NationStates Jolt Archive

ok, so I have been kicking this idea around for a little while, and just wanted to throw it out there.

i believe that our understanding of mortality is way too simplistic. We interpret the chemical reactions in our brain that give us life as what makes up mortal. But, is a tree mortal? is fire or radiation mortal? as they both follow the necessary requirements of scientific life.

I think if there is any "mortality" it is much more universal, ie, it has to do with the existance of the universe in general. I would say that the universe as a whole is mortal, as it can either exist or not, but we do not have that option. Once the reaction in our brain ends we do not cease to exist, our mind stops, we as a whole die, but the millions of cells that comprise us still live, and when they die the molecules within them still exist. There is no real change except for chemical processes.

I dont know, I think our catagorical understanding of "alive" or "inadiment" are quite simplistic and really dont add too much to science and knowledge.

ok, so I have been kicking this idea around for a little while, and just wanted to throw it out there.

i believe that our understanding of mortality is way too simplistic. We interpret the chemical reactions in our brain that give us life as what makes up mortal. But, is a tree mortal? is fire or radiation mortal? as they both follow the necessary requirements of scientific life.

I think if there is any "mortality" it is much more universal, ie, it has to do with the existance of the universe in general. I would say that the universe as a whole is mortal, as it can either exist or not, but we do not have that option. Once the reaction in our brain ends we do not cease to exist, our mind stops, we as a whole die, but the millions of cells that comprise us still live, and when they die the molecules within them still exist. There is no real change except for chemical processes.

I dont know, I think our catagorical understanding of "alive" or "inadiment" are quite simplistic and really dont add too much to science and knowledge.

This is why I believe material monism to be incompatable with secular humanism. Materialist conclusions are anti-human and promote amorality.

I've come to believe that a person's thoughts on life and death say a lot more about their religious affiliations or tendencies than to simpler subjects like gay marriage, and other things that really only have a couple sides. Death, however, is probably seen in more different ways than any subject in the world. :)

(IMO), as a energy processing self-aware being, I naturally place this attribute as being important over all else. The way I look at it is life is a self-sustaining process. Life is organization higher than purely mechanistic chemical reactions, where the object is mutable and adaptable to environmental changes.

My moralistic views are probably more secular-humanistist in nature as that which is of the utmost importance is, effectively, to respect the existence and self-determination of emergent-complexity in self-sustaining energy utilizing systems (life). The most important, (IMO), is self-aware, self-reflective complexity that is capable of modifying itself and its surroundings (sentience).

so does this mean that you miss your hair and nail clippings?

are THEY still you after they get tossed into the trash?

are we then in effect a series of mulitiples of ourselves as we shed molecules of self all over the place?

so does this mean that you miss your hair and nail clippings?

are THEY still you after they get tossed into the trash?

are we then in effect a series of mulitiples of ourselves as we shed molecules of self all over the place?

No. And yes.

It means that everything in the Universe is intrinsically connected, that on a cosmic level all existance is in unity.

No. And yes.

It means that everything in the Universe is intrinsically connected, that on a cosmic level all existance is in unity.

not necessarily. I dont put everything in unity, well maybe gravitational and nuclear forces, but I'm not convinced were all connected.

If nothing else the nail clippings are connected to the universe through physical forces - conservation of matter and energy and whatnot.

Personal philosophy- whether or not someone senses a more metaphysical type connection- is much more individual than physical law.

If nothing else the nail clippings are connected to the universe through physical forces - conservation of matter and energy and whatnot.

Personal philosophy- whether or not someone senses a more metaphysical type connection- is much more individual than physical law.

absolutly, i compleatly agree

My point is that it goes beyond the simple segregation between life, death or not-living.

Any meaning or purpose to the universe is at much smaller scale (ie atoms and qwarks).

just mho

All of what we know, and all of what we don't yet know us an algorithm of entropy. The conservation of mass and energy guarantees that as the universe continues to expand the energy slowly burns off and will eventually everything will end in a heat death.

What life is is a log in the stream, it cannot overturn the current but it slows it down. Mortality is the way we recognize that there is no longer a hindrance present. So when we die and the molecules are left bare they begin to flow with the current and decay at the same rate as everybody else. So when life stops creating energy it is finished. That is mortality.

absolutly, i compleatly agree

My point is that it goes beyond the simple segregation between life, death or not-living.

