Your phrasing is very interesting: "consider who that person is since they died." It's interesting because you refer to the dead person in the present tense, "

Your phrasing is very interesting: "consider who that person is since they died." It's interesting because you refer to the dead person in the present tense, "who it is," not "who it was". Yet, in the following sentence you say "they are a collection of elements." Even when attempting to state "cold hard facts," we cannot help but exhibit our humanity, and it's a reminder why we should treat the dead with respect. In my opinion, being alive is more than just a collection of atoms and the interactions between them. And in death, while the electrons stop moving in that particular way that made us alive, that "something special" still remains in the form of their memory.