Why would life form and why reproduce?

[derwoodly]

I agree with the last post up to this point...

Originally posted by Leeloo
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

The answer to the question \"what is the purpse of life\" is science can not answer that because it only answers qualitative questions not ones of philosopy.

I do not know of a philosophy that says the purpose of life is to have fun. There could be one, I just never heard it.   I believe that Aristotle\'s philosophy was that life was about doing \"good\".

[Syzerian]

Perhaps the meaning of life is simply to have something that we cannot have without life, a physical existance.
I was thinking, wont we eventually become inferior? Most animals evolve when a new predator is introduced etc. but we create technology to evolve for us so to speak. So, even if it does take 10 bazillion years, without technolog we would be inferior.
But thats just a thought.

[Xordan]

Why does there have to be a reason for our existance other than evolution? Can\'t humans accept that we\'re just not special in any way and that if our planet blew up killing us all it\'d make no difference to the rest of the universe? This is the main thing about religion that I don\'t like. Humans seem to need a reason for their existance. Religions say that we were created by a greater power(s), which is a pretty simple solution which we have no evidence for, but it keeps people happy. Having a greater power watching over us makes people believe that they\'re special in their own little way compared to other life forms, and having an afterlife reinforces that because people can\'t imagine not existing.

If there is a greater power who takes us to an afterlife when we die so that we can live forever, then why does he/she/it bother? It would be surely easier just to make us immortal on earth, or to just create us in this afterlife.

Imo the meaning of life if there has to be one is; we are because we can.

[ajdaha]

Okay, meaning of life...this isn\'t where I want this thread to go... so basically back to my points.

Why reproduce, why not, instead, just live forever?
So, what did the a-sexually reproducing cells have that was better than an animal who lives forever?

 To find the meaning of life you first have to know how to define life? I have no definition for it except to say that everything in our universe is alive for they all do something. There is nothing else that I know of that can define life. Except maybe sentient beings could be called life. But then, there are some things that aren\'t sentient but many call them life.

[ajdaha]

So what? Can no-one answer that question?

[smoak]

you need to define live forever, agewise, impervious to any and everything? cuase if its just age, then one day you get eaten(or fall off a cliff ect.) poof no more you maybe no more of your species even.

on another point, maybe random chemicals couldnt figure out how to live forever so went for the next best thing

or another, a cell appears, really likes itself(egotistical maybe?) and decided \"hey the more the merrier\" and copied itself, so they could compliment each other

[Uloim]

Originally posted by ajdaha
Why reproduce, why not, instead, just live forever?

Can\'t live forever.

Originally posted by ajdaha
So, what did the a-sexually reproducing cells have that was better than an animal who lives forever?

Not exactly answering this question, but!:

Well, if we don\'t continue the species, we won\'t have any new stuff.  No new Einsteins, (spelling on his name?  I keep forgetting how to spell it...) no new great leaders.  Although, I suppose everyone who lives forever could just read every book and try to become geniuses.  And how exactly can you stay alive forever?  If someone stabs you in the head, how could you stay alive?

Originally posted by ajdaha
 To find the meaning of life you first have to know how to define life?

Well...

\"The property or quality that distinguishes living organisms from dead organisms and inanimate matter, manifested in functions such as metabolism, growth, reproduction, and response to stimuli or adaptation to the environment originating from within the organism.\"


But I think it is more of a religious term.  That is just my opinion.

[ajdaha]

Lol - the biology-class explanation for life does not do since there are living forms that don\'t perform some of those functions.

But seriously, why would it be hard to live forever? Simply don\'t include the death clock in the cell. I\'m not sure how death works though.

[Uloim]

Heh, that definition came from a Bot on AIM, not biology class!

And to the quesion(s):

Why would it be hard to live forever?
Impossible... isn\'t it?  If it wasn\'t, we\'d have three-hundred-year-olds, etc.  Again with the fun religion stuff, I doubt God would let it be possible to achieve immortality in this life.

Not sure how death works?
Religious again, your soul is taken from your body (sorta... kinda hard to explain) and goes to Heaven where its fate is to be decided, depending on what you did/didn\'t do in your life (in a sense.  Every religion is different about this.).

[Karyuu]

I think Ajdaha was talking about the biological aspect of death, Uloim, not religious. I\'m sure that everyone here is familiar with what happens from a religious perspective. So that doesn\'t really answer the question.

