In the earlier post, NicknamedBob said: "However, if you disassemble a lit candle, you may "extinguish" an ineffable property of the candle that cannot be reassembled readily. "
That point strikes home with me because if you break down a rock, a live rabbit and a dead rabbit - a similar phenomenon occurs. Ultimately, having broken them down, we observe they are all made of the same particles and fields. But some non-physical thing was lost along the way that the live rabbit became dead.
Exactly so, dearest sister in Christ! That seems to be the very thing that science, as presently constituted, cannot capture by its methods.
Here's another huge question. If we and everything else in the natural world finally "bottom out" and are "unified" in the realm of (seemingly inchoate, homogenous, and non-purposive) quantum particles and fields (as is nowadays widely supposed), what accounts for the "particularity" or specific thing-ness of inorganic and organic entities that we commonly observe? That is, what imbues them with the character of actual "objects" that are detectable as such by our senses? For that matter, why/how do we perceive "structure" in the world in the first place?
Just a little food for thought.... At least it's something I've been thinking about lately.
Dearest sister in Christ, thank you ever so much for pointing out what ought to be obvious but isn't so to many!