In human thermodynamics, cessation thermodynamics is the study of death, or termination of the physical movement or neurological activity of a person (human molecule), in relation to a potential or hypothetical conserved (moral or amoral) "essence of a person", in the post-cessation bonded structure of the universe or society, as discerned by the first law of thermodynamics, which states that energy can be neither created nor destroyed. [1] In simple terms, cessation thermodynamics studies how, if at all, the energy content of the being of a person, as described via the fundamental forces, connects to the movement of the universe. The first to postulate ideas along these lines was German physican and physicist Hermann von Helmholtz who in 1892, in his discussions on the thermodynamics of Goethe's Faust, reasoned that the ebb and flow of life, and its relation to death, has an explanation in the total constancy of energy or active force, for both animate and inanimate life. [2]

The topic of death, and particularly "what happens to a person when they die", although this philosophical puzzle is the most desired query to be answered in modern times, generally tends to remain a relatively mute one in science. [2] No satisfactory scientific solutions, to date, have been published. [3] The law of conservation of energy (the first law of thermodynamics), however, is the only law seated to provide a solution. In the 1950s, for instance, Iranian thermodynamicist Mehdi Bazargan stated:

“Thermodynamics might be able to say, though very vaguely, if there is going to be a resurrection and another world, how this may occur and what the other world may look like … In this way, we may be able to examine to what extent the signs of the other world, as provided by the prophets, are plausible. If these signs about the resurrection, paradise and hell form a reasonable and sensible related collection that new sciences, to some extent, affirm, then such beliefs are not baseless." [10]

Overview
Historically, or colloquially, as discerned through the world's religions, which can be considered as the sciences of the past, a general theory pervades throughout that following the death of the physical body a type of soul, spirit, essence, p’o, hun, yin, yang, pitri, atman, nafs, ruh, kami, jiva, pheuma, physche, élan vital, fravashi, totism, psychopomp, dooh, dusha, rauch, n’shama, ka, or ba, etc., remains, transforms, or migrates into a post-cessation state of existence. [8] For most of history, these terms were explained by the various religious texts and the stories they derived from.

In the 1850s, however, with the development of the science of energetics (thermodynamics), the view of what these terms were in compostion began to change. The earliest views on this type of logic from the field of psychodynamic, or energy psychology, in combination with late 19th century animism or vitalist views, in which life forms were argued to have a special type of "vital energy" distinct from that of the physical energies. In the late 19th century, for instance, German psychologist Wilhelm Wundt, with his "System der Philosophie", sought to understand the human mind by identifying the constituent parts of human consciousness, in the same way that a chemical compound is broken into various elements and who viewed psychology as a science, much like physics or chemistry, in which consciousness is a collection of identifiable parts.

In 1910, using Wundt as source, in reference to the thermodynamic aspects of death, American social historian Henry Adams stated that "the naturalist now readily admits that plants have souls -- or will-power, -- but he appropriates the soul as an energy of thermodynamics." [4] This logic for the human scenario soon followed.

In modern terms, where, according to general scientific consensus, everything in the universe is either matter or energy or variations therein; quantities which can be further divided into entities called fermions, i.e. half integer spin particles, or bosons, i.e. integer spin particles, cessation thermodynamics considers how the life and death of a person connects, if at all, in respect to the movement of the universe.

Thims' cessation conservation hypothesis
One of the first workable theories of a scientific explanation of death, and particularly "what happens to a person when they die?", was the cessation conservation hypothesis, developed in rudimentary form by American chemical engineer Libb Thims in a chapter of the 2003 manuscript Human Thermodynamics (Volume Three) in which it was argued that following death the three components of a person that remain, aside from material possessions, are: (a) the physical body (comprised of 26-elements that eventually are recycled in the biogeochemical cycle), (b) the possible genetic material (in the form of offspring), and (c) a residual energy content (of the consequences of a person's actions throughout life). The latter of these, was hypothesized to be transported into the central nervous systems of family, friends, and acquaintances in either an organizing or deorganizing manner depending on the moral character, virtue, or righteousness of the person at the point of termination. [5]

References
1. (a) Thims, Libb. (2007). Human Chemistry (Volume Two), (preview), Ch 16: section "Cessation Thermodynamics", (693-699). Morrisville, NC: LuLu.
(b) Klass, Dennis. Silverman, Phyllis, R. and Nickman, Steven L. (1996). Continuing Bonds - New Understandings of Grief. New York: Taylor and Francis.
(c) 30+ Variations of the First Law of Thermodynamics - Institute of Human Thermodynamics
2. Helmholtz, Hermann. (1892). “Goethe’s Presentiments of Coming Scientific Ideas”, Speech held in the General Assembly of the Goethe Society, Weimar in Science and Culture: Popular and Philosophical Essays, (ch. 15, pg. 393-412 [411]), 1995, by Hermann von Helmholtz, David Cahan.
3. Thims, Libb. (2005) “What is Humankinds Present-Day Greatest Philosophical Conundrum?” (people polled in person in Chicago [N=81 votes]. institute of Human Thermodynamics
4. (a) Roach, Mary (2005). Spook – Science Tackles the Afterlife. W. W. Norton & Co.
(b) Crick, Francis (1995). The Astonishing Hypothesis – the Scientific Search for the Soul. Touchstone Books.
(c) Tipler, Franl, J. (1997). The Physics of Immortality – Modern Cosmology, God and the Resurrection of the Dead. Anchor.
(d) Alper, Matthew (2001). The "God" Part of the Brain - a Scientific Interpretation of Human Spirituality and God. Rogue Press.
(e) Blum, Deborah. (2006). Ghost Hunters - William James and the Search for Scientific Proof of Life After Death. New York: Penguin Books.
(f) Fisher, Len. (2004). Weighing the Soul - the Evolution of Scientific Beliefs. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson.
(g) Zimmer, Carl. (2004). Soul Made Flesh - the Discovery of the Brain and How it Changed the World. New York: Free Press.
(h) Twining, Harry LaVerne. (1915). The Physical Theory of the Soul. (182 pages).
5. (a) Bazargan, Eshq va Parastesh ya Thermodynamic-e Ensan, 159.
(b) Taghavi, Sehed M. (2004). The Flourishing of Islamic Reformism in Iran: Political Islamic Groups in Iran (1941-61), (pg. 84). Routledge.
6. World’s religious divisions (by percent): Christian (32.8), Muslim (19.6), Hindu (12.8), Nonreligious (12.8), Chinese Religions (6.4), Buddhist (6.0), Ethnic Religionists (4.2), Atheist (2.5), New Religionists (1.7), Sikhs (0.4), Spiritists (0.2), Bahais (0.1), Confucians (0.1), Jains (0.07), Shintoists (0.05), Other Religionists (0.02), Zoroastrians (0.005), Mandeans (0.0006). [Source: Time Almanac 2002].
7. Adams, Henry, and Brooks, Adams. (1910). "A Letter to American Teachers of History", Kessinger Publishing (reprint).
8. Thims, Libb. (2003). Human Thermodynamics, VIII (manscript). Chicago: Institute of Human Thermodynamics.

Further reading
● Teilhard, Pierre de Chardin (1955). “The Death-Barrier and Co-Reflection”, (see parts: The Sense of Irreversibility and the Principle of the Conservation of Consciousness). Jan. 01, as found in Teilhard, Pierre. (1976). Activation of Energy, (pgs. 395-406). New York: Harvest Book.

External links
● Cessation thermodynamics - Institute of Human Thermodynamics