When you are born, you live. You have a body, soul, thoughts,… But what are you before you are born (for the fusion of egg and sperm)? Not alive, because you can’t think, breathe,… But you can’t call yourself dead either, because something dead can’t come back to life, can it?
Asker: sylvia, 25 years old
Answer
Best,
From a scientific-biological point of view, our body is built from the genes (= DNA) that we have received from our parents. So, the egg carries half the genes from the mother and the sperm carries half the genes from the father. These genes are brought together into a new combination, a combination that is therefore different from that of the mother as well as that of the father. This makes each individual unique – just look around you, and you will never meet anyone exactly like you (except perhaps the identical twins). So, when someone dies, that unique individual also dies. At birth a new individual arises.
Of course we pass on part of our characteristics to our children, so that part of us does not die: half of our children are made up of copies of our genes, our DNA.
As for thoughts and experiences, you basically build them from scratch from birth. But here too many thoughts are passed on from generation to generation (our culture, school education, etc.).
Answered by
Prof. dr. dr. Luc Bouwens
Biomedical Sciences
Free University of Brussels
Avenue de la Plein 2 1050 Ixelles
http://www.vub.ac.be/
Avenue de la Plein 2 1050 Ixelles
http://www.vub.ac.be/
.