How old are you, if you think of the continuance of matter, stating that matter can't be created or destroyed?

Question

how old are you really? in terms of your matter, wouldn't you be as old as the universe?

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Answer 1

age is a conveinent construct. if you consider matter in our body is in continuous flux you could say we are alway born new this moment. that depends on the identity you're assigning the body. because some parts of our body go through flux at different rates. our memory in constant flux too, so you cant really count on memory or any mental stuff to define our age . in reality we are always new at every second, but we conveniently use concepts to define our reality for us.

Answer 2

My body may be made from matter that has always been around. However you can not necessarily calculate your age with that thought process. I'll admit even though chronologically I am only 21 years 1 month and 29 days old, I feel like I'm older than dirt every now and again. Everyone does.

Answer 3

The energy that composes me is part of the universe. It is as eternal as the universe itself. But unfortunately, I'm not so much interested in the energy itself, as I am the way it's organized. It isn't clear that's eternal, but it might be in some sense. If Hawkings is correct about quadrature time, history may in fact repeat itself infinitely. But it may not be the same you.

Answer 4

of course we're made of star stuff. my individual atoms were cooked up in stars several millenia ago... and then, of course, matter CAN be created and destroyed. the energy required or released might be a consideration. .. what's gonna flip your lid is that we might have access to the millenia old awareness of the particles which spontaneously organize themselves together in such a way that makes your and i's existence and self awareness possible... my current organization may be only 42 solar years old, but my constituent particles might be an accumulation of atomic awarenesses that define themselves in terms of the age of our SUN!

Answer 5

Even if my physical body is made-up of age-old energy; that is not who I am. A person can not "be" without a mind, which percieves(reading this sentence), contemplates (thinking about this question), and exerts a will to act(my answering of this question). So 21 years, 6months, and 27 days.

Answer 6

a) Matter can't be created or destroyed but surely can be transformed from one form to other
b) When you say how old are you, "you" is not clearly defined in this case. You could be physical body, mental body, energy body or even higher form of body.
c) If I take the case of physical body, surely at bottom most level (even below atoms and sub-atoms), basic constituents are as old as ever because they always existed. However, in terms of body as a whole, different parts take shape at different time during growth of fetus in the womb where organically our body is formed through collection of material layers.
d) If we take the case of mental or energy body, that is never born or destroyed so concept of age itself is irrelevant. Age is a relative term and can be applied only to those subjects that have a start and end.
e) As conclusion I could say that physical body is collection of material and keeps changing all the time (except few parts of body like heart). So age applied to us is a notinal term in terms of our identity and not physically as such. While as for mental or energy body, that's ageless and is not within perceible boundary of time.

That;s one of the basic principles followed in hindu scripture that states that as mental or energy body, we are ageless and immortal. However, our consciousness in terms of specific birth identity gets associated with us during birth which defines our worldy existence. Our Karma define what we become in physical body. Human life is a platform to use our consciousness in physical body to elevate our Karma and awareness to the level that within physical form we are able to be aware of our mental form and slowly though out rightful Karma, get rid of bond of physical body. Till that happens, we keep getting born on this earth time and again, wrapped in situations mandated by our previous Karma. Our eartly identities are false and don't have any meaning. And till we get connected to our mental body, we can't get to know who really we are.

Answer 7

yes i feel like that but it makes me feel umm well its hard to explain it, it makes me feel like i have part of everyone with me like we all exist in the same way and we all have problems and i just thought of this: it does make sense to say that when you die a baby is born because then that is where your energy has gone.
lol sorry i just sorta thought of that.


i love being as old as the universe.

and if you are religious and you think of this you could think that to make eve god had to use some of adam's energy. haha sorry just a thought process.

Answer 8

Yes. I feel like that a lot of times.

Answer 9

We are not matter, that is why we persist, and yes we are pretty old