Watching Brian Cox's inspiring Wonders of the Universe episode "Stardust" I was once again struck by the thought that though this arrangement of parts that I call me is, in the grand scheme of things, ephemeral, the parts themselves — the atoms that make up the molecules that make up the chemicals of which I am temporarily composed — are as near immortal as anything is likely to get. Forged in the nuclear furnaces of dying stars, my fundamental particles have been around a lot longer than I have, and before I was here they were probably doing sterling service elsewhere. And after I'm gone, these particles will be recycled for other purposes — I will, in a sense, live again as reincarnated diaspora.
There is a hierarchy in this compositional framework that I call me: though at bottom I am the quarks, I am also the complex functioning organs that comprise my body — which are themselves composed of simpler parts right down to those atoms and the quarks that comprise them. Such a view gives me pause, to consider my ownership of the parts of which I currently comprise.
Paul S. Jenkins, writer, podcaster and tech-enthusiast (and atheist and skeptic) lives and works in Hampshire, UK. Notes from an Evil Burnee is his blog about things skeptical.
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