What IS really amazing about life?

[FSTargetDrone]

There's so much to see and do, more than many lifetime's worth of experience. I have great appreciation of the beauty of nature, the pleasure of listening to wonderful music, the taste of good food, the perfection of women.

There's so much to be happy about, at least in my case. I'm by no means wealthy, but I have a roof over my head and I'm in far better health than most of the human population of the planet. I have clean water and I'm not cold at night. I have access to computers and it's trivially simple to access information about all sorts of new things I'm interested in. I can read. I can borrow my sister's dog, take him for a walk and watch the sheer exhilaration and simple joy has he by splashing through a creek or racing through a field.

Most of the world scrabbles to get by. I have it good. Yes, it will all day vanish into nothingness, at least as far as I'm concerned, but when that happens I won't know about it anyway. So it's not all that distressing.

If there is, by chance, something beyond, I'll be there and I'll be happy about it. But I'm not counting on it or expecting it. I'm happy now.

[Broomstick]

I think one of the amazing things about life is that, on a local level, it reverses entropy by organizing matter and making it more complex without intelligent or conscious intervention.

Umm, no. That is incorrect on two levels:

1) Increasing structural complexity is not necessarily an entropy decrease. A complex structure, especially a living one, is going to contain much more entropy than a simple dead one.

2) A local entropy decrease, even if it were occurring, would not be a reversal of entropy; it would be a shedding of it.

Alright, alright - it sheds entropy on a local level.

I had a feeling I didn't word that as well as I'd like. Life can take some simple stuff and build complex structures out it, and make copies of itself, and so on - I'd like a really succinct and technically correct way of expressing that. Got one?

[FA Xerrik]

The thought of a self-replicating glob of oil and proteins eventually developing into us by unconscious emergent processes and a lot of time is pretty damn mindblowing if you think about it.

Another one is if evolution had gone a little differently man wouldn't exist at all. We really are quite fortunate to exist at all IMO.

You're right: true death is a pretty depressing thing to contemplate. Man invented religion in no small part because it was so depressing he couldn't face it. Religion is man's attempt at putting his fingers in his ears in the face of the awful truth that his existence will end and screaming "No! It can't be true! I won't believe it!" It may be comforting but doesn't that sound a bit ... childish?

It keep wondering if our religion is part of our evolutionary package in a sense.

Just to allow us have a easier time in accepting death.

I believe it's been pretty conclusively established there is indeed a center in the brain for Religious experience. Dr. V.S. Ramachandran has done extensive research into mapping the human brain, and some of his experiments with the Temporal Lobe suggest it functions as the generator of religious feeling. A lot of his findings inspire awe to me, if we accept the atheist view that nothing more than random chance led to our creation. The way our brain works, the formation of consciousness, it's all incredible when taken even at face value.

[Justforfun000]

Well I envy those of you who can accept death as the end and not be overly stressed about it. I am constantly brooding on it. I sit at night in my bed and try to imagine me dying and just winking out. That's scary enough, but then to think it's that way fOREVER. No reincarnation or later revivifacation? I think of the "me" being forever gone and I get terror attacks. That horrible stabbing feat that strikes the pit of your stomach.

This is where in my life, alcohol is a friend. I'm not a HEAVY drinkier, but a frequent one. I sing in bars so always have a few there. When I have a little glow on I can actually think about it with a much less emotional reaction. I am just generally in a better mood and it buffers me from the despair. I wouldn't be surprised if a huge majority of people use alcohol or other drugs as a means of escape first and foremost and not just to get 'high'. Small distinction, but an important one..

[Surlethe]

Well I envy those of you who can accept death as the end and not be overly stressed about it. I am constantly brooding on it. I sit at night in my bed and try to imagine me dying and just winking out. That's scary enough, but then to think it's that way fOREVER. No reincarnation or later revivifacation? I think of the "me" being forever gone and I get terror attacks. That horrible stabbing feat that strikes the pit of your stomach.

When I consider death from an atheistic, rational viewpoint, I get exactly the opposite feeling from you: every moment becomes infinitely more precious. I couldn't stand just sitting and brooding on death; the waste of my lifetime doing that would be too much for me.