Any meaning or purpose to the universe is at much smaller scale (ie atoms and qwarks).

just mho

So you say that mortality only rests at the quantum level?

What happens when that atom is part of another being?

Are we all just extensions of everything that came before us?

The subject is mortality, not morality.

I guess my own musings on it have been kind of strange. For instance, we may all live at different speeds, and trees may not notice us any more than we notice fruit flies, because we live and die so briefly in their span of life. Perhaps for all we know, rocks are sentient. They metamorphose constantly, over millions or billions of years. Perhaps fruit flies regard us much as we regard rocks and trees.

There are mysteries that we will never solve, and perhaps some of the magic would leave the world forever if we did.

Everything has this intricate path that it takes through the world, everything. Start watching things. Maybe you move a chair from one room to another, it started someplace else, and your kitchen isn't its final destination. It may have many incarnations, and who knows? Maybe it will one day be an antique, or an archeologist will find it a thousand years from now on a dig. From there, it might go on to a museum.

Everything is like this.

ok, so I have been kicking this idea around for a little while, and just wanted to throw it out there.

up mortal. But, is a tree mortal? is fire or radiation mortal? as they both follow the necessary requirements of scientific life.

.
Since when did Fire and radiation meet the criteria for being categorized as LIFE?

The subject is mortality, not morality.

I guess my own musings on it have been kind of strange. For instance, we may all live at different speeds, and trees may not notice us any more than we notice fruit flies, because we live and die so briefly in their span of life. Perhaps for all we know, rocks are sentient. They metamorphose constantly, over millions or billions of years. Perhaps fruit flies regard us much as we regard rocks and trees.

There are mysteries that we will never solve, and perhaps some of the magic would leave the world forever if we did.

Everything has this intricate path that it takes through the world, everything. Start watching things. Maybe you move a chair from one room to another, it started someplace else, and your kitchen isn't its final destination. It may have many incarnations, and who knows? Maybe it will one day be an antique, or an archeologist will find it a thousand years from now on a dig. From there, it might go on to a museum.

Everything is like this.

This doesn't have a whole lot to do with death. Also, life requires some sort of energy production. Rocks don't produce energy on their own and thus are not alive.

This doesn't have a whole lot to do with death. Also, life requires some sort of energy production. Rocks don't produce energy on their own and thus are not alive.

According to science. Look, I'm trying to keep an open mind. Science doesn't have all the answers, hence our failure to cure the common cold or cancer. Science has a lot of the answers, but not all of them. Nor does religion, and I'm not using that as a basis either.

"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,Than are dreamt of in your philosophy."

According to science. Look, I'm trying to keep an open mind. Science doesn't have all the answers, hence our failure to cure the common cold or cancer. Science has a lot of the answers, but not all of them. Nor does religion, and I'm not using that as a basis either.

"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,Than are dreamt of in your philosophy."

It's always good to keep an open mind, but science has a pretty good explanation and definition for life and death in general.

Remember, science once had it as an established fact that the sun went around the earth, and it still hasn't figured out whether gravity pushes or pulls.

I think this is why I'm such a fan of topology, and exotic mathematical shapes like the mobius strip or the klein bottle. There are things that don't seem as if they should exist, they don't make sense according to accepted science or math, and yet, there they sit, uncompromisingly there.

I'm sure scientists have wanted many times to think them out of existence, because they didn't compute. They simply stayed put, mute and real, no matter what people would like to use to argue them away.

Remember, science once had it as an established fact that the sun went around the earth, and it still hasn't figured out whether gravity pushes or pulls.

I think this is why I'm such a fan of topology, and exotic mathematical shapes like the mobius strip or the klein bottle. There are things that don't seem as if they should exist, they don't make sense according to accepted science or math, and yet, there they sit, uncompromisingly there.

I'm sure scientists have wanted many times to think them out of existence, because they didn't compute. They simply stayed put, mute and real, no matter what people would like to use to argue them away.

We are getting way off track here. I fully agree that there are things in the world that are unaccounted for in science. However, I don't believe mortality is one of them.

