why life?

Discussion in 'General Philosophy' started by EmptyForceOfChi, Jan 22, 2006.

  1. EmptyForceOfChi Banned Banned

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    not human life,


    the objective for living things is to carry on the bloodline or rootline for plants, reproduction is the goal,


    but what is the purpose for animal and plantlife to reproduce, why would it want to multiply for it would have to have a motive, just existing as organic substance to reproduce with no reasons behind it?


    first thought that came to mind was on an atomic level that opposites attract and single celled organisms multiplying rapidly, but then the question why still came to mind, what would drive atoms to evolve like this, i know about atomic structures and single celled activities, but still the question why pops up,




    peace.
     
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  3. c7ityi_ Registered Senior Member

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    ..everything wants to unite becuz they feel like they're only one half (negative or positive ) so they believe they become whole if they try to unite with what they think is their complementary half. atoms are also living u know. you could say that it is our subconscious which formed the planets and all living things.
     
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  5. Laika Space Bitch Registered Senior Member

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    Everything that didn't like to reproduce didn't... and died out.
     
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  7. Ophiolite Valued Senior Member

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    Why does a stone roll down hill? That's just the way it works.
     
  8. Fraggle Rocker Staff Member

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    All living things do not reproduce sexually. Many of the lower lifeforms just divide. Asexual reproduction was the norm for, what, a billion years maybe?
     
  9. Baron Max Registered Senior Member

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    Yeah, it's just such questions as those that make one begin to wonder about the existence of "god", huh?

    Baron Max
     
  10. JoeTheMan Registered Senior Member

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    EmptyForceOfChi:

    "but what is the purpose for animal and plantlife to reproduce, why would it want to multiply for it would have to have a motive, just existing as organic substance to reproduce with no reasons behind it?"

    I think you're coming at this with an anthropomorphic bias. We're prejudiced becasue we're human into believing that things behave a certain way because they have motives, or reasons. In fact, even people do things all the time without reasons or motives. But in terms of non-human phenomena, our concepts of 'will,' 'desire' and 'wants' are probably going to fall short of reality. It's not just difficult to conceive of a virus "wanting" to reproduce. Certainly, viruses and plants and mice all behave in a way that meshes with a desire to reproduce. But this is certainly more a result of the structure of the evolutionary process...

    "first thought that came to mind was on an atomic level that opposites attract and single celled organisms multiplying rapidly, but then the question why still came to mind, what would drive atoms to evolve like this, i know about atomic structures and single celled activities, but still the question why pops up,"

    My understanding in this area is not the greatest, so I'd be the first to admit to an error in reasoning. However, as far as I know, we've been able to generate organic material from non-organic material in laboratories by recreating in a sealed container what we think the atmosphere of early earth was like. By providing an electric stimulus, we found self-reproducing matter. I'm not sure we need to look much harder for what drives single-celled molecules to reproduce: in a sense, they're robots programmed to do one thing, which is to copy themselves. The fact that they're alive doesn't mean they're not machines in the sense that they are, although autonomous, without intention or underlying design.

    However, if the question you are posing is not really about what the living creatures 'want', but whether there is a higher purpose involved in their creation and continued existence, you 've stepped into theology or mysticism. But I agree with the other posters that there is a fundamental unity in Being. Let me reiterate my initial point, which was that our consciousness gives us a bias in examining the physical world, in particular, we will ascribe motives, desires and intentions to things which, on closer examination, have none or certaintly nothing like the human versions thereof...
     
  11. Ophiolite Valued Senior Member

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    9,232
    Incorrect. The famed Miller-Urey experiment, and many similar experiments have been able to produce simple organic chemicals, some of which are the building blocks of the more complex chemicals, that are, in turn, the key constituents of life. These same simple organic chemicals (remember, organic just means carbon based) are available in quantity in the interstellar medium and could have come to the Earth early in its history on comets. They are a very long way away from being a self reproducing metabolism, and even further away from being a self replicating organism.
     
  12. Tnerb Banned Banned

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    ur obviously talking "scientifically."

    Visit mental health and the existentialists; get a dose of stupid instead....
     
  13. TheAlphaWolf Registered Senior Member

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    They HAVE made self replicating RNA and many other things, such as liposomes and protobionts or whatever they're called.
    Atoms don't evolve.
     
