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Really, people reside in their brains. Consciousness, emotion, and all of the senses are experienced only in your brain. If someone cuts you in the arm but your brain doesn't receive the message then you wont feel it, and you can feel limbs that aren't even there if your brain is tricked. On top of this, contrary to what a lot of people mistakenly believe, scientists HAVE mostly figured out how the brain works. It isn't some indecipherable electrical magic place, but a standard organ. The only difference between our's and those of animals are that our's has a much more complicated and developed cerebral cortex, and is designed for language.
As for the spark of life, it's already been answered, there is no need for it. If you want to understand how life works the best place to look is at where it is made: the "miracle" of birth. A single cell contains the blueprints for the body. Food is broken down (using chemical processes) into raw materials which are then assembled into various tissues. These become the bones, muscles, organs, etc. The assembly of tissues grows larger and larger as more and more materials are added until it has formed into a baby. This being continues to add more materials and grow to full size. You spend your life simply adding more materials (by eating) to replace the old ones, thus sustaining the organism, which is little more than a bundle of chemical processes. Over time you "shed" the vast majority of your body and replace it with entirely new materials. The only parts of the body that you were born with that are left over are probably the nervous system and the brain. The rest of your used materials are gone.
Life is about nothing more than replenishing those materials and keeping this mound of chemical processes alive. You eat, you dispose of the excess, you reproduce to create more self-sustaining bundles of chemical processes, you maintain a stable condition to foster the continuation of these processes. That's all that life is. Emotion and consciousness are simply byproducts of the intelligence humans needed to fill their niche.
Free will is an illusion. Everything happens for a reason, right? If I throw a ball I naturally expect it to follow it's course until the end right? It wont suddenly turn around, grow wings, or explode? Everything is cause and effect. Everything in the universe follows an exact path. The processes in your brain occur in an orderly fashion. There is only one possible way for them to behave. To say otherwise is to say that if I throw a ball it would make perfect sense for it to sprout wings and fly away. If there is only one possible outcome, then there is no choice. If there is no choice, then there is no free will.
And even if there was by some supernatural force the freedom of choice, what is it that determines your choices? You just want to please yourself. Fulfill all of those instincts, like the desire for a partner and the love of others. How are you free if your inevitable goal is always the same thing?
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