Au contraire, science has not determined the location of the soul. I'm not getting religious, but does life reside in the physical only, or is there something more to it? There are people who are alive, but do not live. There are people who are dead who seem to insist that they are not.

I'm being difficult, I know, but I'm hesitant to place my faith in institutions that swear they have the answer. I'm willing to listen, but I reserve belief for what I observe for myself. I might listen to the theory of the big bang, but really, it's a theory, and I'd have to take their word for it, because there's no way to observe it. I've seen things that defied scientific or religious explanation, and I can't explain them either, but I believe that anything that can be observed or thought is already as real as anything else.

In other words, mortality and reality can be subjective.

Au contraire, science has not determined the location of the soul. I'm not getting religious, but does life reside in the physical only, or is there something more to it? There are people who are alive, but do not live. There are people who are dead who seem to insist that they are not.

I'm being difficult, I know, but I'm hesitant to place my faith in institutions that swear they have the answer. I'm willing to listen, but I reserve belief for what I observe for myself. I might listen to the theory of the big bang, but really, it's a theory, and I'd have to take their word for it, because there's no way to observe it. I've seen things that defied scientific or religious explanation, and I can't explain them either, but I believe that anything that can be observed or thought is already as real as anything else.

In other words, mortality and reality can be subjective.

You aren't being difficult, you are being cynical. And there is a big difference.

Throwing your beliefs and faith blindly to a religion is being difficult, not being completely convinced and trying to find something better is being cynical and that is infinitely better.

The thing is that science doesn't profess to have all the answers, and there are a great few that believe science can never truly have the right answers, much like you. But what science does give us is a view point from which we can define our own world and begin to gain some understanding of it. That's why I put a lot of faith (yeah, I know I said faith, all you religious people get over it) in science.

As for a soul, I have to say that there probably isn't a soul to locate.

I don't know. What I meant when I said I was being difficult was that I'm playing with you. Only half-playing, though. Maybe there's a soul, maybe there isn't. I lean in favor of it, but I won't tell anyone else what to believe.

Part of why I'm a unitarian is that I am a firm believer that people have to find truth for themselves, and not take anyone else's word for it. Use all the sources you like, but don't take any of them as gospel. Find what you think makes the most sense.

I don't know. What I meant when I said I was being difficult was that I'm playing with you. Only half-playing, though. Maybe there's a soul, maybe there isn't. I lean in favor of it, but I won't tell anyone else what to believe.

Part of why I'm a unitarian is that I am a firm believer that people have to find truth for themselves, and not take anyone else's word for it. Use all the sources you like, but don't take any of them as gospel. Find what you think makes the most sense.

I will never doubt that the discovery of personal truths should be everyone's goal. I simply believe that science offers me the best starting point.

I will never doubt that the discovery of personal truths should be everyone's goal. I simply believe that science offers me the best starting point.

You're entitled to that belief. Me, I think that we should go someplace quiet and just learn serenity, maybe start by getting to know who we are. Most people never take the time, and it's disappointing. They end up with this tunnel-vision. They make their own prison, and never break out of it, and they don't know that all they'd have to do is look around once in a while.

You're entitled to that belief. Me, I think that we should go someplace quiet and just learn serenity, maybe start by getting to know who we are. Most people never take the time, and it's disappointing. They end up with this tunnel-vision. They make their own prison, and never break out of it, and they don't know that all they'd have to do is look around once in a while.

I believe that everyone has an inherent understanding of who they are. Any searching they may do to find that information may be more of an effort to ignore their true self.

This doesn't have a whole lot to do with death. Also, life requires some sort of energy production. Rocks don't produce energy on their own and thus are not alive.

You are letting your thinking be hemmed in by the established definition of words when the original post was admittedly trying to expand thinking beyond already established concepts. Remember what we CALL life or death (or any other noun for that instance) is a descriptor based on observable phenomena. Much more has been observed since the standard definitions for life and death were set down.

Technically living things don't produce energy. They transform energy from a source (food, sunlight) into a type of energy that the particular form can use. The same can be said of certain types of machines - only in what we call living that energy is used to self-repair and self-replicate certain tissues within the bodies. Maybe oneday machines that can do this too will be built.

