Psychology/Biology? question! Thoughts on death

[Dontkare]

I believe that there has to be something out there, that everything that has happened is far to specific to be left up to chance. However, my beliefs aren't set in stone, in that if somebody could validly prove this wrong I wouldn't be so hardheaded as to ignore them. Not saying I follow the catholic/christian religions, but I believe there has to be some sort of deity.

[Kaylia]

Let's just say for one second that the world is infinite, and there is some chaos going on everywhere. What's the odd of something happening?

[Dontkare]

I suppose that if stuff is going on everywhere, the chances of something happening would be pretty high. But where I have questions because, I'll admit I haven't spent years and years researching this, if you subscribe to evolution, you then subscribe to the big bang correct?

[Kaylia]

If the odds are 0, then it's still 0, if the odds are incredibly small, then it's bound to happen eventually.

We don't know how our universe came to be, and because of this, we can't say shit about the cause. You say there is a god, I say it's infinite...why one has to be more likely than the other? If you want to believe one more than the other, you need a reason to do so (since you said you don't blindly follow something).



Do you subsribe to the big bang? That's such a tricky question. Our physics model aren't accurate to the point where we can talk about anything definitive beyond plank times, and even before, there is a few thing we can't describe perfectly. If by big bang, you're talking about the model that describe the early universe and can be observed...then yes. If you mean "a big explosion out of nowhere", than no, that's not how physics work.

[Komm Suesser Tod]

I believe that there has to be something out there, that everything that has happened is far to specific to be left up to chance. However, my beliefs aren't set in stone, in that if somebody could validly prove this wrong I wouldn't be so hardheaded as to ignore them. Not saying I follow the catholic/christian religions, but I believe there has to be some sort of deity.

I have to ask, what precisely do you claim is so specific it had to have been planned?

As for the (which I understand isn't your point) "people are just so perfect, I mean, we heal when we get cut" argument, there are some people who don't heal properly, who don't even have all their organs when they're born, or come out with some condition that will most likely kill them before anything else gets a chance to.

How about you go find some kid with a hole in his heart and tell him that there has to be a god because shit is so perfect?

[Dontkare]

I have to ask, what precisely do you claim is so specific it had to have been planned?

As for the (which I understand isn't your point) "people are just so perfect, I mean, we heal when we get cut" argument, there are some people who don't heal properly, who don't even have all their organs when they're born, or come out with some condition that will most likely kill them before anything else gets a chance to.

How about you go find some kid with a hole in his heart and tell him that there has to be a god because shit is so perfect?

Why couldn't you use this same argument against evolution? Why wouldn't we have evolved out of disorders and deformities. Unless you want to claim a population control of sorts. Also, it's not just specifics, but how things came to be in the first place. If the big bang is true, the earth was a giant molten rock for years and years. Now I get that bacteria or whatever could survive under such conditions, and maybe later evolve into a creature. But where did stuff like plants come from? Unless a tree is just a huge bacteria. I know this has probably been explained but as I said, I haven't spent the years devoting myself to research.

[Komm Suesser Tod]

Why couldn't you use this same argument against evolution? Why wouldn't we have evolved out of disorders and deformities. Unless you want to claim a population control of sorts. Also, it's not just specifics, but how things came to be in the first place. If the big bang is true, the earth was a giant molten rock for years and years. Now I get that bacteria or whatever could survive under such conditions, and maybe later evolve into a creature. But where did stuff like plants come from? Unless a tree is just a huge bacteria. I know this has probably been explained but as I said, I haven't spent the years devoting myself to research.

First off, that wasn't an argument for evolution, it was an argument against a specific reasoning for the existence of God.

Secondly, modern medical science, in it's own way, thwarts evolution. People with diseases or other conditions that would have claimed them at young age have been, through medical science, able to reproduce and live where without intervention, would have been unable to.

And to your point about plant life, please examine the underlined word of the phrase. Microscopic organisms of all sorts evolved, some turning into the animals and people that populate our world, some exist today as different microscopic organisms, and others became fucking trees, because hey, who wouldn't want to be a tree.

