What is the point of life?

[Thorgalaeg]

We're currently seeking to export fission and fusion technologies to the galaxy, so we're not just speeding up the breakdown of chemical energy! We're literally speeding the total decay!

Yeah, we are the best at it! Funnily enough in space strategy games there is always an altogether evil alien race usually called the swarm or something like that whose only purpose is to devour planets and consume everything, when in reality we are the actual swarm. We are still in larvae phase though, struggling to get out of this gravity well, but if we survive and finally success, we will spread, oxidate, decay and mess the universe up as much as we can!

 

[Kyriakos]

I really doubt that humans will get out of the earth in vast numbers & also doubt the population of the earth will be in the billions by the time such colonizing is possible.
Less people = more resources/person. And if genetic modification is available, you don't need chance to get adequate intelligence (don't need large numbers).

An interesting scenario, however, would be colonizers having offspring in the new planet, but then the original colonizers leaving/dying. Then their offspring could have no tie to the tech created on earth, and would just use the legacy of "being born from the gods" (like some did already, in our own ancient past).

 

[Samson]

Biologically, the point of human life is to engage in pleasure seeking and pain mitigation, tempered by the goals created by us through philosophy. Evolution encourages reproduction or survival, but that is enforced in humans through pleasure seeking or pain mitigation and is somewhat tempered by philosophy.

The limbic system is the way our genes get us to do what they want.

 

[warpus]

I spoke of movement means formed in the first place. Unless you imagine that movement means (of the most primitive type) existed before any development. In which case, we are in agreement, and I noted that for those to exist there would have to be a "sense" they are needed.

Not really sure what you mean. The first movement that evolved would have been.. very simple one-celled organisms.. prokaryotes? They seem to move through liquids by twitching, swimming, gliding, etc. I think they evolved flagella for this purpose? I am just going by a quick google search here.

There is no "sense" needed for that. All you need is an evolutionary advantage over lifeforms that do not move or do not move as effectively.

 

[Kyriakos]

Not really sure what you mean. The first movement that evolved would have been.. very simple one-celled organisms.. prokaryotes? They seem to move through liquids by twitching, swimming, gliding, etc. I think they evolved flagella for this purpose? I am just going by a quick google search here.

There is no "sense" needed for that. All you need is an evolutionary advantage over lifeforms that do not move or do not move as effectively.

I mean that you could have "evolutionary advantage over other lifeforms" be a thing, but with no "sense" that movement it is a thing why would any such means be developed? Are you suggesting that means of movement developed before movement actually was picked up as an possibility?
In the case of movement this would seem unlikely, also for the reason that the cell has movement inside of it in the first place.

 

[warpus]

I mean that you could have "evolutionary advantage over other lifeforms" be a thing, but with no "sense" that movement it is a thing why would any such means be developed?

Random mutations can lead to unexpected results. These things aren't developed, they just arise by chance, and those which give the organism an advantage tend to be passed down to the next generation.

Are you suggesting that means of movement developed before movement actually was picked up as an possibility?

I don't understand this sentence, sorry!

 

[Kyriakos]

Random mutations can lead to unexpected results. These things aren't developed, they just arise by chance, and those which give the organism an advantage tend to be passed down to the next generation.



I don't understand this sentence, sorry!

Take it this way:

If A can be any natural number, and starts from 1, but with each mutation of A you have an x chance that it remains A and a y chance that it gets 1 added to it, sooner or later you will see the natural number you were thinking about. (parallelism: you would see means of movement)
But this wouldn't happen if A isn't set at the start to be a natural number (parallelism: has no "awareness" of movement), and neither is anything in its mutations tied to producing natural numbers. It may still happen that after z steps, you will get a natural number, but this development would have an infinitesimally smaller chance of occurring.*

In other words: if "movement" isn't something identified in some way by the organism (I obviously don't mean identified consciously; I was talking about amoebas), then it would have to be some really freakish development to see it mutating in a way which would allow, for the first time, means of movement.
Moreover, surely after an organism has developed means of movement, it has to be "aware" (again, I don't mean consciously) of movement, since it is already using it.

*It is estimated (as google tells me) that the age of the Earth is something like 4,5 billion years. Even if organisms existed from the very start, I am not sure this would be enough time for a purely random development of such over-categories, such as "movement" means, assuming -as you do- that the organism has no proto-sense of movement due to its biology.
Then again, maybe it is enough time. Intuitively I doubt it, and I think it's a valid note.