Whether you want to call it life or death or not, however, practically everything has a cycle of existance and decay - from that which is typically life, to metals (oxidation), rocks (erosion), stars, etc. Things exist then are transformed into a differnt sort of matter/energy and then that matter/energy is picked up by something else and gets transformed again. So the matter/energy complex which makes up an object (living or otherwise) continues on even after that discrete object ceases to exist. So why "mortality" may exist for discrete objects, that which makes up the object is much more durable.

You are letting your thinking be hemmed in by the established definition of words when the original post was admittedly trying to expand thinking beyond already established concepts. Remember what we CALL life or death (or any other noun for that instance) is a descriptor based on observable phenomena. Much more has been observed since the standard definitions for life and death were set down.

Technically living things don't produce energy. They transform energy from a source (food, sunlight) into a type of energy that the particular form can use. The same can be said of certain types of machines - only in what we call living that energy is used to self-repair and self-replicate certain tissues within the bodies. Maybe oneday machines that can do this too will be built.

Whether you want to call it life or death or not, however, practically everything has a cycle of existance and decay - from that which is typically life, to metals (oxidation), rocks (erosion), stars, etc. Things exist then are transformed into a differnt sort of matter/energy and then that matter/energy is picked up by something else and gets transformed again. So the matter/energy complex which makes up an object (living or otherwise) continues on even after that discrete object ceases to exist. So why "mortality" may exist for discrete objects, that which makes up the object is much more durable.

Yes everything goes through a cycle of existance and decay. The decay I am referring to is entropy, and life is singular in its resistance to entropy, and therefore can be clearly defined by that characteristic.

I think most people spend their lives in denial of who they are, not inherent knowledge of it. We create these fantasies of who we are, and we aren't even honest with ourselves. We don't give ourselves permission to be human, and to have faults and be okay with them, or even just look at them so that we can do something about them.

When you're in traffic and getting worked up about being stuck in one place for half an hour, you're not looking around. You're just in this trance, tunnel vision. You only look at the traffic, what you're late for, the "asshole" in front of you who is just as stuck as you are. You don't snap out of it, because this is your reality. The thing is, it's subjective. People rush themselves into heart attacks and breakdowns and the grave this way.

What I'm saying is that people need to look around, give things some perspective and priority. Look outside of the car in the traffic. Can you do anything about it? No. So chill out and smoke a cigarette, listen to some music, look at the sky. People don't even have basic relaxation skills anymore.

I think most people spend their lives in denial of who they are, not inherent knowledge of it. We create these fantasies of who we are, and we aren't even honest with ourselves. We don't give ourselves permission to be human, and to have faults and be okay with them, or even just look at them so that we can do something about them.

When you're in traffic and getting worked up about being stuck in one place for half an hour, you're not looking around. You're just in this trance, tunnel vision. You only look at the traffic, what you're late for, the "asshole" in front of you who is just as stuck as you are. You don't snap out of it, because this is your reality. The thing is, it's subjective. People rush themselves into heart attacks and breakdowns and the grave this way.

What I'm saying is that people need to look around, give things some perspective and priority. Look outside of the car in the traffic. Can you do anything about it? No. So chill out and smoke a cigarette, listen to some music, look at the sky. People don't even have basic relaxation skills anymore.

Where is this conversation going? It's on a very winding road.

I can't say I disagree with you, but I think it is a little idealistic to want people step out of reality to change their point of view.

Sure, it's a winding convo. My favorite.

I'm not saying people should step out of reality to change their point of view. I'm saying that they should actually broaden their perspective. They're focusing on a very narrow part of reality. They're seeing a tree but not the forest, and by doing that, they're missing just about everything. Focus is a great thing when it's in the right context, but we overuse it, and it's to our detriment.

There are days when I think that this leads to stress, and maybe stress causes cancer. We lock ourselves into a definition of reality, and we're only taking in a very small part of the whole picture, and through a distorted lens.

Perhaps if more people would learn to give themselves a break, take off their watch and turn off the TV, and take in a bit more without concentrating on what their limits are, they'd be a lot happier.

Sure, it's a winding convo. My favorite.

I'm not saying people should step out of reality to change their point of view. I'm saying that they should actually broaden their perspective. They're focusing on a very narrow part of reality. They're seeing a tree but not the forest, and by doing that, they're missing just about everything. Focus is a great thing when it's in the right context, but we overuse it, and it's to our detriment.

