What is the point of life?

[Birdjaguar]

Without consciousness what does anything "look" like?

 

[The Civs 6]

 

[Joij21]

have been proven true experimentally and are considered irrefutable scientific laws.

Like Kyriakos said, they still haven't unified quantum mechanics with general relativity. It's just a bunch of hoodoo made up by scientists to explain away phenomenon that they are simply unable to observe because the light that they use in those electro-microscopes interacts with and effects the particles they are trying to observe (thus ruining the experiment). So quantum mechanics is just their conjecture about what they think is going on down there.

 

[Sommerswerd]

It will all be gone regardless, only question is "how soon". Humans, despite their destructive nature, are the only chance life on this planet has to live beyond the life of the sun (if we don't see lethal global warming sooner, we will DEFINITELY see it then!)...which is a small fraction of the life of stars in the universe in general. Sooner or later entropy will catch up even to red dwarf stars and black holes, but perhaps humans can make it "later". Or perhaps we kill ourselves off in the next 50 years. At the scale of life in universe in general or even life in solar system it won't change much if we kill ourselves off vs don't, if we can't become spacefaring.

This is my jam right here Getting to the next star should be our global project.

Its the next star or bust. Go to the next star... or go home (meaning extinct).

The point of life appears to be reproduction. That is the only thing all life seems to have in common, whether you look at a zebra, human, virus, amoeba, or mushroom.

I'd say its consumption. That is the other thing all living things seem to have in common... our need to constantly consume other things to survive.

 

[Lexicus]

our need to constantly consume other things to survive.

 

[sendos]

The problem I find with this question is because it is based on the premise that you are special, and that there must be some point in your existence. It's a question many theists like to ask because they think they know everything, as well as how you should live your life.

The fact is no one is special, not even me, and there is no point to your existence. That doesn't you should kill yourself or do something stupid. It's your life, you decide what to do with it.

 

[Thorgalaeg]

Like Kyriakos said, they still haven't unified quantum mechanics with general relativity. It's just a bunch of hoodoo made up by scientists to explain away phenomenon that they are simply unable to observe because the light that they use in those electro-microscopes interacts with and effects the particles they are trying to observe (thus ruining the experiment). So quantum mechanics is just their conjecture about what they think is going on down there.

Then the experiment are always ruined in an extremely lucky way since quantum mechanic invariably shows immense prediction power and huge precision even if it doesn't show the whole picture. And that is that science is all about. So, if you consider quantum mechanics a bunch of hoodoo any scientific knowlwdge is even more hoodoo.

 

[El_Machinae]

View attachment 588866

Photosynthetic life still consumes, and need ecosystem services to regenerate their byproducts or they eventually die in their own waste.

 

[El_Machinae]

Hey, you're right! Coral reefs do not appear to move. Parts of trees do move towards the sun, though.

Corals definitely move in a way analogous to how tress move.

Corals themselves are community organisms, but individual polyps move to react to the environment. Heck, most close up when photosynthesis isn't available, which is movement that benefits the symbiotic photosynthetic organisms they're hosting!

 

[Birdjaguar]

Like Kyriakos said, they still haven't unified quantum mechanics with general relativity. It's just a bunch of hoodoo made up by scientists to explain away phenomenon that they are simply unable to observe because the light that they use in those electro-microscopes interacts with and effects the particles they are trying to observe (thus ruining the experiment). So quantum mechanics is just their conjecture about what they think is going on down there.

So at which level of activity do we know the truth of how things work?

Our daily interactions with people and things? talking, touching, speaking, hearing, sweating
Physical interactions between things? Friction, making music and sounds, airplanes flying etc.
Chemical reactions? Baking soda plus vinegar equals foaming; gasoline engines
Molecular interactions? In our bodies and in test tubes
Atomic and sub atomic physics that make our electronics work
Quantum mechanics

If QM is hoodoo, are the other higher levels not hoodoo?

 

[Birdjaguar]

Corals definitely move in a way analogous to how tress move.

Corals themselves are community organisms, but individual polyps move to react to the environment. Heck, most close up when photosynthesis isn't available, which is movement that benefits the symbiotic photosynthetic organisms they're hosting!

Hence: movement = ?

 

[warpus]

I'd say its consumption. That is the other thing all living things seem to have in common... our need to constantly consume other things to survive.