Maybe @El_Machinae can share his insight too, I am making a note more out of philosophical reasons, but the core of my point is to make clear the difference (which I think exists) between a proto-sense of (eg) movement, and no sense of it at all.

 

[Broken_Erika]

The point of life is 42.

 

[Terxpahseyton]

If you ever want to feel even more depressed, take a look at a map that covers more or less the known universe:

And be aware that the individual yellow/purple pixels in the above, that form the purple, orange, and yellow areas, are superclusters, that each may have a hundred million billion (100,000,000,000,000,000) suns. And we as a race are working on getting to the next planet over inside the same solar system, and dream of getting to the nearest handful of suns.

We as a race are no more important to the (known) universe than bacteria on a single grain of sand on a beach is to the entirety of the Earth.

That aside, what choice do we have but to keep going?

Looks just like a brain.
A mind.
That shouldn't depress you. Not at all.

 

[Samson]

Take it this way:

If A can be any natural number, and starts from 1, but with each mutation of A you have an x chance that it remains A and a y chance that it gets 1 added to it, sooner or later you will see the natural number you were thinking about. (parallelism: you would see means of movement)
But this wouldn't happen if A isn't set at the start to be a natural number (parallelism: has no "awareness" of movement), and neither is anything in its mutations tied to producing natural numbers. It may still happen that after z steps, you will get a natural number, but this development would have an infinitesimally smaller chance of occurring.*

Here is the question "Is the number of potential lifeforms a countable (like integers) or uncountable (like real numbers) infinity?" If one was to take the simplistic view that a life form is purely defined by its genetic sequence, and is we assume there is infinite matter in the universe then there would be a countable infinity of possible genetic sequences.

If you take into account that a lifeform is also defined by all the machinery that converts a sequence into a living being then I think there is a good case for there to be an uncountably infinite number of possible lifeforms.

I do not think this is relevant to the next point though.

In other words: if "movement" isn't something identified in some way by the organism (I obviously don't mean identified consciously; I was talking about amoebas), then it would have to be some really freakish development to see it mutating in a way which would allow, for the first time, means of movement.
Moreover, surely after an organism has developed means of movement, it has to be "aware" (again, I don't mean consciously) of movement, since it is already using it.

*It is estimated (as google tells me) that the age of the Earth is something like 4,5 billion years. Even if organisms existed from the very start, I am not sure this would be enough time for a purely random development of such over-categories, such as "movement" means, assuming -as you do- that the organism has no proto-sense of movement due to its biology.
Then again, maybe it is enough time. Intuitively I doubt it, and I think it's a valid note.

We do not know the details of how it happened, but it could have happened like this:
The earth is 4.5 billion years old. It took until 3.8 billion years ago to cool down enough so that there were a few pools of water, and very soon some combination of nucleic acids, proteins and lipid layers came together in a way that could replicate itself. As errors in that replication process occurred it would occasionally gain new "abilities" that improve its fitness. It may have first gained the ability to move molecules with its self, and then some "error" in that gave it the ability to move its cell membrane, and then it had "movement". Each change may only take a short time, and eventually it will end up as us. There is no need to do an exhaustive search through all infinite possibilities, as evolution gives us a shortcut.


When you say movement, you mean that the unicellular organism (possibly like an amoeba) had the ability to expend energy to physically change its position?

 

[Kyriakos]

Here is the question "Is the number of potential lifeforms a countable (like integers) or uncountable (like real numbers) infinity?" If one was to take the simplistic view that a life form is purely defined by its genetic sequence, and is we assume there is infinite matter in the universe then there would be a countable infinity of possible genetic sequences.

If you take into account that a lifeform is also defined by all the machinery that converts a sequence into a living being then I think there is a good case for there to be an uncountably infinite number of possible lifeforms.

I do not think this is relevant to the next point though.

We do not know the details of how it happened, but it could have happened like this:
The earth is 4.5 billion years old. It took until 3.8 billion years ago to cool down enough so that there were a few pools of water, and very soon some combination of nucleic acids, proteins and lipid layers came together in a way that could replicate itself. As errors in that replication process occurred it would occasionally gain new "abilities" that improve its fitness. It may have first gained the ability to move molecules with its self, and then some "error" in that gave it the ability to move its cell membrane, and then it had "movement". Each change may only take a short time, and eventually it will end up as us. There is no need to do an exhaustive search through all infinite possibilities, as evolution gives us a shortcut.


