Cars and planes are not nearly so complex as persons, but they are becoming more sophisticated. Self driving cars and self flying planes are on the route to becoming more like us; in concept, a person is like a virtual driver or pilot created by an autonomous vehicle as a sophisticated form of control. This is what the evidence is telling us. The idea that living things are driven by something separate has no basis in evidence or reason. Does a carrot grow because at some point it is invaded by a carrot spirit which causes it to grow and when the carrot dies are we to imagine that the carrot spirit runs off to find another baby carrot to invade ?
As discussed earlier...self driving cars only tell us that we can drive cars remotely, not that they don't need any driver. Self driven cars are driven by the software and hardware that we humans have developed, just like other robots. So...nothing new there.
As I have said earlier, if a self driven car crashes up we will not arrest the car. We will only pull up the software and GPS guys. In other words, the Consciousness is working from somewhere else and needs to take responsibility for the car.
On the second point...Life energy is different from Consciousness. Consciousness (spirit) is said to be independent of the body/brain. But Life is an energy called Prana (or Chi for those who prefer Chinese) which enters something and gives it life. If the prana leaves the object is dead.
The difference between Consciousness and Life is the difference between the User of a computer and the electricity that powers the computer. There are however different levels of consciousness.
So a carrot plant has prana (or electricity) that gives it life. ..but its level of consciousness is very low. It does not have an individual spirit. Prana exists everywhere all around us and can enter any thing that it finds appropriate. It is a naturally existing 'life energy'. Consciousness is more complex.
