Topic: If 98% of the atoms in our body are replaced in just 1 year, what are we? (Read 5713 times)

More than likely, close to 100% of the subatomic particles that make up the protons, neutrons, and electrons in our bodies, are constantly replace and converted, almost instantaneously every second, as the parallel universes that create them roll past each other.

What, really, are we?

Cloning is one of the last problems of scientific development. The most fundamental limitation is the impossibility of a repetition of consciousness, it can not be a complete identity of individuals, as shown in some movies, but only about a conditional identity whose measure and boundary is still to be investigated.

Every new year, I become a new man. True story

I disregarded any metaphysical considerations because of this: https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/why-im-an-atheist-1424793

What that tells me is that we cannot define ourselves completely by what we see and can measure, to me that tells me that whatever makes us a unique individual is not tied to the physical reality we can measure.

Beside theories that argue for eternal inflation, infinite Universes or that our Universe is infinite, also theories that argue that our Universe is going forever to explode on a Big Bang and then return on a Big Crunch (Big Bounce: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Bounce) are compatible with the idea that there will be more universes exactly like ours or that there are already Universes like ours with another us.

In short, every cosmological theory that argue that the creation of matter is eternal are compatible with the idea that soon or later there will be exact copies of us.

On my post about atheism (https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/why-im-an-atheist-1424793), I wrote that we were nothing for an eternity and will be again nothing for another eternity after our death.

However, if we accept that the quantum fields (see https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.14388816) that created all the stuff (matter, energy) and this universe are eternal and will keep creating stuff forever (search A Universe from nothing), like supposedly they did in an eternal past, then, after almost an eternity, they will create another universe exactly like ours, with an Earth like this and with you and me, writing again on this forum.

Actually, in the past, there must have been many of you and me.

At least if we accept that what is me and you isn't an exact body (like explained on this OP), made of some specific atoms, but a pattern of organization of them (a DNA and the particular synapses of your brain).

Some argue that there are infinite universes, constantly popping out from new Big Bangs (search for Eternal Inflation) and, therefore, there must be a universe like this one, with another you and me. But this theory is very controversial, much more than the idea that the quantum fields are eternal.

Anyway, some argue that there might be other yous and mes living a different life. However, that would be much harder to happen.

We were the result of a specific egg and spermatozoid. Any difference on our universe past and we wouldn't exist. It would be enough a few different seconds on the life of one of our billions (including non human ancestors) of ancestors to a different child to born, changing necessarily all our ancestors chain.

For us to be living a different life would be necessary that all the past of a copy of our universe to be exactly the same of this one up to us and then we would change something in our life.

For us to be born again, it will be necessary an universe exactly like this one since the beginning, 14 billion years ago, with the same exact mass down to the quark, created out of chance.

How likely is this to happen? After death, at best, we'll be nothing again for a zillion of trillions of years... but after this long, we'll live again, without the conscience of the lots of me and you that lived before.

But, at least, we'll live again and again and again. After all, it seems we are eternal!!

We'll just have to wait almost an eternity between each life.

I prefer this one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=17WiQ_tNld4

I agree with you, some part of ours changes maybe everyday.  It maybe not that obvious but something changes.  Like of course we know that we aged and we become weak.  It is true because if there is no change then we still all are babies until now.   But seriously, everything grows on us our hair, our nails, we have changed our skin like that it is just slow process.  It is timely and well planned.

There is a video from CrashCourse on that theme.

I believe it's one of these:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GxM9BZeRrUI

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3SJROTXnmus

No argument from me on that. But we are just clones of ourselves and that is a subject worth thinking about.

About the nature and composition of electrons we have nothing more than theories.

Anyway, without a link to a credible source (sorry, not the good book), your post is just words.

We will still be ourselves.  Because the one being replaced is just the same amount and same thing.  God is so great, he knew everything.  He knows how much hair we have, how much atoms it is needed to make us.  So even if the atoms in our body will be replaced in just a year we will still be the same.  And I do not think that it will not happened as everything in us is not an accident.

Electrons are aether eddys. They ALL change every nanosecond. You folks are so behind the times.

Identity = your unique brain neuron configuration + your unique genetic material.

Why is it so hard to comprehend?

As cells die, they are expelled from our body (so, their atoms are expelled). New cells are made from matter (atoms) that we incorporate (oxygen we breathe, food we eat, liquids we drink).

Even the neurons' atoms are replaced as they repair themselves. Probably, by expelling old molecules and creating new ones.

