system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
ELI5: what's the difference between a dead body and a live body?

can't seem to find a solid answer that doesn't flirt with spirituality or the idea of a soul, but for sake of argument: you have a cadaver and a live person next to each other. the live person has every organ, muscle, etc. as the cadaver, but one's dead. what's missing from the cadaver that the live person has? electricity?
gpt
This is a tricky question, because there are different kinds of "dead".  For instance, someone can be brain-dead, but the rest of their body can still be alive.  But for simplicity's sake, let's say that you have an unambiguous cadaver being compared to a live person.

In that case, the live person has a fully-functional metabolism.  All of their individual cells are alive and engaging in constant chemical reactions to convert sugars into energy.  In a cadaver, that process has stopped.  The lungs are no longer oxygenating blood, and the heart is no longer pumping blood, so all the person's cells are dead or dying.