As for the question of how death works (in a biological sense), understanding it from a scientific standpoint has long proved elusive. In the past decade, new tools and fresh ideas have started to give researchers a grip on the complex changes that go on within the body\'s cells over time.  They even have some inkling as to the \"how\" of aging, the biochemical processes which may trigger these cellular phenomena.  But why the body should become more prone to these pressures in the first place is much debated.  Aging is one of nature\'s almost universal phenomena - virtually all multicellular creatures, if given a chance, will go through the process - but still one of its most mysterious.

All characteristics of living organisms are the result of natural selection. Aging and its logical outcome, death, have survived. Therefore the implication is that aging and death confer success and are characteristics selected for during evolution. But there\'s that \"Why?\" again. There are several theories of just how the aging occurs (Programmed Theory, Autoimmune Theory, DNA Repair, etc., etc), but not too many answers in the \"why\" department just  yet. So it\'s an interesting question, but I don\'t think we\'ve a conclusive answer at the moment.

[Leeloo]

Originally posted by derwoodly
I agree with the last post up to this point...

I do not know of a philosophy that says the purpose of life is to have fun. There could be one, I just never heard it.   I believe that Aristotle\'s philosophy was that life was about doing \"good\".

I wasn\'t talking about any philosophy, most of us never studied philosophy, and we are still alive. We don\'t generally go out and commit suicide without philosophers telling us why not to. Because if we did, we would miss all the fun.

[Cherppow]

Hi

Hmm, many good points everyone. I agree that everything is very complex, despite of how simple it may look, and that we do not know enough to say what is and what is not. I also believe that not everything can be proven by logic. I\'ll not go deeper into that now.

As for ajdaha\'s questions:

There are many ways of \'living forever\', if I\'ve understood you correctly, you mean \'not dying from aging\'.

\"Why reproduce, why not, instead, just live forever?\"
- The organism can still be hurt and die. This kind of life will ultimately be extinct after time, due to eg. natural catastrophes and other species, if it doesn\'t reproduce at all.

\"So, what did the a-sexually reproducing cells have that was better than an animal who lives forever?\"
- Many lifes. If the original organism is hurt and dies, it\'s children will live and reproduce further.


Hmm, let\'s assume that we have life that doesn\'t die of age and does reproduce (either sexually or a-sexually). The exponentially growing number of organisms would need ever growing amounts of food. I think this would collapse the ecosystem, break the circle of life, as there wouldn\'t be any/enough dead organisms to compose into nutrition for plants. No plants, no herbivores, no predators. I think that in the end, a death of one is needed to provide life for the many.

This kind of genetic property, aging, is interesting, as it does not further the success of the actual individual, rather that of the entire specie. Or all the life.

Just my thoughts. Thanks for reading

[ajdaha]

They don\'t have to grow, just live forever so it doesn\'t have to be less efficient. And why not reproduce and live forever? Surely that would ensure the survival of the species. At least more so?
But I see the general point of this. Cells that can reproduce are in the end more adaptable to life\'s many changes, due to things like cell mutations and the fact that some traits from two surviving bodies are given to the new born (in the case of sexual reproduction, though this was not the case in a-sexual reproduction). But I suspect that in the beginning there might have been many cells that would have lived a very long time and would have been very resistant.
So why was it important that such longetivity be dropped? Was it less efficient to just live as they always live, feeding on the same thing but never dying?
Karyyu could you give me one of those philosophies that try to explain this?

I wish one day logic will prevail and somewhere, maybe underneath Everest we\'ll find a very adaptable, long living, armour-plated animal who can withstand  any physical punishment (like meteor impacts) and any diseases. Of course, it would probuably be able to reproduce, but there would be no parter for it, as it alone, would have evolved such a body and the others would have died. The children would not be so effective.
Maybe the earth needs more time. Maybe humans will one day find an animal that they can\'t destroy.

Edit - lol, WTFs wrong with me?

[serpentjoe]

Well I\'m just sick of these theories of random evolution and how they\'re taught as \'fact\' in schools. I heard that the chances of this happening without God are like your wristwatch exploding and then coming together in the exact same way, with the right time(including additional seconds because of how long it took to do this). I have a whole book on why this is just a bunch of fooey, so ask away, please!

[Karyuu]

:rolleyes:

Gee golly. An entire book?

I could spend an agonizing amount of time responding to your post, serpentjoe, but I\'d just frustrate myself, so I won\'t bother with details. What I\'m sick of, personally, are people who do so little studying of evolution as to know nearly nothing about it, read a few books from but one side of the argument, and then think they\'ve all the answers. If only.

I really wish that a few Anthropology courses were mandatory in grade schools around the world.

This discussion is not about evolution anyway, so please don\'t try to steer it to that direction. The subject is controversial enough as is without starting a debate here.