There are days when I think that this leads to stress, and maybe stress causes cancer. We lock ourselves into a definition of reality, and we're only taking in a very small part of the whole picture, and through a distorted lens.

Perhaps if more people would learn to give themselves a break, take off their watch and turn off the TV, and take in a bit more without concentrating on what their limits are, they'd be a lot happier.

It is not focus that you are concerned about but the spectrum. Focus is a way of gaining clarity and that is always a good thing. The trouble is that if we cannot make sense of what is outside our spectrum it is all but worthless to take into account.

Nonapplicable knowledge is worthless knowledge.

So we should all take your word for what's relevant and what's not? Things are seldom taken in far enough to determine whether they're applicable or inapplicable. People just don't see them.

In other words, you're stuck in that car in traffic, and you figure everything but your plight and the clock and that meeting you're late for are inapplicable. Maybe it sounds like a new-age philosophy, but I think the person in the car would solve just as much by appreciating the blue sky as they would by getting pissed off and giving themselves an aneurism.

The truly remarkable people in this life, at least as far as I'm concerned, are the ones who disregard conventional wisdom. They ignore the people who say, "that's impossible!", and do their own thing. Look at people like Tesla or Newton.

so does this mean that you miss your hair and nail clippings?

are THEY still you after they get tossed into the trash?

are we then in effect a series of mulitiples of ourselves as we shed molecules of self all over the place?
Exactly. The molecules we shed are replaced with new ones.

I am everything; everything is me...

All of that is a really roundabout way of saying you take things too seriously, Vittos Ordination. Chill out a little bit. It's not on the final. You're headed for a heart attack if you honestly subscribe to a narrow view of life.

I am everything; everything is me...

Koo Koo Kachoo

So we should all take your word for what's relevant and what's not? Things are seldom taken in far enough to determine whether they're applicable or inapplicable. People just don't see them.

In other words, you're stuck in that car in traffic, and you figure everything but your plight and the clock and that meeting you're late for are inapplicable. Maybe it sounds like a new-age philosophy, but I think the person in the car would solve just as much by appreciating the blue sky as they would by getting pissed off and giving themselves an aneurism.

The truly remarkable people in this life, at least as far as I'm concerned, are the ones who disregard conventional wisdom. They ignore the people who say, "that's impossible!", and do their own thing. Look at people like Tesla or Newton.

Those men were great for their line of thinking and focus on the problem at hand. They examined what the problem was intensely until they were able to realign their thinking. Newton was notoriously intense and ill natured. I doubt very much that he would have bought into your views.

That doesn't mean that your thoughts are wrong, however, as a life altering event can occur from a simple change of view.

This is why I believe we need to believe in the soul. It gives us a sense of morality and removes the futility of our excistence. Plus, death is simpler. Life ends when the soul seperates from the body.

All of that is a really roundabout way of saying you take things too seriously, Vittos Ordination. Chill out a little bit. It's not on the final. You're headed for a heart attack if you honestly subscribe to a narrow view of life.

I get what your saying, and in fact, I have a very very relaxed view on life. But I also think that that can be a hindrance to accomplishment.

Those men were great for their line of thinking and focus on the problem at hand. They examined what the problem was intensely until they were able to realign their thinking. Newton was notoriously intense and ill natured. I doubt very much that he would have bought into your views.

That doesn't mean that your thoughts are wrong, however, as a life altering event can occur from a simple change of view.

Remember, it took an apple falling on Newton's head to make the theory of gravity dawn on him. Sometimes when we stop concentrating and focusing and thinking so goddamned hard about things, they come to us. We were just trying so hard that we didn't see them. We narrow our vision too much.

Remember, it took an apple falling on Newton's head to make the theory of gravity dawn on him.

Ummm ... no it didn't.

The legend is that Newton saw an apple fall in his garden in Lincolnshire, thought of it in terms of an attractive gravitational force towards the earth, and realized the same force might extend as far as the moon. He was familiar with Galileo's work on projectiles, and suggested that the moon's motion in orbit could be understood as a natural extension of that theory. To see what is meant by this, consider a gun shooting a projectile horizontally from a very high mountain, and imagine using more and more powder in successive shots to drive the projectile faster and faster.

