Though particle physicists cannot claim with certainty to have isolated a truly elemental particle, I personally believe that I am more than qualified to speak with profound authority on the subject - because I am one. And so are you.

"Cogito ergo sum." I think, therefore I am. One must exist in order to experience, and the fact that you experience is convincing proof you exist.

You probably consider yourself to be a single being, which is why you call yourself 'I' instead of 'we'. Your body; however, is a plurality - a composite of billions of individual elements or fundamental particles, each with its own set of properties. Each basic particle pre-existed your birth and will ultimately survive your demise. Each has its own unique history, a separate location and physical domain. Indeed, if the axiom of identity is valid, then one existence will always have a single set of experiences and a collection of existences will always have individual sets of experience equal to the number of elements in the set. Logically this presents a conundrum. How can you be a single existence if that physical manifestation which you consider to be 'yourself' is composed of multiple existences?

In order to reconcile this disparity, scholarly pundits with alphabet soup after their names profess that if you toss just the right combination of terrestrial ingredients into a primordial cauldron and stir it really, really hard for a very long time, you can produce a composite that thinks, propagates and experiences a unique existence as a single identity. That may sound silly (I call it the Pinocchio hypothesis) but which lowly layman in his right mind would dare contradict an entire horde of scholarly pundits, especially when they are immersed in alphabet soup. So, with an eye of newt and wing of bat, a pinch of this and a dash of that the pundits dub this egregious departure from logic the 'phenomenon of emergent properties' and they credit it with the creation of all life on Earth. Regrettably, they seem unable to fully explain the mechanics of this miraculous process that transforms 8*10²⁷ atoms into a single existence with an individual identity.

Hogwarts! If this is science, then Harry Potter is the next Isaac Newton.

The hierarchies of complex systems which arise from a multitude of relatively simple interactions - emergent properties - are not the properties or qualities of an existence. They are not qualities at all; they are collective behaviors that occur within a group of elements under given conditions. Composites occur when multiple individual existences are brought into proximity to one another. If you believe you are the corporal product of emergent properties then you are claiming you are an occurrence, not an existence. I have a major problem with that reasoning.

So what does this mean?

To quote Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's famous character Sherlock Holmes in Chapter 6 of 'The Sign of Four',"…when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth."

By rote and repetition you have been trained since birth to think you are that thing you see in the mirror - hair, eyes, nose, skin, and appendages. You have developed the self-image that your body is YOU. But if you cut off your arm, your arm will suddenly be over there, yet you will still experience your same identity. You will probably still have feeling in a 'phantom arm' that isn't there. Just because your arm was held onto your corpse by molecular bond didn't make it YOU. The identity you experience is that of a single entity - an element hidden within the composition of your shell. A body is something you wear, not something you are. It does; however, seem to be a necessary tool in order for us to function and think in human terms.

This isn't rocket science. It has nothing to do with religion. It is simple reasoning and elementary deduction. Life is no chemical accident. It is simply the result of a spectrum of elemental particles with the attribute of natural animation that long ago began to manipulate the resources of this planet - 'wear the mud' so to speak. Our physical size is extremely tiny prior to our trek into life (a feature for which anyone who is, was, or ever will become pregnant can be eternally grateful), so it comes as no surprise that we haven't been able to isolate and identify that element within us that compiles and compels our corporal garb.

As strange as it may seem, you - yourself - have no idea what you actually look like. It seems consciousness, as we know it, only occurs when you are wrapped within your corporal shell. It is amazing that an elemental seedling too small to be detectable to the instruments of modern technology could intuitively engineer a complex machine the size of a human body. And even if you could strip away the blood and the bones just long enough to glimpse your true countenance, you might see nothing at all, for that fundamental element which is you may be ethereal - it may not have the property of mass. Like space, you may be transparent - as invisible as the air you breathe.

Centuries or eons from now when the first soul is detected by a technology not yet envisioned, some interesting questions will undoubtedly arise -

* Are all life forms fungible? Does the life entity of a plant or bacterium differ in its basic nature from an insect, a fish, a bird, a mammal? Am I a human only due to the "luck of the draw"?

* At what point is the life entity 'encorporated'. Is it introduced by the sperm? Is it resident in the ovum? Is it assimilated after conception?

* If my entity can be tracked to another life cycle, can I take it ($$$) with me??

* When the Earth was formed, were the different life forms already embedded in the cosmic cloud or did they arrive over time from other areas of our galaxy ... or beyond?

* How did we get here? Why did all life in the solar system seem to congregate about this planet? Is it possible life entities can propel themselves through space to a selected environment?

* How many souls are there in the region of Earth? Are others arriving? Do some leave?

* Where was I fifty billion years ago? Where will I be fifty billion years from now? Will there still be taxes? Will bureaucrats still rule the underworld?

'Life' and 'death' are physical conditions, transient states of being. Existence is eternal. When you die you will be dead - but you will still 'be'. There will come a time in the history of mankind when future societies will look back upon our modern era and wonder how creatures who couldn't even understand the nature of their own being could have considered themselves 'intelligent'.