Does life truly exist?

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atoms are the true building blocks of the universe. everything that has matter is an atom. however, if that is so, if we have sentient life, why dont atoms? i believe that our thoughts are no more deliberate electrical signals than we are truly alive. they could be coincidental electrons passing from one group of atoms to another. i look at the universe this way: we are simply atoms that are assembled in a way that gives us "conscious" thought, while we are in reallity simply the result of conditions being right for something happening, like us. sorry if this isnt really clear, but what im trying to say is, we are nothing but atoms resembling what those atoms believe are "life".

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@hamilton,

hamilton wrote:

atoms are the true building blocks of the universe. everything that has matter is an atom. however, if that is so, if we have sentient life, why dont atoms? i believe that our thoughts are no more deliberate electrical signals than we are truly alive. they could be coincidental electrons passing from one group of atoms to another. i look at the universe this way: we are simply atoms that are assembled in a way that gives us "conscious" thought, while we are in reallity simply the result of conditions being right for something happening, like us. sorry if this isnt really clear, but what im trying to say is, we are nothing but atoms resembling what those atoms believe are "life".

Life does not exist because what exists exists outside of life, immortally, eternally.. Our lived depend upon what exists, and to a great extent upon other life; the plants and animals that we eat that have already stored fleeting energy, but all life is, after all, one life, sprung from a common seed.

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@hamilton,

This question depends of what you want to consider life.

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@manored,

yeah, but everything (including ourselves) we interact with is made up atomic and subatomic particles. i think that we exist only because of the precise placement of those. even thoughts are only true because electrons are moving from neuron to neuron. my thoughts are made up of electricity, no matter what they are.

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I think this article from wikipedia ilustrates well what you are talking about:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophical_zombie

Ultimately, whenever we are all p-zombies or not doesnt really matter, unless for the purposes of afterlife.

Does our existence ends them our physical body ends? I personally think that not. Our physical body appears to be the residence and origin of our consciousness, but that information comes from our senses that are ultimately unreliable.

What happens then we die, though, I have no idea. The only thing I am sure is that something happens.

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@hamilton,

Try working on the idea that "life" defines "existence" and"reality". Twisted Evil

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@manored,

manored wrote:

This question depends of what you want to consider life.

We hardly have a choice in the matter since it is life that defines us, and only a few have the luxury to "consider" life as an abstraction... It is beyond abstraction... Life is the meaning of meaning... Life is time... Life is every perspective...

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@Fido,

Fido wrote:

manored wrote:

This question depends of what you want to consider life.

We hardly have a choice in the matter since it is life that defines us, and only a few have the luxury to "consider" life as an abstraction... It is beyond abstraction... Life is the meaning of meaning... Life is time... Life is every perspective...

but its hardly life that defines us, if all "life" is a bunch of atoms acting and reacting to each other. even the way we're designed depends on a sequence of atoms , that, with one minor change, could result in a huge difference in the enviroment around it.

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@hamilton,

hamilton wrote:

Fido wrote:

manored wrote:

This question depends of what you want to consider life.

We hardly have a choice in the matter since it is life that defines us, and only a few have the luxury to "consider" life as an abstraction... It is beyond abstraction... Life is the meaning of meaning... Life is time... Life is every perspective...

but its hardly life that defines us, if all "life" is a bunch of atoms acting and reacting to each other. even the way we're designed depends on a sequence of atoms , that, with one minor change, could result in a huge difference in the enviroment around it.

You can experience life all you want, but you are in no position to say what it is or is not... You know it if you got it, sort of, but that is hardly a definition...

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@Fido,

sorry. i dont understand. please, explain

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I think he means that "life" cant be defined. But life is just a word, it can be defined if its willed so.

But we clearly dont have a commonly accepted definition.

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@manored,

manored wrote:

I think he means that "life" cant be defined. But life is just a word, it can be defined if its willed so.

But we clearly dont have a commonly accepted definition.

Yes; it is a moral form, like time, or justice, or even existence, and attempt as we may we can never de-fin-e what is in-fin-ite... If we say justice instead of life, what ever the difference between these two is, then no matter how many instances we have of justice we have not the thing JUSTICE; which is not thing at all, but a moral idea only... We can define life in terms of justice, and justice in terms of liberty, and liberty in terms of virtue generally; and yet be no closer to a definition of any of these moral forms... We have examples of life as examples of liberty, and but for those examples they would be only words... But more than examples is needed to define a form... It takes all the examples to define a moral form... Of physical forms the case is easier... The form "Dog" includes all dogs, and yet all the dogs is the definition of the form, and if a dog were to deviate enough from the form it would create a whole new form, and short of that would only create a catagory, such as three legged dogs... Do you get my point... Moral forms have no specific reality, but are more spiritual qualities having physical significance but no true meaning... "Dog" has a certain fixed meaning as life or existence cannot...

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@hamilton,

For definition of "life" see
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autopoiesis

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@fresco,

fresco wrote:

For definition of "life" see
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autopoiesis

I won't need a definition of life until I am dead...

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@Fido,

would it matter then?
if my question is correct, then would you be "dead"? or would you just be physically unusable?

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@hamilton,

hamilton wrote:

would it matter then?
if my question is correct, then would you be "dead"? or would you just be physically unusable?

I am 57... It is hard, though not impossible to get more physically unusable than that...

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@Fido,

haha.
what about being 58?

1 Reply

@hamilton,

hamilton wrote:

haha.
what about being 58?

Not impossible...

1 Reply

@Fido,

well, you can still support yourself, right? you can eat, breath and wipe your bottom? good. you are alive. when you can no longer do those on your own, you arent by your definition, alive. you ought to read Tuesdays with Morrie. you probably have...

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@hamilton,

hamilton wrote:

well, you can still support yourself, right? you can eat, breath and wipe your bottom? good. you are alive. when you can no longer do those on your own, you arent by your definition, alive. you ought to read Tuesdays with Morrie. you probably have...

I know you don't get it; but when the ruling class finds you unusable they do their best to wish you away, out of the way, and dead in a goddamned hurry... You can spend your life trying to give them greater meaning only to find in the end that you do not have enough for yourself, that all the people you abused or ignored in order to earn their support now hate your and ignore you... It is possible some one some where could find some use in me, but this is perhaps the most socially useful thing I do, sharing the knowledge I had to rob from my boss when he was thinking he was paying for my devotion and every thought and feeling I might own...

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Does life truly exist?

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