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

"Cogito ergo sum." (Descartes)

I think, therefore I am. One must exist in order to experience, and the fact 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 collection of billions of separate elements or fundamental particles, each with its own individual properties. Each basic particle pre-existed your birth and will ultimately survive your demise. Each has a unique history, a separate location and physical domain. Logically this presents a conundrum. How can you be a single existence if that physical manifestation which you consider to be "yourself" is a composite? Indeed, every existence has its own unique identity and a collection of existences will have as many separate, individual identities as there are elements in the set.

The Pinocchio Hypothesis

To reconcile this disparity, hordes of scholarly pundits with names literally drowning in alphabet soup 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, very long time, you can produce a composite that thinks, propagates and experiences a single existence with a singular 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" or EP and they credit it with the creation of all life on Earth.

But even the most tenured of scholars aren't able to explain the specific mechanics of EP that transform a body with 8x10²⁷ atoms into an individual existence with a single identity. In fact, there seems to be two distinct factions in the EP camp. The 'integration' group assures us without hesitation that some unknown power of unification melds a composite into a single identity and awareness. This faction would have us believe 8x10²⁷ = 1. On the other hand, the 'emergence' group tries to convince us 8x10²⁷ = 8x10²⁷+1, claiming any sense of self is due to the whole being greater than the sum of its parts. They expect us to believe composites can conjure up a supervening entity, a temporary ego or virtual being with its own separate awareness and identity. In their practice of this mathematical sorcery, proponents of EP are idiomatically reduced to using the incantations "integrated" and "emergent" because "abracadabra" and "hocus pocus" are still frowned upon within the orthodox scientific community.

Hogwarts! If this is science, then Harry Potter is the next Isaac Newton. If you believe you are the corporal product of emergent properties then you are claiming that you are an occurrence and not an existence. Merlin, himself, would be embarrassed by such magical thinking.

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." Life is no chemical accident, nor was it conjured into fruition by some benevolent and omnipotent deity. Life is simply the product of a spectrum of elemental particles with the attribute of natural animation; animated particles that long ago began to manipulate the resources of this planet or '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.

Your 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. 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 your human corpse is, in fact, entirely removable - demonstrably so. If you cut off an appendage, it will suddenly be over there, yet you will not lose your identity. You will probably still have feeling in a phantom limb that isn't there. Just because something was held onto your corpse by molecular bond didn't make it YOU. Your corpse is simply the remnants of that hamburger and fries you ate a few years ago, that beer you had yesterday and that delicious Cesar salad from the 1990's. Most of the cells you wear today will be replaced by new cuisine within the next seven years or so. The brain is said to be the home of the id, yet you can remove any number of its lobes and still retain your identity; there is no specific cell in your entire corporal structure whose removal would cause you significant distress, much less destroy your sense of self.

As strange as it may seem, you have no idea what you actually look like because consciousness, as we know it, only occurs when you are wrapped within your corporal shell. 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 not have the property of mass. Like space, your essence may be transparent - more invisible than 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?

* Does the life form have a fixed volume or does it expand and contract? Does it grow as it grows the body or does it just weave thin fibers of itself throughout the nervous system?

* 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 trillion years ago? Where will I be fifty trillion 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 when the evidence that surrounded them was so obvious and compelling.

Life is a transient state of being, followed, of course, by another condition called Death. Your existence didn't begin with your birth, nor will it end upon your demise. Existence is eternal, states of being are temporary.

Actually, the concept of Life After Death is pretty much a no-brainer. You were certainly dead nine months before you were born. You are (presumably) alive now, so the matter really isn't debatable. But a number of rather profound and interesting questions do; however, arise from the premise - and having been dead as currently as 1948, I feel that my recent experience as a decedent makes my conjecture just as valid as that of any who care to abuse the subject.

Why haven't we detected ourselves within our corporal garb? What is life?

Just consider the state of being from which we begin our trek into life. Due to our diminutive size - that of an elemental particle - our presence can't be detected by our primitive technology. Systematically we envelop ourselves in terrestrial materials genetically encoded by our host (mother) to assure we benefit from the latest version of modern corporal engineering. As we process the elements fed to us, we craft our shell and become proficient in its use. We learn to "Wear the Mud" - so to speak.

