Taz writes:
Considering the fact that you seem to imply there is nothing about you-you that makes you greater than the sum of your parts, I would think that you would have no problem if I remove one component of you from the rest of your body.
As I illustrated with the hard drive example, the particular arrangement of things can be assigned greater meaning by minds without there actually being anything special about those parts themselves. For example, I can value the particular arrangement of my hard drive over say someone else's hard drive, or a lump of exactly the same materials in my hard drive in no particular configuration, without positing the existence of some "soul" of my drive on which to assign this worth.
Similarly I can assign greater worth to having my head right where it is rather than being removed without suggesting that there is some intrinsic quality of worth which is objectively created by its fixation and destroyed by its removal. In other words, I can value staying alive without believing that the universe values my staying alive.
My quote you cited I believe conveyed this concept rather concisely. When someone says that they are more than the sum of their parts they are referring to the value they assign to their parts being arranged in a particular manner. Once they admit this "greater summation" is purely conceptual it is easy to see why assumptions of souls to embody this value is unwarranted.