Quote Originally Posted by Ultraprene View Post
Before expounding theories about "energy" please go to the library and read a freshman physics book. Yes, when you die the chemical energy of your body is conserved in a First Law sense, just as is the energy in a lump of coal, but who cares, except to the worms or scavengers that eat your corpse.
This is not the first time I've seen the Law of Conservation of Energy misinterpeted to justify the immortality of the soul. The confusion is between energy and information (structure). The difference between a living body and a lump of meat is not the energy but the structure, the ordering on the molecular level, and specifically the information contained in the structure of the brain. Energy is conserved, but information can be destroyed effortlessly, as anyone who has lost a vital file knows all too well.

It's like the old puzzler "where does the flame go when the candle goes out?" A flame is an ordered structure of energy, maintained by a constant flow of energy through it: when the flow stops, the structure collapses and there is no flame. Ipsum est for living beings.