Molecules and Existence

Philosophy Cube by S.H.A. is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License

Our human bodies possess molecules that design our very existence along with living cells, neural receptors and transmitters in the brain whose electric and nerve impulses allow us to think and function.  Animals possess similar cell structures and electrical impulses in their bodies and also are capable of growing, reproduction, interaction, and life.  Plants grow and the wonder of nature is essentially all around us.  

After our deaths, our bodies return to the Earth and the molecules take on another form.  They are no longer ourselves but rather, part of a tree or a molecule in the ocean or some other random particle that makes up our universe.  Just as the water we drink, incorporates itself into our bodies, it becomes part of who we are for that instant.  No one can doubt that more than 70% of our bodies is created from water.  But at the same time, within the cycle that we are alive, this water exits our bodies and is discharged a multitude of times.  Therefore, our bodies are constantly changing with old atoms leaving and new atoms entering.  Are we any less a person than we were previously due to the absence of the historical molecules  or atoms that once formed our bodies?  The answer is decidedly no, as our existence continues and our thoughts continue.  

However, this raises the question, at what point is it that we cease to be ourselves?  What percentage of molecules are required to exit our being before we cease to be a whole person.    Death occurs when the body no longer functions, or does the body no longer function when death occurs.  Does human death constitute the removal of the life source within?  Our being, our essence, our form, resides in our thought and in the concept of an "unknown energy" that is untapped and not measurable by science.  The soul (or this "unknown energy" ) is our essence, not the molecules that confine the human body.  A human being that has lost all faculties of thought, reason, still possesses the life force that religiosts call a soul.  

I submit that perhaps the soul carries the body, the body does not carry the soul…..But in that case, where does that leave animals and plants, for they live and die. But their existence varies from humans as they do not possess free will.  All animals perform the same basic instincts as the animals that came before them.  They follow their nature or some preprogram that is recorded in their systems.  There are no lions in the Antarctica, the weather is too cold for them.  They can not choose to go live on top of a mountain when their species originates from the plains.  How do birds know migratory patterns, and how do sea turtles know to return to the very spot they were born?  They follow the instructions or pre-program, and lack free will and free choice.  Animal bodies go through similar changes and functions as human bodies and yet the animals are so decidedly different from human beings.  

Human beings, possess free will, choice, thought, morality (and lack of), and so many other features that separate our species from all others on the planet.  Some are living in the most coldest climates while others live in the deserts.  There is an extremely broad range of differences between human beings in terms of accomplishments, thoughts, activities, and ideologies.  Which leads to the assertion that humans are not the same as animals or plants or any other organism on Earth.  Perhaps we are separated by more than just intelligence.  In nature you will not find this wide range in differences between the animals or plants within a given species.