When you say movement, you mean that the unicellular organism (possibly like an amoeba) had the ability to expend energy to physically change its position?

I meant (for the Amoeba) that it has movement (changes that take place in space) internally, and also externally (moves as the entirety of the organism). I am not sure if "movement" can really occur randomly (a first ability to move, which should be internal at any rate), but maybe it can, given enough time.
Otherwise it could (theory) be some innate property, particularly if we assume that perhaps matter has no final division (there is no fundamental smallest particle), which for some reasons leads to stuff, including movement (first internally, again).

 

[Samson]

I meant (for the Amoeba) that it has movement (changes that take place in space) internally, and also externally (moves as the entirety of the organism). I am not sure if "movement" can really occur randomly (a first ability to move, which should be internal at any rate), but maybe it can, given enough time.
Otherwise it could (theory) be some innate property, particularly if we assume that perhaps matter has no final division (there is no fundamental smallest particle).

Movement, both internal to the cell and external (including our muscles) is caused by the protein actin changing confirmation while using the energy from dephosphorylation of ATP. There must have been something like that before, but at some point a genetic code changed by chance and that ability was gained by chance.

 

[Kyriakos]

Movement, both internal to the cell and external (including our muscles) is caused by the protein actin changing confirmation while using the energy from dephosphorylation of ATP. There must have been something like that before, but at some point a genetic code changed by chance and that ability was gained by chance.

I won't pretend to be knowledgeable in biology, however I assume that what looks (with current tech) as a block (eg protein), may in reality be itself macrocosmic compared to deeper levels. If so, it might also have had to develop such properties (such as the feature of movement) in time

 

[abradley]

Beyond me you'll have to ask God.

 

[warpus]

In other words: if "movement" isn't something identified in some way by the organism (I obviously don't mean identified consciously; I was talking about amoebas), then it would have to be some really freakish development to see it mutating in a way which would allow, for the first time, means of movement.

All life moves in one way or another. Is it possible to even have a lifeform that does not move in any way at all? I am not sure that it is.

And yes, sometimes mutations are "freakish"! That's the point, isn't it? Most mutations that happen during duplication don't affect the lifeform much - but some do.

Moreover, surely after an organism has developed means of movement, it has to be "aware" (again, I don't mean consciously) of movement, since it is already using it.

You're overthinking it. If an organism replicates/gives birth and one of its offspring is able to move better in some way.. then that might very well end up being an evolutionary advantage that gets passed down to future generations. And so the descendants of this lifeform would be able to move more effectively, etc.

The jump from stationary -> non-stationary seems to be your hangup - but there doesn't appear to be any life forms that don't move. It seems that maybe they never existed.

*It is estimated (as google tells me) that the age of the Earth is something like 4,5 billion years. Even if organisms existed from the very start, I am not sure this would be enough time for a purely random development of such over-categories, such as "movement" means, assuming -as you do- that the organism has no proto-sense of movement due to its biology.
Then again, maybe it is enough time. Intuitively I doubt it, and I think it's a valid note.

Are you suggesting that life was designed? That seems possible but far more unlikely than these characteristics evolving on their own.

Remember, it's not "purely random development". If it were, then I would completely agree.

 

[Birdjaguar]

All life moves in one way or another. Is it possible to even have a lifeform that does not move in any way at all? I am not sure that it is.

Movement = ?
Coral reef?
Trees?
Things that drift without propulsion?

 

[El_Machinae]

Beyond me you'll have to ask God.

He said that you should listen to me, since He's already bothered to tell me and doesn't want to have to tell people over and over.

 

[Joij21]

Its sex. Or rather how many times you have sex, and with more than one partner.

Basically a point system where the goal is to "pump and dump" as many women as possible and then die a Chad.

 

[Birdjaguar]

Its sex. Or rather how many times you have sex, and with more than one partner.

Basically a point system where the goal is to "pump and dump" as many women as possible and then die a Chad.

You left out the purpose for the other half of the population.

 

[Joij21]

You left out the purpose for the other half of the population.

Get loaded up by a bunch of guys and spread it around town!