Disclaimer: this is purposefully obtuse.
Other effects in the game which explicitly state they kill you:
Shadows, succubi, massive damage, death saving throws, beholder death ray (notably not even their disintegration ray kills you), power word kill, vampires, mind flayers, night hags, drow inquisitors.
Clearly, if they intended for disintegration to kill you, they'd have said so. Since specific overrides general, and there is no general rule that disintegrated creatures are dead, I rest my case. QED.
Edited, because you edited your comment as I was replying: The "current state" of the creature is that it can only be brought back to life by the means mentioned in the spell, I agree with you there. But it does not mean that the creature need be dead for that to be a true statement about its state.
Would you agree with me that the normal, default state of a creature is "can only be brought back to life by [exhaustive list of all reviving magic]"?
Nothing says you become an object. Compare to True Polymorph, which has a section for turning a creature into an object.
It's assumed that the player is clever enough to know that dust is an object, as the player's brain is assumed to not be made of dust.
I'm not looking for assumptions, I'm looking for RAW. I don't know about you but at my table we play by the rules.
I think the bigger problem here is that you're arguing in bad-faith.
Bad faith? The only faith I have is in the rules as they are written, like a gospel!
The argument here should be "yes," as arguing according to the rules is arguing in bad faith. That's the point of the post lel.
That's why when she gave you four arguments that should clear the matter up, you cherry-picked one of them and said that it was "making an assumption" and therefore invalid, even though the "assumption" was that the player understood language. That's why you ignored the other three arguments entirely.
You're deliberately trolling for attention. and this faux-innocence isn't fooling anyone.
I haven't ignored anything intentionally, if I haven't addressed a supposed claim to why this isn't RAW it's because it was added in an edit after I replied.
(psssst, read the first line of the OP)
The first line of the OP does tacitly say that you're arguing in bad-faith, yes.
Tough crowd!
I agree. People are getting all riled up for no good reason.
I think you're hilarious.
OP: this is purposefully obtuse Other people: engages with OP OP: is purposefully obtuse Other people: shockedpickachu.png