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Most of the body’s cells are continually turning over. Some cells renew over a period of years, while others are replaced every few days. So, most of the molecules (and therefore atoms) of our bodies return to the planet as well, in an endless atomic cycling and replacements.
From this perspective, then, are we living beings moving around upon this rock we call Earth? Or are we in fact the Earth itself, whose atoms have self-organized to form the the transitory beings that think of themselves as self-sufficient and separate from each other, even though they only ever arose from and will inevitably return to the atomic substance of the planet?
As the scales of our investigation continue to get smaller, our boundaries continue to expand outward. At the atomic scale, each one of us is both our own separate self and, in complementarity, also just walking, talking Earth.
—Neil Theise
Notes on Complexity: A Scientific Theory of Connection,
Consciousness, and Being
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