By this process, all our atoms seem to be replaced by new atoms of the same type.

We are just natural clones of ourselves.

Unique configuration of neuron synapses in the brain.

In the end, we are made basically of quarks (base of the protons and neutrons which form the atom's nucleus) and electrons.

As far as specialists know, both quarks and electrons are elementary/fundamental particles, made of "pure energy" (perhaps, composed by the famous strings). All its mass is created by the Higgs field because of the way they interact with Higgs Bosom.

These kind of particles have been compared not to a violin, but to the sound/vibration that the violin makes.

That seems what we are: a specific pattern of organization of energy.

But this is the easy part.

Things only start to be really bizarre when we think about what these particles that are part of our body can do according to quantum mechanics.

If the subatomic particles of my (temporarily) atoms can be at different places at the same time, am I also (of course, not conscientiously) at different places at the same time?

using knowledge of physics, biology and latest neuroscience, i would say we are just a dance. the thing we call "self" is just a convenient fiction.
a pattern from the very complex chemical soup that is the human body.

I already answered to you about that issue here: https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.15070414

But I'm going to repost the full justification that I posted here: https://oneskeptic.tumblr.com/post/146726224082/on-death


"Since there can’t be any immortality, and death is our destiny, unfortunately, the issue of the effect of immortality on the value of time can’t be really tested.

Clearly, being able to live thousand of years would lower the value of our time. But I surely wouldn’t mind to have time to be able to real waste it.

You could tell yourself that you would be ready to die, after having a meaningful life. But that is just rubbish.

Or write, like Mark Twain, that death is as just natural as life, implying that we have to accept it as we accept life.

But this is also absurd. Death is natural, but it’s the end of life.

Let’s deal with death with a laugh, but saying that it must be a pleasant one is nonsense or proper of people that don’t give enough value to their limited time of consciousness.

Even being death “natural”, it doesn’t cease to be coercive.

Imagine a world where everyone is forever young, except your self or your child. Wouldn’t that be terrible? Does the simple fact that death happens to everyone makes it something you must accept with a sincere smile?

Think about kids that have Werner syndrome, Cockayne syndrome or other fast aging disease. Does the tragic nature of their condition results from the simple fact that are rare situations and, therefore, “unfair” to them?

Mark Twain wrote as well that we also didn’t have any opinion about living, it was also imposed.

Actually, that is not exactly true; a part of us had literally the run of his life to live, the spermatozoid. Every one of us is a victorious being that won the prize over millions of others.

Being afraid of death is more than understandable. It’s logical.

Someone who doesn’t fear (or, at least, feels negatively) death is someone who doesn’t love anything in life, not even himself.

In the end, the only positive way to part from this life would be if we were completely bored with it.

Think about it: life is like a relationship, the only happy way to end it is if we were tired of it. If we still love it, death will always be a tragedy.

Besides, being able to make our own decision to end life is also a positive thing. Death wouldn’t be imposed by nature, but would be our own decision.

One of the major problems of death is that is imposed on us against our will.

Of course, parting this life because one is bored with it wouldn’t be exactly a happy moment. But it might be less unhappy than to parting it when we are still in love with life.

The problem is that a lifespan of 100 years, at best, is not enough to have any conditions to reach the goal of getting bored with life.

It’s impossible to determine how much time we would have to live in order to start feeling really bored and willing to die.

But if suicide is the less oppressive way to die, I think I probably would need many thousand years to start thinking about it.

Of course, I’m not making an apology of suicide. If I was able to chose the way to die, I would chose suicide, but because that would allow me to be a master of death and, so, to live thousand (or million) of years.

Suicide makes sense only if living is a real pain. Because of physical pain; or because of unbearable boredom.

In our current conditions, where life is a blink of an eye of awareness, in between two eternities of being nothing (before being alive and after being dead), suicide seems absurd.

But the only less bad way to die would indeed be suicide; after a very, very, long life.

Unfortunately, currently, that isn’t yet available. We have a short lifespan. There is little hope to get bored of life.


So, better enjoy our luck to be alive like if we had a chance on a trillion of quadrillions to be born, since our actual odds were even worst than these.


Make the most of life like if it was a single drop of water tumbling on our thirsty lips on an infinite desert.
  

Value every day of it as if we were on a death row, because we are; we just have a wonderful, huge, cell and no one told us yet when it’s going to be our turn. "



Anyway, you have the interesting/original opinion, not me. My profound dislike of death is very common.

Very few people like to live in a wonderful death row.