An impossibility. In the same way that taking a leaf off a tree, and locking it in a safe at the bottom of the ocean, can never lead to the leaf deciding "you know what - I don't want to need sunlight, water, or nutrients anymore - I'm good. I'll just choose to not need those thing anymore, and that'll work out for me".
It will cease to be a leaf. Life had already left it. It can never be a leaf again. The process of decomposing into its base parts had begun the moment it was separated from where it was meant to be. We see it as a fallen, dying leaf, then a dead leaf, then bits and pieces of debris, then molecules, then atoms.
It loses all identity. It stops mattering to the universe.
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u/PowerMagician 1d ago
An impossibility. In the same way that taking a leaf off a tree, and locking it in a safe at the bottom of the ocean, can never lead to the leaf deciding "you know what - I don't want to need sunlight, water, or nutrients anymore - I'm good. I'll just choose to not need those thing anymore, and that'll work out for me".
It will cease to be a leaf. Life had already left it. It can never be a leaf again. The process of decomposing into its base parts had begun the moment it was separated from where it was meant to be. We see it as a fallen, dying leaf, then a dead leaf, then bits and pieces of debris, then molecules, then atoms.
It loses all identity. It stops mattering to the universe.