Why would life form and why reproduce?

[derwoodly]

Nice post Karyuu,

But!

Theorys aways start out as hypothesis.  Once they have been proven by conducting an arbitrary amount of experients a hypothesis graduates to a theory.  The beauty of science is that it never claims to have all the answers.  However people seem to loose sight of this.  Scientific theorys change all the time.  To claim that science is truth and religion is false, ignores the fact that even science does not claim that theorys are true.

Over the years science certainly has proven its value.  But, religion has value as well.

Uloim has a point when he says if you have no religion your life is worthless.  Science offers very little on the worth of an individule.  Philosophy has several thoerys on how you should live your life, but they are still reguarded as theorys.  And philosophers differ on wich one is correct.


I believe the two are not mutually exclusive, you can have both.  Where they intersect you will have conflict, but that is what your free will is for.  You can make your own choices.

[kariloy]

Ohh eck... just find out what the the great Question to Life, the Universe and Everything is... we already know that the answer is 42 \\o/

Hey ajdaha you are much dazzled with science vs. metaphysics just read stuff... science is clear and logical, although sometimes at first it might not seem so... metaphysics.. ohh well about that everyone can say whatever he/she wants about it with not logical at all... my advice: try not to think too much about

[ajdaha]

If it were not for thinking, all I would be left with would be my body and my huge, huggge genitals.
: )

[Karyuu]

Originally posted by derwoodly
Uloim has a point when he says if you have no religion your life is worthless.

Bullcrap ;) My life isn\'t worthless in the slightest. I, for example, have plenty of things to live for, and plenty of things to do and look forward to and enjoy and bask in. And religion has absolutely nothing to do with it.

I loathe generalizations like that, as they are quite presumptuous and insulting.

[ajdaha]

Besides, how do you define worth?

Since there is no such thing as worth, as its \"in the eye of the beholder\"

Anyway, there are suggestions that there is an after-life. I\'m not sure where I read it but with people coming back from near-death were being tested some-how in controled conditions. I think someone proposed a \"hypothesis\" : ) which said that there might indeed be a soul.

Oh yeah, about evolution being a theory. I\'m sure you can prove it, just by describing how it works, because no-one can debate the fact that living-beings mutate, that some die because of their incompatibility with its enviroment, and that those few that have mutated to survive, survive?
What else is there to prove.
Or is nothing ever proven? Because, I suppose we can never be sure of anything, not even our own senses.

[Uloim]

Yeah, when you orriginally asked why it was still called a theory, I thought you meant the theory of all life orriginating from one common ancestor...

@Karyuu: Didn\'t meant to insult anyone... and yes I do realize my generalization.  It\'s just that I would probably kill myself if I had no religion.  I mean, I don\'t see why I\'d want to keep living.  If your entire existance only lasts 100 minus years (or so) and you were created on accident, why even bother to continue the species?

As I said before, we all have our own beliefs.

One day we\'ll all know the truth.

EDIT: Neat comic.  I never knew much about Norse Mythology.

[ajdaha]

I can\'t wait.

[buddha]

I\'m trying to continue the species mostly because the act of trying to continue the species is very enjoyable.  I know this sounds crude, and it is on some level, but it\'s still true.  I don\'t need a philosophical reason to enjoy sex.

Fundamentally, the sex drive is extremely powerful.  This is probably why most religions try to tame it.

I don\'t want to sound the \"that atheist\" who says religion is worthless.  I don\'t employ it, but I know some people who do to great effectiveness.  For some reason, I personally don\'t need \"reasons\".  I like results.  If I can consistently explain traffic by how many crows cross my path in the morning, then I am happy with the Crow-SigAlert Theory.

So things reproduce because it\'s \"fun\" to reproduce.  Why is it \"fun\" to reproduce?  Well, those who found it fun in the past tended to, well, reproduce.  Thus we are all ancestors of things that like to have sex.  So we like to have sex.

Asking why the first thing liked to have sex is a tautology.  Is there a greater purpose to having sex, like serving some sort of god?  I don\'t know. But if that\'s what you\'re thinking about when Angelina Jolie comes bouncing through \"Tomb Raider\", you\'re not going to as likely as I am to create another thing that likes to reproduce.

EDIT: Please don\'t take my near-vulgar tone to imply that I think the point of view expressed by Uloim is invalid.  I think he has a very powerful point.  I just disagree with his underlying assumption.  The world needs diversity, though. If we were all cantankerous mathematicians like me, I would go nuts.  My wife and most of my closest friends are artists, not scientists, they\'re more fun to be around.

[davo]

ok this will explain it all.

life formed as bacteria and such.  if it didnt reproduce, then we would not see it evolved today, it would simply die off an never reproduce,.

so the bacteria that can produce survives yay.

then it evolves. ie.

2 bears, a white one and a black one in the snow.  the black one dies as a baby cause it can be easily seen so it never passes on its black gene.  the white one does so therefore creating over time a white camoflauged yada yada yada.

reproducing is chemically built into us.  that is also what the attraction you get with the opposite sex (or same sex)  therefore creating relationships to reproduce.

well that was a hellova post for me

[ajdaha]

Yeah, thats basically what I figured. First life which couldn\'t reproduce died after its life. Life which could continued its species. Its obvious.
But, why is it that there was no life that could simply live on forever, would that somehow be less efficient than spliting a-sexually?
I realise that this form would be vulnurable to some diseases but so would be the a-sexua;;y reproducing animal wouldn\'t it?

[Xordan]

Cancer is immortal. It can\'t die of old age.

[ajdaha]

Im not sure on exactly how cancer works, but is it an actual life-form, or is it just an occurance in cells?

[smoak]

isnt cancer a mutation of cells that causes them to multiply constanly without stopping?

[derwoodly]

Originally posted by Karyuu

Originally posted by derwoodly
Uloim has a point when he says if you have no religion your life is worthless.

Bullcrap My life isn\'t worthless in the slightest. I, for example, have plenty of things to live for, and plenty of things to do and look forward to and enjoy and bask in. And religion has absolutely nothing to do with it.

I loathe generalizations like that, as they are quite presumptuous and insulting.

I was not trying to suggest that life is worthless.  I was trying to explain that science does not explain why we are here. To my knowledge the working theory is statistical chance. If you have a link to a site, or title of a book or Magazine that does explain please put it in this post.  Or if you prefer to explain life, be my guest.  By including only one sentance of my post it is you who are generalizing, not I.

[Leeloo]

Science does not explain why we are here, because \"why\" requires some sort of plan, which requires some sort of intelligense to have made that plan. Religions can have a \"why\" because they assume that there is a God. Science isn\'t about \"why\", it\'s about \"how\" and \"what\".

As science has shown no sign of a planning intelligence, it makes no sense to ask why. The only intelligence is us (and possibly dolphins, etc), and \"why\" didn\'t become relevant until we appeared as a species. And that\'s where philosophers come into the picture I think, they look for the answer to \"why\" in ourselves, where as religions assume some kind of God to answer it.

But life is not worthless without a religion to tell us why, because we all have our own reasons for living. Reproducing has already been explained, \"because it\'s fun\", and we do other things for the same reason. Why don\'t we just kill ourselves? And miss out on all the fun? No way. Why do we work our asses off every day? Because fun is expensive. Some kinds more than others.

So, if you ask a non-religous problem \"what\'s the purpose of life\", the answer (or at least one answer) is: \"To have fun\".

Why do we play Planeshift? To have fun. Thus can be concluded that the purpose of life is to play Planeshift