[CaptJodan]

This is where in my life, alcohol is a friend. I'm not a HEAVY drinkier, but a frequent one. I sing in bars so always have a few there. When I have a little glow on I can actually think about it with a much less emotional reaction. I am just generally in a better mood and it buffers me from the despair. I wouldn't be surprised if a huge majority of people use alcohol or other drugs as a means of escape first and foremost and not just to get 'high'. Small distinction, but an important one..

Yeah, I don't want to harp, but....that's not really a good plan there. You're replacing one crutch with another, and this one just happens to have the potential for serious medical side effects down the road. All that worrying about death....yeah that could come a lot sooner for you. I'm not saying cut out drinking altogether, but you should never feel compelled to "need" it.

[madd0ct0r]

The purpose of life? to defy entropy as much as possible. (it's handwavium but i interpret it as improving the the sum total of human happiness, accomplishment and social complexity)

What's amazing about life?

We are stardust. The atoms of our bodies have travelled through every concievable role in the biosphere and are currently journeying with us.

That humans have manged to create a second evoulutionary landscape inside our own heads - perhaps alone on the planet, our evoultion is no longer dictated purely by DNA based genes.

That human ingenuity has allowed us to beat the system, and the system is still big enough and complex enough to beat us back.

Love as a concept is pretty amazing. Sex is a fantastic thing but love, art music and mathematics, they all allow us to become more then the sum of our parts. When these parts are returned to the earth, the created extra is not lost but carried on as part of human culture. Your influnce will live as long as the human race develops. is that not amazing?

[Justforfun000]

Yeah, I don't want to harp, but....that's not really a good plan there. You're replacing one crutch with another, and this one just happens to have the potential for serious medical side effects down the road. All that worrying about death....yeah that could come a lot sooner for you. I'm not saying cut out drinking altogether, but you should never feel compelled to "need" it.

Yeah I know. Catch 22. Feel better about life, but potentially shorten it. I generally stick to only 3 a day, so it's not TOO bad. Plus I take a very potent Liver Health formula which ostensibly offsets damage from alcohol and other toxins.

All in all my only strategy that seems to work is to keep busy as much as possible. Keeps my mind off brooding.

[Nephtys]

Life is it's own point. Consciousness is it's own reward. That's about it. We don't need any fancy 'purpose' in that unexplainable, intangible sense beyond living to the next day, and enjoying ourselves. An epicurean outlook is just fine for me, where we do work when we must, have fun when we can, and just make sure things go on.

I don't consider life anything amazing. It's a statistical improbability that's not zero, so therefore, it's going to eventually happen. It's again, like asking how miraculously water molecules can form into a puddle shaped just like a hole. However, what's really nice is that we get to experience it. And people should try their best to experience it as well as they can.

This doesn't mean hedonistic 'screw work, time to hit the drugs and violence and sex!', but rather more of a 'I'm going to live a long and great life!'

If someone can't feel happy about having a long and fufilling life and need some external stimulus like religion.. or self-delusion, eh. Whatever. Have fun with that as long as it doesn't get in my way.

[Justforfun000]

Life is it's own point. Consciousness is it's own reward. That's about it. We don't need any fancy 'purpose' in that unexplainable, intangible sense beyond living to the next day, and enjoying ourselves.

But this would only make sense to me if the consciousness given was ETERNAL. How can one truly enjoy themselves, knowing that their ultimate destination is dissolution. Decay and loss of thinking and feeling EVER AGAIN. I can't get my mind to accept such a horrible concept as being the true meaning of life. As in NO meaning. Just completely random, purposeless existence that is hopelessly finite and doomed.

I have a feeling that when I get older in life I'll need serious antidepressants just to function. It's funny how my viewpoints can be just as bad as the opposite point of view. People who can contemplate suicide to me are so beyond insane, I can't fathom it. No matter HOW bad life was to me I'd never want to die. I would do anything I could to find some way to live it out as long as I could and derive as much happiness if I could.

My only other hope is that nature designs us to feel really tired and longing for the 'rest' of death when you get there so that it won't bother you as much. I feel so sorry for people who are forced to die young. Bad enough in an accident situation like a plane crash or something, but can you honestly imagine being the victim of a murder? Especially sick ones where they torture you before they kill you? Can you even imagine the slightest bit of sheer terror you'd feel knowing that you were soon going to be killed. When I think of such things I really lose all sympathy for murderers. I think the death penalty really should be deserved in those cases.

