have you ever had one weird experience where how it all started? ever wondered y we are the most inteligent creatures on earth? if you have something post it! i need it for my year 8 science homework and i need your help. it can be anything whacky or crazy but i need it before next tuesday.
Your thnx
burnz

In my deeply intelligent and deeply drunk friend's words: "Life is.. life. Get it?"
My point of view is purely scientistic. Evolution, mr. Anderson... A chain of events that led to us being the most advanced form of life on the planet.

I was actually talking about this today with my dad, this is a very tricky subject, but I think you need to expand on your question. All I can say so far is Yes I have wondered.

Do you want to know what I think? How complex should I answer? Becuase I have alot of views on this subject.

YES! go wild on the subject it dosn't matter what it could be! my example: aliens came down to earth and mated with humans making them increadibly smart. complex or stupid either way i would get marks and this would turn out to be a very weird convo but hell it'll be funny:)
like i said, go wild!

We're life's energizer bunny. We're the fuel that lasts and reproduces in such quantities that we'll keep lasting.

Imagine that there was 'nothing' in the beginning. If there's nothing, dimensions such as latitude, height and even time are meaningless and impossible to seperate from eachother. Nothing chances, nothing's distinguishable ( ehr,.. is that a word ? ). In other words: time etc. doesnt exist.
However, as soon as you put a point into that whole lot of 'nothing', suddenly all sorts of dimensions spring to life. We've got a starting point from which to measure distance, height .. change introduces the passing of time.

But the only way to have all that, is for someone to observe there -is- something. As the quantum-theory has already proven that 'measuring' or 'seeing' something defines its state ( Schrodinger's cat -experiment ), you could say we are the things that keep life alive. We define the world around us, our consciousness shapes the world and allowes for dimensions.

So either life is the universe's fuel, or I'm just being very egocentric in thinking that everything evolves around us [img]tongue.gif[/img]
Either way, it makes for an original story.

...it's an anticlimax.

:D

We're random genetic offshoots like the ants you see milling around on the ground minding their own buisness, the only significant difference between us and them is that we ask "why?".

[ 10-10-2004, 04:54 PM: Message edited by: Sigmar ]

Yes, I had wondered. Then I found this cool thing called the "Book of Genesis." I'm not going to say anything else, as there is still the moratorium on religous discussions. (and probably always will be, lol.) ;)
Anyways, that pretty much covers my answer. [img]smile.gif[/img]

Forty-two.

I see someone's done her reading [img]smile.gif[/img]

*reads Illumina Drathiran'ar's post*

*starts methodically loading shotgun*

...I'm sure I've heard that particular quote more than 42 times in my life.

:D ;)

A thing is living if it has a physical presence and it reproduces.

I think, therefore I am.

I never quite understood what people meant when they said that... what does it mean?

It means that they are more than just a beast eating for life, that they do more than wake, eat, sleep, pee, sleep, eat.

Life is a grand adventure, and only as good as you make it.

Life is like a box of chocolate, you never know what's inside until you open it. :D

Does that mean I should open people up? :D [img]graemlins/evillaughter1.gif[/img]

Life is the most advanced of chemical systems on a macroscopic scale to date.

What began with perfect order, through entropy, dissolved into disorder. That disorder, however, was not perfect disorder; it created order to go along with it. This "order" gradually goes to a higher state while at the same time increasing the amount of disorder in the universe. Intelligent life is merely one stage of this progression.

Alternatively, our consciousnesses are such that it could be no other way. Instead of saying that we are a chance occurance, of chemicals interacting, we can say that the universe exists as it does BECAUSE we ARE. Philosophically, the "way we are" predetermines the nature of existence. If the electroweak force was SLIGHTLY different, then we would not exist, and we could not have these thoughts. Since we DO exist and have these thoughts, then the electroweak force MUST be within certain parameters.

