Quote: Why atoms take this trouble is a bit of a puzzle. Being you is not a gratifying experience at the atomic level. For all their devoted attention, your atoms don't actually care about you- indeed, don't even know that you are there. They don't even know that they are there. They are mindless particles, after all, and not even themselves alive. (It is a slightly arresting notion that if you were to pick yourself apart with tweezers, one atom at a time, you would produce a mound of fine atomic dust, none of which had ever been alive but all of which had once been you.) Yet somehow for the period of your existence they will answer to a single overarching impulse: to keep you you.
Question: When I read this excerpt, I questioned why we were made up of nonliving particles. I also questioned how we would produce a mound of fine atomic dust and if that happens with Atomic bombs.
Comment: I was surprised to find out that we would produce just a mound of fine atomic dust, if picked apart. I was also surprised that we are made up of nonliving particles.
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