Atheists, a question about death?

Question

First, I'd like to start by saying that I am by no means christian. Nor am I trying to enflame or irritate anyone (in other words, not a troll).

Recently I was thinking about the nature of energy and matter and the laws of conservation of each. (Stating that neither can be created nor destroyed, merely changed). Keeping in mind that essentially, the human body is matter and energy and what the matter changes into is easily explained in the decomposition process, what happens to the energy?

Answer 1

I am a buddhist (no I don't worship any idols, I don't know where this idea keeps coming from!!!!), and practice a non-denominational teaching from the mouth of buddha. I am interested in all sects of buddhism, including Pureland, but don't necessarily fall for it but have the same question rolling through my head from time to time. "Where does the energy go?"

I work with dying people. I've seen a lot of people die. Here is a scenerio that happens repeatedly and I have never had a conclusive, scientific answer for it:

The person is dying. The body temperature goes up very high, 102 - 104 degrees. The skin, mouth, toungue, lips, are dry. The person has an oxygen mask over their mouth and nose to help with the comfort of those last breaths. The room is warm. The person dies. Oxygen is turned off. Last vitals are being taken to confirm death. There is a death rattle. Perhaps one or two minutes has gone by since time of death. A white cloud of something comes out of the dead person's mouth, fills the oxygen mask and dissipates. (It doesn't happen with all deaths and it's harder to see if there isn't an oxygen mask on)

What was it? Of course god believers that I know say it is proof of a soul/heaven/god. Non-believers that I know say it is just vapor escaping. Since I'm not a god believer I don't believe the first and since the body's temp was still in the hundreds and the room was warm I don't believe the second (it wasn't like warm/cold water meeting the opposite air temp is what I'm trying to say).

There has to be some part of our energy that goes on, either to the Pureland or absorbed into the universe or reincarnated or to just stick around as a ghost - lol, because I've never received a really convincing scientific answer to this.

Answer 2

>Keeping in mind that essentially, the human body is matter and energy and what the matter changes into is easily explained in the decomposition process, what happens to the energy?

The amount of energy in a human body is very small compared to the amount of matter, when related using e=mc^2. The chemical energy stored up in a corpse that decomposes is transferred to the bacteria and other organisms that take part in the decomposition process, which they use for their own purposes. Any kind of radioactive energy (and there is a little, of course) would just remain in whatever atoms there are until the atoms decay (not the same thing as decomposition, I'm talking about nuclear decay here). The electrical energy, which is what allows the brain and nervous system to function, is constantly dissipating into waste heat anyway, and upon death the system keeping the electricity running would just shut down and stop working, so the remaining electricity would dissipate into waste heat as well and simply not be replaced. In case you were wondering, this waste heat would very quickly lose all semblance of a pattern that could be used to identify the person's brain processes. If you wanted to tell what a dead person had in their memory, looking at their neural structure in their brain would be much easier than looking at any kind of heat generated by the brain; this holds true when the person is alive as well.

Answer 3

The same thing that happens to, say, a rock. A rock is nothing but matter, energy, atoms and molecules. When it gets pulverized or melted in a volcano, it simply is transformed into another rock (or sand) and some residual gasses. Its the ultimate in recycling.
Remember, however, that energy is always being lost, never gained. This is why there is not such thing as perfectly efficient and perfectly clean energy (i.e. Cold Fusion). Its along the lines of: "For something to get clean, something else must get dirty." If that makes any sense.
Asking what happens to the energy is a physics question that I do not know the answer too. What happened to the gravity energy that was holding your computer to the desk an hour ago? Is it still there, or was it replaced?

Answer 4

The energy is released from the body into the Earth. It will then be recycled to make new life like plants and the cycle begins again. Herbivores; like cows, eat the plants, taking in their energy. Humans and other animals eat the cows and we regain the energy. We give birth and have a family of our own, passing that energy on, and the cycle goes on and on.

Answer 5

Energy and matter are interchangeable using the equation e=mc^2

In fact, there would be very little energy to dissipate, because the body would be done converting matter into energy.

Answer 6

The amount of energy in the universe is always constant. So we are merely just continually organizing ourselves energetically. Life is a dream and death is an illusion.

Answer 7

Take your temperature. You're pretty warm, aren't you? Maybe you're not warm by Houston mid-July outdoors standards (grumble grumble), but the energy still goes to use. Plus, the cute little bacteria and bugs all all those good things find ways to use energy. It doesn't just go away or anything.

Answer 8

Matter is just stored energy...

the energy gets converted into another form of energy...

like when you rub your hands together - you're using chemical energy from the food you eat to create mechanical energy (hands rubbing) which gets converted into heat

Answer 9

The mind is the flow of electrochemical energy. At death, the electrical component dissipates as heat, the chemical dissipates via biological decomposition.

Answer 10

Decomposition.