When you get right down to the nitty gritty, everything is a collection of fundalmental forces, subatomic particles and atoms that have the potential to combine into molecules and then protiens to form anything from a bactirum cell to the human mind.
Maybe, it is our humanity that places the value hierarchy that exist between things. To recognize the difference between a sentient creature and a sponge, or a stratovarius and a scrap of spruce.
Have you ever watched the show FRINGE? Towards the end of the series starting around middle of the milinenium humans existing in around 2036 go back in time to observe our own past.
They are called observers. Long story short humans have evolved into these un feeling, completely logical beings practically incapable of emotions because they altered the portions of the brain that is responsible for such emotions in favor of more cognitive abililites.
These future humans had the emotions of a reptile. They saw no importance between a rock and a human. They only saw things in terms of it's intrinsic value.
These observers lost the thing that made us human. The thing that separates us from a turing machine/computer.
Our ability to "recognize the potential" in things and realize that we are more than the sum of our parts.
"You were not there for the beginning. You will not be there for the end. Your knowledge of what is going on can only be superficial and relative" William S. Burroughs