"We take none of the organic chemistry into our spirit of who we are."

There are no ghosts in your brain Philo. Your organic chemistry
makes up whom you are. Without it, there is no Philo. But you
are free to imagine ghosts of course, as many do. As I say
"whatever gets you through the night" :) If it keeps you
happy and occupied, so be it. There are plenty of wierd
beliefs, you are not the first lol.

Dickie Hi,
Yep, heard of the story and many others like it, a little indian girl led her grand parents to a box which was buried by by her grandfather when he was just 12 years old! (figure that one out, it sounds quite scary) Ok Philo, you made your point, what with the maggots and other flesh-eating vermin that devour our remains, thanks for that, luckily I had just finished eating steak & kidney with mashed potatoes and peas. Lets come to grips with this chemical story..., it takes chemicals to make a body, it takes chemicals to react against the chemicals that made us, to devour what the original chemicals made, which was us. Now during the time of living with the chemicals which made us, we are prone to other chemicals, which react adversely to the original chemicals, which we call germs and depending on what germ we contracted, during our life time, the damn thing turns around and starts eating us away, this germ we call cancer and in most cases, we don't get away from this germ. Quo vidi? You love 'em, you hate'em, not our choice, we just have to live with them. Maybe we all end up in the other life as a ...you guessed it, a soaring chemical composite in spirit form, gee...can't wait!

I prefer to see people not as a body of chemistry, but of attitudes, actions, behaviours, of wisdom or lack and emotions - it is to these I as a person respond or react. It is to these they remain as an eternal part of history.

The total chemical cells of the body was replaced ever seven years and was merely borrowed and nourished from beast, fish and birds plus a host of other former living organic cell forms. The history of the person however resides in more than their turn over of chemistry, it resides in their attitudes, actions, and wisdom etc all these are the real values of the person. These though performed within the computer chemistry of the body are not merely the programme of the chemistry. There is a free agent operating within the chemistry, and it is that free agent that is outside the chemistry. Even as Yabby is able to evaluate his brain chemistry he as a free agent is also able to change his attitudes - however Yabby does not believe to be independent of his chemistry and is not more than his chemistry. I thought I was conversing with the person called Yabby but it now appears I am merely talking [writing] to a human body.

"There is a free agent operating within the chemistry, and it is that free agent that is outside the chemistry"

Philo, at the end of the day, you are a product of your dna and
your environment. Dna is all about organic chemistry, like it
or not. So your limits depend on your biochemistry.

How much of so called "free will" is really so free, is a complex
but interesting question, which has yet to be fully answered.
Some claim its very much an illusion, but thats a looong debate
lol. Susan Greenfield did some interesting experiments on the
subject. Subjects were asked to push a button at their own
free will. Brain scans were performed while they pushed the
button and those showed that the brain had started to act long
before the person had thought that they were deciding anything.
IMHO we have limited will, its far less free then we thought.
Look around you, people feel compelled to act in certain ways.

Lets take Dickie. Could she really choose to become a mass
axe murderer? Easy to say, harder to do.

So which chemical forces you to throw around your use of the word "lol", Yabby?

My brain chemistry can't work out what you mean. I suspect others don't know either.

Is it short for "laugh out loud?"

I know that if and when I come back, I am neither coming back as a scientist nor a biologist,(lol-lots of laughs, or lol- laugh out loud)
To decipher most of today's abreviations is enough to drive one mad.
So, I think I will "t.o.n." and "t.a.b." and hope the "p.k.t" will not contain "h.o.g". So..."s.i.g.t.u.i." and hopefully see you in the next life, cheers!