* I'm Alive....Honest! * in Just Stuff

Consider all the following “truths” that most people believe without much
questioning.

Few people today would consider an oxygen atom, a water molecule, nor
chains of molecules as being alive. All these “systems of small parts” are
dynamic and orderly, but few would say there is any “true life” within them.

With this knowledge alone it is easy to see that ALL of your body is made
of “nonliving parts”. Some of your body parts might be replaced with
nonliving parts like metal hip “bones”, heart valves, tooth fillings, etc.

A favorite concept of science fiction writers is that a human body could
eventually be entirely replaced by small manufactured parts, and the system
of how the original parts interacted could be preserved and maintained by
the replacements.

This might even be acceptable in the more “sacred areas”. For instance, if
doctors commonly “cured” a migraine headache by replacing a single nerve
cell inside the brain with a small electronic chip, in theory, most people
would agree to the substitution, just as they might agree to a hip
replacement.

Such systems can be described, quite faithfully, as a group of methods for
messages to be conveyed. Yet no single message that is sent is considered
to be a living entity.

Clearly your body is made of nonliving parts that follow rules of nonliving
processes of interaction, and it is only the entire system of how they
interact that is commonly called “alive”.

Ask yourself,
Am I dead? Am I mostly dead? Why are these questions so absolutely silly
to ask? Why am I so smug and merely entertain the questions as “goofy
diversions?”

Are all my thoughts messages? If so, who sends them? To whom?

Are my thoughts “raw code?”

Or, are my thoughts more like the “noisy artifacts” of my parts keeping the
system “going?” Does my “wiring” “hum” with thought?

Where do I live in this machine?

Why do I live here?

Am I the sum total of all these interacting parts and the history of how
they have interacted? Is that all?

If a God exists, is he a robot maker?

What would happen if I spent the rest of this day being aware of my really
living part?

Regards,
Rick