[Neosutra]

Dontkare..

Seriously, every question you're asking is covered in modern biology and evolution textbooks. Your questions arent even "big mysteries", you can see base chemicals form into amino acids and amino acids turn into protiens even today. If you knew anything about biology you would realize how completely ignorant everything you are saying is.

Please, do yourself a favor and go buy a few textbooks and save us the trouble of having to respond to your obvious apathy at really understanding these concepts.

We arent asking you to spend years doing research, but for fucks sake, go read a book.

[Kaylia]

Why couldn't you use this same argument against evolution?

Uh, you can't reverse his argument.

Evolution doesn't make your species invincible. In fact, more species dissapeared than survived. There is even local situation where a species will degenerate (low population). Evolution is a statiscal model. If you're looking at it from a case by case basis, you're doing it wrong.


Do you know how chemistry work? If you put the right ingredient together (which is nearly every atoms in the universe), you will create molecule. Organics molecule are pretty common in the universe. There is a ton in space floating in giant cloud, there is a lot around star, and there is even planets/moons full of it. Organics matter being on Earth is not surprising at all and can be explained easily.


Now let's say you have the right elements and the right condition, something more complicate can be formed (right now, it's thought to be small alcove near underwater volcano that have sulfur, heat and some properties that facilitate the formation of complex molecule). We haven't created life in lab yet, but we can create complex molecule, and that's pretty much what happened early.


What's the difference between plants and animals? One giant molecules was more stable "eating" the ground/rock, another was more stable eating it's own kind for additional material.


[edit]
Do what Neo said and go pick up a book or something. At the very least, read the wiki entries on it (it's not the most recent theory, but it's still give you a good idea of the general line).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History...Origin_of_life

We are missing a few minor step here and there, but the whole process is far from impossible, and doesn't require any outside elements. The complete models will simply adds more precision, but the main line won't change.

[Sepukku]

There is no spiritual answer for this. We die because we physically wear down (aging). To imply its anything else implies my car dies for spiritual reasons.

Video game systems, televisions, vehicles, and people all wear down and stop working. Unfortunately for humanity we haven't perfected the repairing and replacement process for all our parts. Furthermore, we can't sit in a garage for twenty years before being repaired. A bicycle with a broken chain can be restored 30 years after the fact, some parts of the human body we can't go more than several minutes without - long before the initial repairmen (Emergency Personel) could ever get to us. Worse yet, if something starts leaking or ruptures within us its generally a pretty catastrophic death blow....

To waste time thinking of such things is a meaningless, trivial pursuit. Stop worrying about death because you didn't live the first X years of your life the way you ideally would've wanted to and start living the next Y years of your life the way you want to.

[Sepukku]

Let's just say for one second that the world is infinite, and there is some chaos going on everywhere. What's the odd of something happening?

Some where some really hot chick is masturbating right now. Thats what this sort of proposition always invokes in my mind hahahaha

But then again, if I think about it beyond 5 seconds like I have in considering this, I also think somewhere someone is really suffering - and not like miserable at high school cause her boyfriend dumped her and she's "devestated" - but I mean, /really/ suffering. Starving for food, terminally ill loved ones, a prisoner in their home situation, those sort of things. :/

[Neosutra]

Some where some really hot chick is masturbating right now. Thats what this sort of proposition always invokes in my mind hahahaha

But then again, if I think about it beyond 5 seconds like I have in considering this, I also think somewhere someone is really suffering - and not like miserable at high school cause her boyfriend dumped her and she's "devestated" - but I mean, /really/ suffering. Starving for food, terminally ill loved ones, a prisoner in their home situation, those sort of things. :/

Then you have to ask yourself if all the good in the world outweighs the bad.

i.e. is the HOT chick thats eating out another HOT chick RIGHT THIS SECOND, like while I'm typing this she is licking and kissing all over the other HOT chick... Is that level of awesome worth a 13 year old girl that is getting raped right now and then sold into the sex trade and controlled via forced drug addiction, just to die a few months from now?