[FSTargetDrone]

But this would only make sense to me if the consciousness given was ETERNAL. How can one truly enjoy themselves, knowing that their ultimate destination is dissolution. Decay and loss of thinking and feeling EVER AGAIN. I can't get my mind to accept such a horrible concept as being the true meaning of life. As in NO meaning. Just completely random, purposeless existence that is hopelessly finite and doomed.

If we want to get really pessimistic, we could say that because there is no point to anything, so, for example, it shouldn't matter if I kill the guy in the car next to me because he gave me a nasty look. I mean, ultimately we're all dead eventually, so what difference does it make if it's sooner or later?

In the other thread here, there's a discussion of vegetarians. I happen to be vegan, and one might say, "Well, the animals you would otherwise eat are just going to end up dead anyway, why bother not eating them?" I don't really have a good answer. Perhaps my lifestyle is illogical. But it's something I choose to do because it makes me feel better about myself.

Why bother worrying about the environment, when every living thing on the planet is ultimately going to be dead in the end? Hell, eventually a time will come when the Earth itself will no longer be able to support life. So why not just tear around, exploiting and taking what we want, how we want, when we want?

But then we would live in chaos. And I think most people want to live in peace and be happy, whether they are counting on an afterlife, or not.

[Nephtys]

Life is it's own point. Consciousness is it's own reward. That's about it. We don't need any fancy 'purpose' in that unexplainable, intangible sense beyond living to the next day, and enjoying ourselves.

But this would only make sense to me if the consciousness given was ETERNAL. How can one truly enjoy themselves, knowing that their ultimate destination is dissolution. Decay and loss of thinking and feeling EVER AGAIN. I can't get my mind to accept such a horrible concept as being the true meaning of life. As in NO meaning. Just completely random, purposeless existence that is hopelessly finite and doomed.

I have a feeling that when I get older in life I'll need serious antidepressants just to function. It's funny how my viewpoints can be just as bad as the opposite point of view. People who can contemplate suicide to me are so beyond insane, I can't fathom it. No matter HOW bad life was to me I'd never want to die. I would do anything I could to find some way to live it out as long as I could and derive as much happiness if I could.

My only other hope is that nature designs us to feel really tired and longing for the 'rest' of death when you get there so that it won't bother you as much. I feel so sorry for people who are forced to die young. Bad enough in an accident situation like a plane crash or something, but can you honestly imagine being the victim of a murder? Especially sick ones where they torture you before they kill you? Can you even imagine the slightest bit of sheer terror you'd feel knowing that you were soon going to be killed. When I think of such things I really lose all sympathy for murderers. I think the death penalty really should be deserved in those cases.

It doesn't matter if it doesn't last or not. What matters is we have it. Having a cake that only lasts a while is better than no cake at all. And yes, I feel just as bad too for people who die for any reason that's not their own stupid fault. But what does that change? Things can suck sometimes, but they can also be quite nice.

Just because your existance is finite doesn't mean life is pointless.

[Justforfun000]

Why bother worrying about the environment, when every living thing on the planet is ultimately going to be dead in the end? Hell, eventually a time will come when the Earth itself will no longer be able to support life. So why not just tear around, exploiting and taking what we want, how we want, when we want?

Yes, this is why Nihilism is a real issue of concern when people lose their religious faith. It actually might be one of the ONLY valid arguments for the "good' of religion. It's just too bad that the major ones have so much crap that's divisive and bigoted that come along with it.

But then we would live in chaos. And I think most people want to live in peace and be happy, whether they are counting on an afterlife, or not.

Of course. In fact, I have become even MORE concerned about life, realize how precious it is and get even MORE horrified by people who take others away. I also get even more furious then before about others telling people how they should live 'morally'.

I suspect most people would despair for awhile after losing religion, but would come around to the altruistic point of view. The ones that go batshit and could care less about others are basically just proving that at heart, they are completely selfish. At least ONE decent truism of Christianity is the "love thy neighbor as thyself". Of course few truly follow it, but still..

[walsingham]

What's really amazing to me is that, according to my layman understanding of Dawkins, we're essentially just evolved shell casings around a complex molecule DNA whose fundamental chemical property is that it copies itself. We're here because of the chemical concept of "copy" just as there's a chemical concept of "catalyst", etc. We arose as a result of arms races between mindless, competing DNA/RNA/self-replicating molecules. That's every bit as bizarre as the idea we serve as batteries in the Matrix but, in this case, there's real evidence it's true. Sci-Fi movies have nothing on reality, not even close.