I never quite understood what people meant when they said that... what does it mean? </font>[/QUOTE]The quote comes from Rene Descartes, who was a French philosopher and mathmatician in the 1600s. What it means is nothing can be proved other than your own existence. You must exist since your thoughts must be coming from somewhere. Since whatever it is having the thoughts self identifies with you, it is reasonable to self identify with it. It was first written in latin, 'Cogito ergo sum'. I think its 'Je pense que donc je suis' in french but I could be completely wrong.
Sorry if that was a bit verbose. [img]smile.gif[/img]

A better translation might be 'thought proves existence'.

[ 10-11-2004, 01:02 AM: Message edited by: Dirty Meg ]

Many people believe the human race evolved from the smallest amount of bacteria (hehe the human race used to be a germ [img]tongue.gif[/img] ), many people believe god created us.
It's a very confusing thing; now us being the most intelligent creature on Earth, we seem to be so stupid as to destroy trees and wildlife.
Just because we created computers and discovered medicine, does not necessarily mean we are the most intelligent creatures on the planet... I believe that if you are intelligent then you show that you learn things quickly or figure things out for yourself... like monkeys, orangutangs and gorillas... now they are smart creatures. Once you show them how to do something they automatically pick it up, and they can figure out the most complicated puzzles, it's just amazing.

I don't think my post gave you any help on your assignment burnzey boi, but hopefully it might give you an idea for something.

ahhh now those are your meanings of life but here question number two (exacly the same as number 1, go wild) what is death to you? is is something the same as life? different? or other thoughts?

Death is the end of our physical existance.

Where our body is broken down and continues the circle in life...typically this occurs within a coffin.

Whether there is another conciousness waiting on the other side... well why would this apply to humans alone and not other animals and insects? Why don't dogs go to doggie heaven if we get one? [img]tongue.gif[/img] :D

I never quite understood what people meant when they said that... what does it mean? </font>[/QUOTE](To expand on Dirty Meg's post): Descartes was the first major figure to try applying mathematical reasoning to the less concrete sciences. In proving the existence of everything around us, a difficult task, he takes the obvious logical approach:

Proof by Contradiction!

So, assume that nothing exists; prove it. One here runs into a bit of a logical fallacy -- and a gap in math's definition of proof. See, they'd never realized that something has to do the proving...

... very well, so if I, Aleph-null, the first of the infinite cardinalities, am to prove the nonexistence of the universe, then I must exist!

(He then tried to prove the existence of, among other things, God, but his logic had basically broken down after this first, excellent point.)

these are difficult questions to answer without religion.

life: is eternal, we've always had it from the beginning of time and will always have it. no man, no god, no thing, can remove us from eternity.

death: is non existent. it's kinda like moving and not leaving a fwding address. but we're still alive.

animal (aka non intelligent) life: see "life" answer above.

animal (aka non intelligent) death: see "death" answer above.

*note* calling animals non intelligent is not how i feel, but on such a diverse board i thought it a good idea to help others identify whcih creatures i am speaking about, as many believe animals as unintelligent.

death is nothing, absence of everything, like a blind person that has never been able to see, they don't have "black" where their vision should be, they have nothing, like when there is lack of sound, there is silence, but much more absoloute.
And i guess with death, because there is no thought, you would have no way of knowing you were dead, or ever alive for that matter, or anything, complete, utter nothingness.
To me, even thinking about that feels "suffocated".

Or we might go to some happy afterlife, where we are rewarded for all the good deeds of out life, live through our happy memories, and enjoy that time with our loved ones.

It's obvious which is more appealing, but which is right??? well, we don't know because we haven't seen it, we can only assume, and personally i would assume that cat in the box to have died because it obviously would have, but.... there is allways the possibility of anything, and i think it will allways be an unknown.
But believe what you want, just don't base everything on there being something after all this, and wasting the life you've got now.

life.... sometimes i wonder about that, the question that confuses me the most is "how did my mind/my thoughts get into this body".
That thought is sometimes faith inspiring, of confusing, or mayby it can be answered by science as being a series of random events leading to my creation, and that is also random, maybe it's whatever you believe it to be (as lame as that sounds).