  14. Ophiolite Valued Senior Member

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    Alpha Wolf, I concede that this is a fast moving arena, and I am certainly not immersed in the main flow of research concerning the origin of life. However, I am amazed if what you appear to be saying is correct: that a replicating RNA molecule has been created by subjecting simpler chemicals to a high energy environment. I suspect you are confusing the construction of synthetic RNA molecules through carefully controlled, systematic laboratory procedures. That is quite a different thing.
     
  15. TheAlphaWolf Registered Senior Member

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    445
    I'm not exactly sure what you mean by that... a carefully controlled, systematic laboratory procedure is how you create self replicating RNA by subjecting simpler chemicals to other simple chemicals. They're not mutually exclusive.
     
  16. Ophiolite Valued Senior Member

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    9,232
    We can construct an RNA molecule in the laboratory by piecing it together - note that, piece by piece, monomer by monomer. Each step is achieved in a controlled, directed fashion. That is wholly different from having an RNA molecule arise spontaneously from a mix of assorted chemicals, which is what your original post was implicitly describing.
     
  17. magi Registered Member

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    12
    Ask your self what the universe need life for and what the universe is about.

    The universe is space time or maybe strings and it all expand after the Big Bang.
    Now if you take a rubber band and start a vibration you get a frequency.
    If you expand it the frequency increase.
    Our world get more and more complex and frequency's that we use in our technology increase all the time like radio, to tv, to radar and mobile phones, to atomic physics.
    Is there a connection?

    Now what is the universe all about?
    In the beginning some of the photons transformed to electrons and then on to larger partikles.
    Now it start stars and material is changed back in to photons.

    What is life about and where is it going?
    Life overpopulated Africa, then Europe, then Asia, then USA, then the earth, then mars, then our solar system, then our galaxy and then the universe.
    Now the universe have 90% black material and a lot of it is probably solar systems with suns that is to small to ignite and start fusion.
    Life will need to ignite them to get planets to live on.
    So a long time in to the future we are going help the universe to make photons of material.

    And that is why we exist.

    The tension in the universe will increase and we are going to free material to release tension in the universe.

    But this is just one step in why we exist in the universe.
    Guess what the other steps are for us to do in the universe....

    I have a degree "Master of Science" from the university of LTH in Sweden and are writing a Sci.Fi book about the meaning of life in the universe.

    Wanna read it?

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    Last edited: Feb 5, 2006
  18. Ophiolite Valued Senior Member

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    This is presumptuous. What is your evidence for stating that the Universe needs life.
    There is increasing doubt as to the reality of the Big Bang.
    Please give examples of what you mean by our technology using wider frequency ranges.
    And no, there is no connection between a simple analogy and a general expansion of technology.
    No. I thought you were claiming an understanding of the Big Bang. There were plenty of photons around before there were any stars, or indeed matter of any kind. Your thesis is based upon an error.
    You say life, but you appear to be talking about humans.
    Not if it is badly formulated as your arguments in this thread.

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  19. eineidloff Registered Member

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    Yup. Simple as that.
     
  20. magi Registered Member

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    This is "General Philosophy" so Ophiolite, relax.

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  21. qwerty mob Deicidal Registered Senior Member

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    "why life?"

    Eloquent fallacy.
     
  22. Ophiolite Valued Senior Member

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    Ah, thank you. I confess my blood pressure was rising. Your erudite explanation that General Philosophy permits sloppy thinking, logical fallacies, unstructured arguments, loose terminology, and errors of fact, has quite put my mind at ease. Having been trained as a scientist I am unfamiliar with the more powerfull tools of philosophy that permit, indeed encourage, such free form speculations and woolly thinking. Thank you again for pointing this out to me.

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  23. TheAlphaWolf Registered Senior Member

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    I remember reading an article in a magazine... maybe scientific american, that seemed to say that they've produced what I was describing... but I don't have that article...
    "RNA (or RNA lookalikes [5]) can be generated abiotically, and RNA (or RNA lookalikes) can polymerize on clay substrates. "
    http://www.talkorigins.org/origins/postmonth/apr98.html
    "Evidence to support the idea that RNA was the first genetic material includes: short polymers of self-replicating RNA have been abiotically produced in a test tube without enzymes."
    http://www.lutherhs.ca/biology/units_folder/unit_04.html
     

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