Yet all of this in the most pessimistic sense could be seen as completely purposeless, finite and destined to end in me just passing back out of consciousness with no future part in living or existing whatsoever. When I think of such a thing, I honestly wonder why it's even worth being born? A taste of existence that promises nothing but annihilation as a reward?

We each have to find our own way through this. Zuul pointed out the same thing that helped me. You're making a value judgment. IT'S NOT A FACT. That was my way out. YMMV.

-

[Rye]

Be aware that this post is written at 3 in the morning, so it might come out a bit inarticulate.

Yes, this is why Nihilism is a real issue of concern when people lose their religious faith. It actually might be one of the ONLY valid arguments for the "good' of religion. It's just too bad that the major ones have so much crap that's divisive and bigoted that come along with it.

Those "good" points are just nihilism repackaged. The pointless and lack of objective values are just anthropomorphised. That's why God can morally destroy the whole world and terrorists can shout "god is great" when they crash into buildings full of innocent people.

Religion gives the common man a lie to stop him dealing with the inconvenient problems of epistemology and morality, but in practise and in principle, it doesn't offer a genuine alternative. There's no moral objectivity, there's no means of avoiding solipsism, in fact, it inevitably causes it as much as it deals with it. All reality and morality is subject to God's desires. God's desires are then divined through the priesthood thinking really hard about an issue and voting on what is likely expedient to them.

Even though they do not realise it (sometimes they do, and as such we have cynical televangelists ripping people off though they know it's a crock), their faiths in practise and principle are nihilistic with a thin veneer of delusion, demagogy and hegemonic force.

I believe Nietzsche himself once noted that Christianity was a nihilistic religion since it valued the afterlife more than real life.

I suspect most people would despair for awhile after losing religion, but would come around to the altruistic point of view. The ones that go batshit and could care less about others are basically just proving that at heart, they are completely selfish. At least ONE decent truism of Christianity is the "love thy neighbor as thyself". Of course few truly follow it, but still..

Of course what truly defines "neighbour" (for instance, if Jesus was quoting Exodus, he would've been quoting a statement where the only neighbours would've been the faithful) and the doctrinal/personal splits over interpretation make christianity's claims to moral guidance highly suspect. There's no quality control in religion, really. I think the main moral motivator for people is emotional grasps of concepts like fairness and sympathy, and these transcend religious ideology and usually remain after people lose their religion.

[daniel_gudman]

Here's something to chew on.

I consider myself a pretty atheist guy, in that I want scientific evidence for phenomena more than something to believe in. Bearing that in mind, I've been convinced by the work of the late Dr. Ian Stevenson. He used to be chair of the psych dept. at the University of Virginia.

Anyway, he basically posited some people reincarnate sometimes. Yeah feel free to blast me with "oh, it's pseudoscience," but remember that blindly rejecting something that challenges your world-view leads to the Dark Side. What really got me was his research with violent death and birthmarks. Most famous example was a kid that said he'd died from a shotgun blast to the chest in a previous life; the pattern of birthmarks on his chest, the boy claimed, was from the entry wound. Dr. Stevenson tracked down the medical examiner in the province the kid claimed his last life was in and got a hold of a death certificate for a man matching the name the child gave. He'd died from a shotgun discharge to the chest. The number and arrangements of wholes matched the birthmarks. Pretty spooky. Whenever I tell this anecdote people skeptics always cook up some big conspiracy theory to explain it ("evolutionists," anyone?).

So maybe "souls" as something unique to life-forms really do exist. If so, they'd have to be measurable. I wonder how you'd go about that.

[Darth Wong]

Here's something to chew on.

I consider myself a pretty atheist guy, in that I want scientific evidence for phenomena more than something to believe in. Bearing that in mind, I've been convinced by the work of the late Dr. Ian Stevenson. He used to be chair of the psych dept. at the University of Virginia.

Anyway, he basically posited some people reincarnate sometimes. Yeah feel free to blast me with "oh, it's pseudoscience," but remember that blindly rejecting something that challenges your world-view leads to the Dark Side.