The answer I believe is no, and upon this analysis I would say that it is better for everyone if we just destroyed humanity. I came to this conclusion a while ago, however before carrying out my plan to destroy the world I came across one BIG problem with my plan:

Life keeps fucking rebuilding. So even if I somehow start a nuclear war and wipe out all humanity and life and leave just a steaming pile of base radiated chemicals, in a billion or so years life would just evolve into more complex organisms who would have to go through the same social-evolutionary steps and make the same fucking mistakes.

So all we can hope for is that we get better over time. Else let's just burn it all to the ground.

[Kryssan]

It's clear. We've all accepted it. We are all going to die one day.

Um... I haven't accepted it. So I have no real opinion on death.

[kuronosan]

Why couldn't you use this same argument against evolution? Why wouldn't we have evolved out of disorders and deformities. Unless you want to claim a population control of sorts. Also, it's not just specifics, but how things came to be in the first place. If the big bang is true, the earth was a giant molten rock for years and years. Now I get that bacteria or whatever could survive under such conditions, and maybe later evolve into a creature. But where did stuff like plants come from? Unless a tree is just a huge bacteria. I know this has probably been explained but as I said, I haven't spent the years devoting myself to research.

Trees are just huge bacteria. Are you fucking retarded? Have you not even picked up a biology textbook? God damn it man. Read up on your phylogenetics. The entire evolutionary idea is what explains synergism and how bacteria are pretty much the ancestor of every living thing on the planet today.

[Kilhart]

Didn't read the entire topic.. decided to be lazy.

There is that one jellyfish that someone posted on BG not too long ago that doesn't die from old age, so I would say that death from old age exists because nearly all organisms haven't evolved to the point where it doesn't affect them.

Imagine if the jellyfish's DNA could be adapted for humans. You could go to Disney World. MULTIPLE TIMES.

[Sepukku]

Didn't read the entire topic.. decided to be lazy.

There is that one jellyfish that someone posted on BG not too long ago that doesn't die from old age, so I would say that death from old age exists because nearly all organisms haven't evolved to the point where it doesn't affect them.

Imagine if the jellyfish's DNA could be adapted for humans. You could go to Disney World. MULTIPLE TIMES.

Make a Wish would go out of business!!

[Not not Mattaru]

Non-science answer, think other people covered that pretty well:

Because we live.

[Kilhart]

Non-science answer, think other people covered that pretty well:

Because we live.

Eh, I would say that's a more philosophical answer, and honestly most of philosophy is derived from how the world happens to be now. If humans started off as immortal, no one would be talking about death as a necessity and a part of life.

[Sepukku]

Non-science answer, think other people covered that pretty well:

Because we live.

I concur with this - if you really want to be a fruitcake and go all sissy philosopher / emo "deep" thinker, this is it. We would have a word for "life" as in what we create, a noun, but we wouldn't have a word for "living," a verb because there would be no need as everything would be that with no alternative.

Just as I am made of matter, a concept I am aware of, there is no verb for "to be made of matter," because there is no alternative for humans/anything to exist as.

inb4 "but anti-matter..." Its a quick, plain analogy, don't dissect it too much.

[Kilhart]

I concur with this - if you really want to be a fruitcake and go all sissy philosopher / emo "deep" thinker, this is it. We would have a word for "life" as in what we create, a noun, but we wouldn't have a word for "living," a verb because there would be no need as everything would be that with no alternative.

Just as I am made of matter, a concept I am aware of, there is no verb for "to be made of matter," because there is no alternative for humans/anything to exist as.

That's much less philosophy-oriented than it is a topic of anthropology. It's why some cultures don't have words for things that other cultures do.

Anyways, I always wondered what it would be like if humans discovered how to reverse entropy and achieve absolute immortality. Eventually people would overcrowd the universe and we'd see laws being passed restricting the birth of new humans, and movements/lobbyists for the rights of the unborn.