This relates to death...It is a fundamental scientific law that all energy is transferred. When we die, where does our energy go? As an agnostic I find this question quite fascinating, because there is a wealth of possible answers from wonderful to mundane. What do you guys think (not an 'is there an afterlife' question, I'm seeing where you think our energies go)?

There's not really anything to answer, it doesn't go anywhere.

The energy in your body is stored by a chemical called ATP, and it's released via respiration. Once you die it's no longer released, it's still inside you, stored chemically, not doing anything.

I havent heard of ATP before. So you're saying the energy just becomes dormant? What about when a body is completely decomposed, I'm not that scientifically versed, what would happen to it then?

All chemicals contain energy, it's "locked up" in the bonds which hold the chemical together. The energy is released when the bonds are broken, if it's eaten and broken down by another animal and released via respiration, or if it's burned and released as heat energy etc.

And when the body decomposes, the energy goes into the soil, which then goes into a plant seed, which grows into a plant that gets eaten by another person.

Canibalism.

Or, if you prefer... the glorious cycle of nature.

I think the question posed in this thread is referring to an energy far more sophisticated and elusive than ATP. All humans have an electromagnetic field, and this cannot simply dissipate into nothingness. Does it rise into the afterlife?

are electromagnetic field is strogest in the brain

when we die it sometimes it does not just turn off

it can short out if one is not already in a state of calmness

Okay.... biology classes were a long time ago.... but doesn't the elctro-magnetic field come from electrons and protons flying around like mad in the atoms that make up our cells?

So.... when the cells break down and release their molecules or atoms, wouldn't these atoms (and thus the electrical energy) be spread out, taken into other things, etc.

Me? Personally... I believe that people have spirits that go elsewhere when we die. I do not think it the same thing as our body's natural electro-magnetic field. Therefore, the question doesn't pertain to the idea of a spirit or soul.

I don't believe we have an electroMAGNETIC field, though we may well have an electrostatic field as a consequence of electriciy in nerves and neurons. This field (abeit very weak) is continously being dissipated. In essence, it drains to 'earth' (in this case, literaly the earth). When we die, we cease producing this field. It collapses back into our neurons/nerves etc as the driving voltage in our nerves collapses. In theory, the collapsing field could produce a brief pulse of electricity in our nervous system. This produces heat, which gradually dissipates into our surroundings.

What a cheerful topic

Meow Purr.

Our energy disperses.

All matter is made of energy as your body decomposes this matter is simply transformed into different matter and returned to the Earth. At the moment of death your body simply switches off like a light switch.

I don't really have enough science to answer this, but that doesn't stop anyone else, so here goes. There are at least two forms of energy within the human body.

One is stored body mass; the proteins, enzyme,s starches, calcium, water and other substances which are built up by our transformation of external food sources to our bodily structure. These, as others have said, are broken down into their basic constituent elements by the processes of nature and transferred either into soil nutrients, or into food for plants and animals (if unburied)

The other is a very small electrical charge created through the physical operation of the brain. I forget what the energy source for this is, but something mundane like starch within our body. This charge ceases when the brain stops operating. We have all seen a visual representation of this on some medical show when the brainwaves (not heart rhythm ), flatlines.

Once both the brain and the body are truly dead, this electrical activity ceases completely. However this energy, which serves to transmit and receive neural impulses to nerves throughout the body, as well as power the organic processor known as our brain, is not transformed. It has been used as it goes.

The physical analogy is like turning off a generator or dynamo. The energy ceases to be "created" (actually it ceases to be transformed through mechanical processes from one form to another) Thus once the brain is dead, all the energy ceases. This is why our brains always die when our body dies, but our bodies can live for a long while even though brain function has ceased.

In purely physical terms this tends to negate the idea of a soul /spirit, or consciousness existing independently of the brain. For this reason many people have constructed the argument that these things have always existed independently of the energy source from the brain, and so are able to continue to do so once the brain dies.

However, as with creationism vs evolution, all the scientific evidence falls on one side of the debate, and dissenters must largely do so through faith and belief.