It's not "blind rejection" when no compelling evidence is provided in the first place. Automatic rejection of unfounded claims is in fact perfectly logical.

What really got me was his research with violent death and birthmarks. Most famous example was a kid that said he'd died from a shotgun blast to the chest in a previous life; the pattern of birthmarks on his chest, the boy claimed, was from the entry wound. Dr. Stevenson tracked down the medical examiner in the province the kid claimed his last life was in and got a hold of a death certificate for a man matching the name the child gave. He'd died from a shotgun discharge to the chest. The number and arrangements of wholes matched the birthmarks. Pretty spooky. Whenever I tell this anecdote people skeptics always cook up some big conspiracy theory to explain it ("evolutionists," anyone?).

Who the fuck needs a big conspiracy theory to explain this tripe? The kid saw some name in the paper of somebody who died of a shotgun blast to the chest, and decided consciously or unconsciously that this was his previous life. Oooooh.

So maybe "souls" as something unique to life-forms really do exist. If so, they'd have to be measurable. I wonder how you'd go about that.

You're trying to sound as if you've given this a lot of thought, but you obviously haven't.

[K. A. Pital]

Alright, alright - it sheds entropy on a local level.

Here's all the terms you need, from the friendly Nobel Laureate in Chemistry, Ilya Prigogine's theory. A dissipative structure is order visible on a macroscale which can exchange energy with the outside world. In particular, if the system is in a far-from-equilibrium-state this can happen.

Prigogine pioneered non-equilibrium thermodynamics by explaining how that works.

[Mayabird]

So maybe "souls" as something unique to life-forms really do exist. If so, they'd have to be measurable. I wonder how you'd go about that.

It has been tried. I forget who the scientist was who figured that if souls exist, they must weigh something, and so you could weigh a living creature and then kill it and then see how much the soul weighed.

He worked this experiment, very carefully, with mice. There wasn't the slightest bit of difference in weight between a mouse when alive and the same mouse dead a moment later.

This experiment doesn't get widely advertised because it didn't say what people want to hear. You'd better believe that this study would be whipped out every ten seconds if he'd actually found a difference.


As for the thread topic, I studied biology. I think just about everything about life is amazing*. It's just plain cool to know how stuff works and how things live. Life's got everything, from the finest detail of the molecules up to a creation epic, with the added bonus of being real rather than a myth. Take a trillion neurons, with 10,000 connections to other neurons on each one, and you have me and my thought processes. And you, and everybody else. A bunch of specialized cells working together and at the macro level, you have me admiring a chickadee, which has the same basic processes all working together, only slightly different and smaller and probably hanging upside down while looking for tasty bugs and being self-absorbed in its own little thought processes. And all this started because of some self-replicating molecules that stumbled upon increasing complexity and were selected by natural processes. I'm just at a loss for words about how awesome I think it all is. Makes me a little dizzy to think about it all.


*Except for phosopholipids. They are not my friends. Useful and necessary for my cell membranes, but that doesn't mean I have to like them. I could be perfectly happy never hearing about them every again, especially not in test form. Why did my cell biology prof have to be a phospholipid researcher? Better yet, why did she think it was the end-all-be-all of test questions and torment us so? Her harping on them only lead to my undying hatred of them.

[Surlethe]

Anyway, he basically posited some people reincarnate sometimes. Yeah feel free to blast me with "oh, it's pseudoscience," but remember that blindly rejecting something that challenges your world-view leads to the Dark Side. What really got me was his research with violent death and birthmarks. Most famous example was a kid that said he'd died from a shotgun blast to the chest in a previous life; the pattern of birthmarks on his chest, the boy claimed, was from the entry wound. Dr. Stevenson tracked down the medical examiner in the province the kid claimed his last life was in and got a hold of a death certificate for a man matching the name the child gave. He'd died from a shotgun discharge to the chest. The number and arrangements of wholes matched the birthmarks. Pretty spooky. Whenever I tell this anecdote people skeptics always cook up some big conspiracy theory to explain it ("evolutionists," anyone?).

I would like to see his published studies which show that there is something to this other than coincidence. Moreover, I would like to see some proposed mechanism (other than "coincidence") which could even possibly account for such birthmarks appearing on the body of the 'reincarnated' person.