From galaxies to planetary systems and atomic architecture, nuclei are a common natural feature. A defined center of being would be necessary to any real sense of identity. Your nucleus probably resides between your ears and behind your eyes from where you spin fine threads of yourself throughout the nervous system to monitor every portion of your body except for the hair, nails and other anatomy where nerves do not reside. What we experience as thought and consciousness seem to be spawned - or at least amplified and enhanced - by the brain and nervous system of our body. As external stimulus filters through our corporal shell, our actions and reactions cause changes in the chemistry and physiology of our body which are readily discernible - muscular movement, electrical and chemical reactions. We act and react to the condition of our own elemental being (first level experience), the condition of our corporal shell (second level experience) and the condition of its immediate environment (third level experience).

It doesn't take a chemist to know that the more concentrated something is, the higher its potency. The less surface area an element exposes to its environment, the more control it exerts over that area. If a life particle expands its corporal domain by threading itself through a system of nerve fibers, the amount of surface area exposed to external forces must be tremendous, and the amount of effort it must expend to maintain control must be vast. The metabolism or internal effort that a life form must maintain to cope with the processes it compells must be phenomenally high in contrast to its condition in the death state. When you are awake, your metabolism is at its highest and time seems to pass at a normal rate. When you sleep, your metabolism slows and hours seem to pass in what seems to be only minutes. Upon your demise, your internal metabolism may slow to a mere crawl. Years, centuries or even eons may pass in the blink of an eye. Of course, I have no hard data on the death cycle. My memory just isn't that good and the deceased are not prone to engage in interviews and studies. We may pop back into life after a brief respite, or some of us may skip through a couple of eons of cosmic change, re-animating as some ugly primitive critter just as life gains a toe hold on some new planet orbiting some future star. Don't worry too much about how long it takes, you literally have all the time in the world.

"So," you ask, "if I existed before I was born, if I lived a life prior to this one, why can't I remember it?"

Good question . . . thought you'd never ask.

Have you ever tried to play a 78 rpm record on a DVD player? Indeed, the human format has only been around for a very short time on the cosmic calendar. Any prior life experience you may have had on this planet may not have been of the human variety.

What you experience as memory is your detection of a change in condition that a stimulus has recorded upon BOTH your body and your being. Conscious thought is played back upon the senses - this feedback is often called the "mind's eye". You no longer have the same brain or nervous system to call upon to replay the events of a past life. The impressions of previous events are not ingrained upon your present body and the corpse you currently inhabit may be somewhat different in its architecture. Memory seems to be a call on demand feature inherent to our nature. When you are awake, you tend to recall those memories which best serve the processes of your waking consciousness. You are more likely to remember your dreams while you are still in a semi-dream state and unless you make a conscious effort to record or bookmark them, you often can't recall them after you are fully awake - even when you know you definitely experienced a dream. Even waking memories tend to decay over time unless they are reinforced periodically. This doesn't mean you may not still have soul memories from past lives, but they may not be retrievable by your consciousness. They would be dim, you would have to have some reason to summon their recall and the effort required to retrieve and decode them may not be worth the trouble.

When you eventually die, it may well be a familiar state to whatever level of consciousness you experience. You may even vaguely remember past death states - probably more as an instinct than as the vivid sounds and images generated by your living "mind's eye". Your condition in death is vastly different from your condition while alive.

Only the currently dead know for sure, but the clues seem to indicate two possibilities -

1) If life IS a cycle, the life form probably returns to its concentrated pre-life state and its metabolism slows to a crawl. As in life, there may be a gradual maturing process - at the end of which it eventually finds its way into the womb of a suitable host (same species?) and the cycle begins again - creating a new rung in the ladder of evolution.

2) If life is NOT a cycle, the life form may - or may not - maintain its configuration (a bald, naked ghost with no finger nails). If the entity has the property of mass, it may be bound to the planet - else it may move (or be moved by random forces) to parts unknown to begin a new realm of experiences.

I'd put my money on #1. It is in the nature of all forms of existence to maximize control over the environment. As I see it, the most powerful forces in the environment are material in nature, so control over matter is highly prized. Being ethereal in nature may be fun for a while - soaring over the earth, slipping under the door and going to concerts for free, etc., but it is next to impossible to log onto the internet without fingers to punch the keyboard. I think I'd REALLY miss steak and potatoes . . . and beer. I'd miss the company of kindred spirits - humanity - with all of its foibles and imperfections. But most of all, I'd miss the love of my life - my lady Linda, to whom this site is dedicated.