Everything that I see in life is made up of atoms right? Including me?

So when I die, and my cells die and start to decay, what happens to the atoms that make up "me?"

Or for that matter, what happens when things decompose? What happens to those atoms?

I'm sorry I'm so stupid.

What happens to 'your' atoms now? Like the carbon atoms in your blood that you breathe in and out?

The point is that your atoms just happen to make you up right now, and you tend to think of yourself as a seperate system, but in reality it's all one big goo and it will continue just as it always has.

Reality is just an eternal reconfiguration.

Change, the universe and everything
http://www.youtube.com/view_play_lis...D32A99195A16BE

I will have to watch this video when I get home because youtube is blocked at work.

So "I" am just a collection of atoms configured in a way to that I think I am here.

Well, you ARE actually here. It's just that we attach a huge emotional investment into it, which is called an ego. People with huge egos won't be able to see these things btw, and/or take this knowledge into more peaceful and pleasant life-choices.

Sorry Nielso im new to SMP. Do you follow Buddhist teachings (5 aggregates etc.)?

Buddhist perspective and practise is part of my life, yes.

If you're buried your atoms become worm atoms.

If your rotting corpse is left out in the open, your atoms become buzzard atoms.

Its all a big recycle.

Stu

You cant like ...own atoms man.. there like mother earth creatures.

Is it true there is a good chance that there are atoms from the second after the big bang in my glass of water? Also that Jesus, if he existed, has gasped some of the same O2 molecules, or composed of a shared atom? Or are these popular zeitgeist tidbits?

If so there is a good chance 'you' will become some peanut butter on the toast of the president of the European States.

Are you aware that there is not a single cell or atom currently in or on your body that was with you 10 years ago? Where did they all go?

Your atoms even in your brain get cycled out every 7 years. Do you consider yourself a "materialist." It seems to me to be by far the most likely correct position.

It's my understanding that every atom that makes up the universe today are all atoms that came from the big bang. Take humans as an example: We're made up of mostly carbon, oxygen, and hydrogen atoms. Now I know there wasn't any carbon or oxygen atoms a second after the big bang, but carbon atoms, oxygen atoms and all other atoms on the periodic table are simply evolved hydrogen atoms. So every atom that makes up our body originated from primordial hydrogen atoms. As one physicist put it "We are what hydrogen atoms can do after 13.7 billion years."


If Jesus existed I believe it is true that you have gasped some of the same oxygen molecules as he has. You have also gasped some of the same oxygen or nitrogen molecules as dinosaurs. And surely some of the water molecules you drink have passed through Jesus's bladder. I think elementary probability explains this. There are a lot of atoms out there.

Surely some of the atoms that once made up our body are already in the peanut butter sandwich.

If anything I said is wrong someone please correct me.

to my understanding this is correct, that very basic atoms (hydrogen) where formed once the universe cooled enough to allow for particles to bond together to form molecules and atoms...heavier elements wouldnt come until the first generation of stars went supernova and created them...

i like that quote as well...any idea who said it?

Carl Sagan said it. I first heard it from this video at the 13:33 mark:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_6uKZWnJLCM

I didn't quote it perfectly but I got the idea right.

Excellent link! Thanks.

i've watched this clip 4 or 5 times and i still find it sooooooo interesting...

+1

Modest mouse wrote a song about this "Some day you will die and somehow something's going to steal your carbon"

Just to add, neutral hydrogen and helium formed sometime around 300,000 years after the big bang. The nuclei of these atoms formed 3 minutes or so after the big bang, but it took a while for the universe to cool down enough to where these nuclei could hold electrons. The heavier elements such as carbon. calcium etc are the products of stars and most of the atoms that make us up where probably thrown out in a supernova. I heard somebody, maybe Sagan, say that we are just pieces of the universe that look up at the sky and wonder about ourselves

This is exactly the reason I made this post. Forget God. God or no God, it doesn't really matter. We know the universe exists. And we know that we are products OF the universe. So we are just the universe trying to understand itself.

I think you guys will like this:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?do...63150077&hl=en

Nice post Max. Exactly when the hydrogen atom came on the scene is something I didn't know.