[The Vortex Empire]

So maybe "souls" as something unique to life-forms really do exist. If so, they'd have to be measurable. I wonder how you'd go about that.

It has been tried. I forget who the scientist was who figured that if souls exist, they must weigh something, and so you could weigh a living creature and then kill it and then see how much the soul weighed.

He worked this experiment, very carefully, with mice. There wasn't the slightest bit of difference in weight between a mouse when alive and the same mouse dead a moment later.

This experiment doesn't get widely advertised because it didn't say what people want to hear. You'd better believe that this study would be whipped out every ten seconds if he'd actually found a difference.

Oh, but a mouse is an animal! It doesn't have a soul, only humans do!

[Darth Wong]

I would like to see his published studies which show that there is something to this other than coincidence. Moreover, I would like to see some proposed mechanism (other than "coincidence") which could even possibly account for such birthmarks appearing on the body of the 'reincarnated' person.

Indeed. To continue this train of thought, why don't we see more people with birthmarks, if physical damage from a previous life manifests itself in birthmark form? Shouldn't there be all sorts of people running around with various birthmarks to indicate the manner of their deaths?

[The Vortex Empire]

I would like to see his published studies which show that there is something to this other than coincidence. Moreover, I would like to see some proposed mechanism (other than "coincidence") which could even possibly account for such birthmarks appearing on the body of the 'reincarnated' person.

Indeed. To continue this train of thought, why don't we see more people with birthmarks, if physical damage from a previous life manifests itself in birthmark form? Shouldn't there be all sorts of people running around with various birthmarks to indicate the manner of their deaths?

I don't think they think these things through that far.

[R. U. Serious]

Well I envy those of you who can accept death as the end and not be overly stressed about it. I am constantly brooding on it. I sit at night in my bed and try to imagine me dying and just winking out. That's scary enough, but then to think it's that way fOREVER. No reincarnation or later revivifacation? I think of the "me" being forever gone and I get terror attacks. That horrible stabbing feat that strikes the pit of your stomach.

The way you phrase that, it sounds like it is not a "rational" conclusion of the facts/information you have, but rather a purely emotional reaction. Therefore I don't think arguing about it, is going to make much difference for you. Whether it's a chemical or a genetic thing or whatever, it seems that some people are predisposed to worry more (a lot more) about "Stuff" whereas other people appear to be handle it really well even if destiny continues to strike them off their feet every other step in life. I guess what I am saying is - and it's pure speculation - maybe the question you're worrying about is just your own personal McGuffin that lets you keep worrying, because you're a worrier-type. Because to be honest, I cannot grog why a state of nonexistance should be anything to worry about, let alone to the point of worrying so much that you feel it in your stomach.

If that's the case try the following: You said that focusing on work makes you feel better, maybe you need additional areas of interests that you can focus on outside of work as well (diversifying your "time investments", if you will, to make sure that the "happiness returns" stay up when trouble brews in one of the areas). Also you might find that certain expressions of art may touch you emotionally, lift you up and instill a positive sense of beauty and awe about the way the world is.

Don't focus on what you want to channel your time/energy away from ("stop worrying about non-existance" as in "don't think about the elephant"), but towards something that you find worthwhile and that you feel is a rewarding way to invest time. There are so many great things to do in life, so many different ways to give meaning to one's life - why spend time worrying about something that is so completely outside of our control and possible experience?

To sum it up: Don't try to "think" yourself out of it, but rather "act" your way out of it by finding interesting things to do outside of work and drink.

[Fire Fly]

What is amazing about life? Well, consider this. The sperm/egg divides by meiosis and through independent assortment, the chromosomes of a sperm or egg can recombine 2^n number of times, where n=number of chromosomes or the haploid number (23 in humans). When the sperm and egg combine to form a zygote, the number of possible combinations the chromosomes can rearrange themselves is (2^n)^2 possible ways. That's ~7x10^13 possible combinations (70,000,000,000,000 or 70 trillion possible ways). So, in order for your parents to reproduce even a genetic clone of you, apart from having a twin, is to have 70 trillion babies just to get the same genetic you. That's how unique you are and rest assured, there will never, ever be another you. Even cloning can't recreate you.

Then of course, there's also the viewpoint that there probably is no afterlife and this is your only chance at having any joy, any love, any sorrows and sadness, for all eternity.