital technology's impact on death. Companies collect an enormous amount of information, which remains after we perish. A person's true death might only occur once this information has disappeared.

For scientists Robert Lanza and Bob Berman, there is no death. Albert EinsteinA German-born physicist, whose work in the early 20th Century revolutionised scientific understanding of the world. believed that past, present and future is a "persistent illusion". We live in an infinite number of nows.

Yes: Some cultures believe that life and death are cyclical. Yet even for them, death is a moment of transition from one state to another. We can die several times, but each death is a single event.

No: Life and death are more complex than that. There are dozens of interpretations of what death means. Even doctors disagree on whether death comes when the heart or the brain ceases to function.

Or... Doctors may be able to pinpoint the exact moment someone dies. But death is simultaneously a process, from when we move towards the end of our life through to the mourning of those we leave behind.

coma - A state of unconsciousness in which a person is unable to respond and cannot be woken up.

Hospice - A medical facility that focuses on providing care and comfort for those with untreatable conditions. 

Soul - In many religious and philosophical traditions, the soul is part of a person, often separate from our bodies, which contain our essence.

Heaven or Hell - Many Christians believe that faithful Christians are rewarded with an afterlife in Heaven, while the evil and non-believers are tortured in Hell.

Reincarnation - The idea that, after we have died, our soul or essence is reborn into another being.

George Eliot - The pen-name of the great Victorian novelist, poet and journalist Mary Ann Evans, best known for her masterpiece Middlemarch (1872). 

Albert Einstein - A German-born physicist, whose work in the early 20th Century revolutionised scientific understanding of the world.