As for hitting him on the head, no, and I doubt it was even a falling apple, but rather Gallileo's experiments that got him thinking.

Ummm ... no it didn't.

The legend is that Newton saw an apple fall in his garden in Lincolnshire, thought of it in terms of an attractive gravitational force towards the earth, and realized the same force might extend as far as the moon. He was familiar with Galileo's work on projectiles, and suggested that the moon's motion in orbit could be understood as a natural extension of that theory. To see what is meant by this, consider a gun shooting a projectile horizontally from a very high mountain, and imagine using more and more powder in successive shots to drive the projectile faster and faster.

As for hitting him on the head, no, and I doubt it was even a falling apple, but rather Gallileo's experiments that got him thinking.

Oh, bloody hell. Figuratively. I was using it to illustrate a point. Yes, I know it didn't actually fall on his head any more than George Washington chopped down a cherry tree and turned all mealy-mouthed. It made a picturesque scene, that's all.

This is why I believe we need to believe in the soul. It gives us a sense of morality and removes the futility of our excistence. Plus, death is simpler. Life ends when the soul seperates from the body.

I don't believe that a soul entitles morality. Morality is a function of sympathy. We are a social creature and we have the ability to understand the pain of others and can, in a sense, feel the pain ourselves.

I also don't feel that I need a soul to remove the futility of existence. I believe that existing in itself is more than enough justification. The ability to accomplish is so much more important to me than the feeling of belonging.

Yes everything goes through a cycle of existance and decay. The decay I am referring to is entropy, and life is singular in its resistance to entropy, and therefore can be clearly defined by that characteristic.

Entropy is a property of any closed system. This includes those we call "living" as well as "inanimate." As a closed system, individual living beings age and die. Life is just one sort of renewal process and organizational effort to stave off the processes of entropy. Even within the closed system of a biological being, macroscopic organization (metabolizing, building of molecules, etc) is accomplished by the entropy of other, smaller molecules - most notably the water molecule. The overall abiltiy of "life" to renew itself is an open system strategy, entropy isn't denied, but a form of self-replication is in place, which requires input from outside the system (not just reproductively which obviously isn't the case for every living organism but also in increased need for energy and resource intake to help build the new life). Self-organization -or the ability to reorder and resist overall gain in entropy -can occur within all open systems, not just "living" ones. Thuse "living" things are not the only things that renew themselves. On a planetary level, erosion occurs but geological forces produce new rock, new land masses. On a more cosmic level stars may explode, but that process also produces the matter and energy by which new stars are formed. Recent work in certain fields of physics such as string theory and quantam mechanics even severly undermine the entropic "heat death" theory of the demise of the universe.

You are letting your thinking be hemmed in by the established definition of words when the original post was admittedly trying to expand thinking beyond already established concepts. Remember what we CALL life or death (or any other noun for that instance) is a descriptor based on observable phenomena. Much more has been observed since the standard definitions for life and death were set down.



That is exactly what I was trying to express, that we are limiting our understanding of existence by classifying various objects as single mortal beings, while they are comprised of thousands of smaller "mortal" beings, and billions of atoms that will never (probably) be destroyed.

Our mortality is directly related to the mortality of the thousands of creatures that comprise us. At what point is the human body said to be dead? when the brain isn't alive? then what about the skin cells? where does their soul go, since they die after the brain?

I don't believe that a soul entitles morality. Morality is a function of sympathy. We are a social creature and we have the ability to understand the pain of others and can, in a sense, feel the pain ourselves.

I also don't feel that I need a soul to remove the futility of existence. I believe that existing in itself is more than enough justification. The ability to accomplish is so much more important to me than the feeling of belonging.
If that were true, simply exsisting should negate amortality. However, it takes a belief and respect for the soul to derive a moral code. Whether or not the soul physically excists is a matter of debate, however the soul is the embodiment of everything good about Humanity and to deny it is to embrace our evil without a measure of salt.

I think a being dies/ceases to be when its most notable emergent characteristic(s) ends (typically due to the end of homeostasis).
As a specific example, I'll die when the systems/organs/tissues/cells/organelles/proteins/molecules/atoms/particles that comprise my body cease to function "together" in any notable way.