Death is the triumph of entropy, the breakdown of our ability to reproduce on the cellular level. It marks the point where cells can no longer divide, and instead of dividing, they age, and eventually break.

Whether the "life force" is technically an aspect of this or not is principally a religious debate.

Ilander, funnily enough you've pasted your head over the quintesson "face of death"!

Who woulda thunk it! :D

Death is the death of our physical bodies, more than that I don't know.

Life is a dog, a bitch to be exact. At least that's what i keep hearing. :D

I think the essential thing to consider when discussing mankind's existence and advancement is the nature of Mankind itself. To do this, we begin with a look to the meaning of these two words that make up the word "Mankind." Mankind breaks down into two basic ideas imbedded in these words: "Mank" and "Ind." The problem is that no one knows what these words mean. And, thus the nature of Mankind will forever remain a mystery.

(Credits to Jack Handy)

In the words of Chef from South Park..."That doesn't make any G$#@$&% sense!"

another thing, what do you reckon a spirit is? Life, Death or other?

well with the help you guys gave me i am pleased to say that i got a b+.
thanx!!

Evelution, plain and simple. We are the latest step (or are we?) in Darwin's Thoery.

We started out as a single cell organism and through millions of years we evolved into what we are now.

But thats just my humble opinion (and my humble opinion is pretty bloody top-notch).

EDIT: I just noticed that you have already done the assignment, typical (but congrats on the B+)

Also: Spirit - A myth created by the human race to make it seem that there is more to life that it appears.

[ 10-12-2004, 06:27 AM: Message edited by: shadowhound ]

The definition of life changes with discovery. Prions (Mad Cows disease pathogens) are at a level that may or may not be life. Are they a pathogen, or a poison? They are so simple as to look like a protein, but they reproduce by causing a chain reaction which destroys the hosts brain tissue in the process. They are also passable from one person to another through consumption. Is this perhaps how life started? A randomly formed reactive chemical that was able to reproduce itself at the expense of it's immediate environment? Was this the start of the biological order that lead to us?

The question of the day is, where did that single cell come from?

I think we can safely say that humans aren't going to evolve at all... well, maybe a teeny tiny bit, but not much. The way evolution works is that the weak ones die whereas the strong ones live. In human society, we look out for one another and save peoples lives, therefore halting the process of evolution.

As for that 'single cell organism' question, that's difficult. We assume that time has a beginning, therefore before the beginning, there was nothing... so what made the beginning? There was no mass, matter, sound, light, or even a blank space to put this blank stuff in... Or, we could scrap that and say that time had no beginning, but that just kinda confuses it even more. [img]smile.gif[/img] I don't think humans yet have the ability to comprehend how all this started. I have my own beliefs, but let's not religify another thread :D .

"Religify"...that's a funny word...

Anyway, the question of the beginning is tied intrinsically to the fact that we experience beginnings and ends near-constantly...there are too many theories of the beginning to really say...even quantum theory can't do it...and religion, imo, doesn't quite solidify a good theory of the beginning either :( .

With the only glitch there being that according to Darwin, a single cell would never evolve into multiple cells. Scientists at the moment are looking for a different explanation, as Darwin's theory contradicts the existence of multi-celled beings.
As any singular organism has its own survival as its highest priority, it is very much unlike darwinistic evolution for a cell to team up with other cells, thereby depending on others to survive, which decreases it's chances on ( manipulating ) his survival.

The reason why organism have evolved into multi-cellular organisms is still scientifically unexplained AFAIK.

That is the kind of nonsense creationists make up to convince stupid people. There is nothing in Darwin's theory of evolution which states that organisms can't cooperate for mutual benifit.
Organisms manipulate their environment to survive and reproduce. This includes manipulating other organisms. If a group of organisms can get some kind of advantage from cooperating they will do it, whether it is a herd of antelope or a bacteria colony.