Why would life form and why reproduce?

[ajdaha]

good stoping there karyuu.
In another thread (IN the LoTR: online forums) this kinda\' discussion got me banned.

[buddha]

Here\'s a hypothetical situation:  Three organisms show up on early Earth one day--an immortal (non-aging) organism, a mortal, non-reproducing organism and a mortal reproducing organism.

They all go for a \"walk\" along treacherous shores.  All three get killed by a landslide.  Which one do we see today?  The last.

Why are there no reproducing, immortal organisms?  Well, bacteria exhibit this.  Now consider this.  If your species is going to be immortal, it must have happened very early in your evolution.  So you are something pretty simple, not a walking, talking person, for instance.   Now you have mortal creatures all around you.  They, because of their rapid evolutionary pace compared to you, discover that you are food before you discover that they are food.  You can\'t keep up with their adaptations, so you end up being stuck at the bottom of the food chain while everyone else gets, say, a nervous system.

I\'m not stating this as fact, only possible explanation.  I think it\'s possible for immortality to happen in simpler organisms, but the mortal ones will prey on you.  They get to change as a species more often.

[ajdaha]

Why did immoratlity have to evolve only in simple-celled organisms. It could have hapened in peaceful times with multi-celled organisms as well.
Also, why would these immortal beings evolve at a slower pace than the predatory ones?

[buddha]

I have to emphasize that I am speculating here, and have no data, but these hypothesis are reasonable.

The second question first.  If you are immortal and reproducing, then you will produce copies of yourself.  Therefore the population of your species consists of things like you.  That is, there are a lot of your immediate children around at all times.

If you are not immortal, you sort of make way for the new ones.  If you child has slightly more blonde hair and his child even slightly more, in a billion years you\'ll have a very blonde population.  Thus the population or species has \"evolved\".  This won\'t happen if the original brunette is still around.  Also, consider that you will be fighting with a lot of copies of yourself for food.

For the first question, that\'s trickier.  If the species is already complex, why not a \"Highlander\".  Hmm, ooops, gotta go to a meeting (really).  I\'ll think about this.  It seemed clear when I said it.

[ajdaha]

Lol, Highlander.
The actor in that had no idea what he was doing.

(Poor Budha, his thread got closed and I think it was my fault. Though I am not sure what I did.) To Karyuu, don\'t twist my words, you know what I said. I said that we cannot be certain that what our senses tell us is true. So we cannot be certain that our world exists this way, that the rules apply. Maybe we are in a matrix world. Of course I don\'t believe this, but I;m just saying its possible. To Moogie, I was just making small talk. : /
Anyway, nothing is pointless everything has the point of being there.

[serpentjoe]

I\'m sorry. I just wanted to get involved in this thread, I guess. Could you help? =(

[ajdaha]

Dude, what did you do? What are you apologizing for, you\'ve done nothing that I can recollect as being anything worth apologizing for.

[derwoodly]

Serpantjoe, what you could have done is post a link to the book you were talking about. Was it this one?

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6884904/site/newsweek/

I do not know if ajdaha has read any books on Social Constructivism, but it esentually says that we can not know anything for certain.

Karyuu ?, have your read the title? *Why would life form*
\"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.\"

[ajdaha]

That\'s true. That\'s what I said, put into a comprehendable form. : )

[Karyuu]

Derwoodly, the discussion stopped being about the formation of life and became one of immortality and death. I felt that there was no need to return to the previous state.

I do not know if ajdaha has read any books on Social Constructivism, but it esentually says that we can not know anything for certain.

I will repost what I wrote in serpentjoe\'s thread:

\"I think you were trying to say, Ajdaha, that the existence of a world external to one\'s consciousness cannot be established through reason? Transcendental/Universal skepticism is a big mess. If one states that man can know nothing, he or she then will find themselves immersed in hopeless absurdities, for in asserting that there is no knowledge, the skeptic is asserting a knowledge claim - which according to his or her own theory is impossible.

If you meant that man can never attain certainty, you fare no better. Are you certain that we cannot attain certainty, or is it open to doubt as well? If it is known with certainty, at least one thing is beyond doubt, which makes the principle false. If, however, the principle is open to doubt, then on what grounds can one make the original claim?\"

[ajdaha]

On the grounds that I am not sure what my brain is recieving is true?!?!?!?
It is not a claim it is a suggestion. So what I say could or could not be true. But because of the fact that we don\'t know if what I claim is true or not we cannot know anything for sure.

?

[Karyuu]

I... don\'t think you understood. As far as this is concerned, there is no difference between a claim and a suggestion. I could suggest that manticores exist, but unless I\'d like to sound as if I\'m living in another world, f I better explain why I\'m suggesting this.

On what grounds are you not sure if your brain is deceiving you? What reasons do you have to think such? If you have no reasons, then you have a moot suggestion, a moot point.

[ajdaha]

On the grounds that there is no proof that the brain is not decieving me.
Is that good?

Edit -
PS: Thought is the most pure and the final level of mentality, so what I think, not depending on what my senses relay to me, is as true to myself as I can get.
Are you asking me of how I can be sure of that?

[buddha]

As much as I am enjoying Karyuu\'s solipsistic thread, let me retort.

Get back to what the brain is designed to do: avoid predators, find food, make life easier all around.

I am a dyed-in-the-wool agnostic and I don\'t even believe what my senses tell me.  If you\'ve ever had hallucinagens, you know that your tie to \"reality\" is no thicker than your cerebral cortex, and that\'s thin.

Where does it leave you if you can\'t even trust your senses?  With your internal model.  For instance, if I see rustling in the grass, I assume it\'s a predator coming to get me.  Well, the me that lived four million years ago, anyway.  I have a model that says large predators sneak up on me in grass.  My brain has done its job independently of whether there was a lion in that grass.

So I make models and try out predictions.  If my models work, I keep them.  If not, I let them go.  How simple is that?

Having said that, I submit that it doesn\'t matter if there is a god, a soul or even an external reality.  Our internal models have jos they have to do.  Even the most die hard zealot learns that there are times when \"god\" is unreliable.  So he makes models just in case god doesn\'t magically stop that boulder from falling on his head.  The \"get out of the way when something is falling\" model works better than the \"god loves me and will save me\" model any day of the week.

[ajdaha]

Its MY thread. Not Karyuu\'s