We only consume so that we can have the energy to reproduce, though. Reproduction seems to be the end goal of our biological nature, and in order to get there we need energy (and luck and a clever dating profile)

 

[Kyriakos]

We only consume so that we can have the energy to reproduce, though. Reproduction seems to be the end goal of our biological nature, and in order to get there we need energy (and luck and a clever dating profile)

I am pretty sure than very old people also need to eat ^_^

There are very few organisms that actually die the moment they mate. I think it happens with some type of praying Mantis, and possibly with even smaller beings, but virtually nowhere else.
Even in the case of a few spiders, where the female spider is massively larger and tends to eat the male after she has been impregnated, the male has developed the crafty trick to provide her with a ball made from very many layers of web, so the female spider is busy untangling it to find what was inside - which was nothing. So the male has time to finish his work and leave before he gets eaten

 

[Sommerswerd]

We only consume so that we can have the energy to reproduce, though.

I disagree. I have been eating my ass off this week... mostly seafood... and I haven't reproduced jack squat, nor have I made the slightest effort to do so. I've been using my energy on videogames, watching television and a bunch of other stuff...

 

[Sommerswerd]

View attachment 588866

water

 

[Joij21]

If QM is hoodoo, are the other higher levels not hoodoo?

No, I just don't believe in quantum mechanics. So you could call me a quantum mechanics denier. However you don't need quantum mechanics to believe in all the other scientific stuff.

Quantum mechanics is very sketchy at best and IMHO I believe it may be disproven in the next decade or two. Most of it is just a bunch of hype bolstered up by the media, and it all started around 2010. Before 2010 you like barely heard about quantum mechanics, it was only talked about in private circles back then and never really known to the public. You wanna know why? Because most scientists propably didn't have much faith in it back then to tell the media/public. So meanwhile back in the day we were all taught classical physics in school instead. Absolutely nothing about this quantum hoodoo.

Then suddenly around 2010 it all blows up in the media and before long quantum becomes the new scientific craze that anyone will talk about. It's much older than that, but clearly if it was taken seriously in the past than we all would have been taught about it back in the 60s and 70s. But we weren't, which probably proves most scientists way back then thought it was crackpot science.

So what changed in 2010? I'll tell you what! We have a bunch of crackpot scientists on the job now, that's what! They're so desperate to advance new theories beyond general relativity in order to cash in on government grants. Problem is there hasn't been anything to challenge general relativity in over 80 years. So their solution was to pull out an ancient crackpot theory, pass it on to the public, and lie to governments that it will solve all their problems for cryptography and such. Next, before you know it all those gullible nations are lining up to hand out free cash to the crackpots. Easy money all pocketed and still no advanced cryptography computer in over TEN YEARS!!!

Yeah guys but sorry quantum mechanics is the biggest scam of our time and it can only continue so far before someone who's at the top calls b.s.! Hence 10 -20 years from now all you people's on CFC are gonna thank me for calling out this most inglorious scam that has wasted billions of dollars of hard earned taxpayer money!

 

[Kyriakos]

Afaik, the experiments are always showing the same result with QM. The issue is that the result isn't accountable by a theory (which is why there exist competing interpretations of QM).
My post was about QM possibly not being at a more fundamental level than non QM (if we take out the human as being the observer; maybe QM is even an overstructure instead of a substructure, or maybe it is of the same level, for the thing-in-itself)

If you don't mind Feynman occasionally being rather sarcastic, you can have a look at videos on QM from this lectures. The general sense he shares is that "we do not know what is going on" but we know the results (in experiments) are verified always.

 

[Lexicus]

water

true, I sort of read your "other things" as other organisms. I mean, photosynthesis "consumes" sunlight as well as water. Those are both technically things

 

[warpus]

I disagree. I have been eating my ass off this week... mostly seafood... and I haven't reproduced jack squat, nor have I made the slightest effort to do so. I've been using my energy on videogames, watching television and a bunch of other stuff...

Sure, but you're an exception.. What I said is true for the vast majority of life. You have the choice to not reproduce because you've evolved a brain that allows you to break free from your biological instinct.

There are very few organisms that actually die the moment they mate.

That's fine, that doesn't contradict anything I said.

 

[Birdjaguar]

No, I just don't believe in quantum mechanics. So you could call me a quantum mechanics denier. However you don't need quantum mechanics to believe in all the other scientific stuff.

Quantum mechanics is very sketchy at best and IMHO I believe it may be disproven in the next decade or two. Most of it is just a bunch of hype bolstered up by the media, and it all started around 2010. Before 2010 you like barely heard about quantum mechanics, it was only talked about in private circles back then and never really known to the public. You wanna know why? Because most scientists propably didn't have much faith in it back then to tell the media/public. So meanwhile back in the day we were all taught classical physics in school instead. Absolutely nothing about this quantum hoodoo.

Then suddenly around 2010 it all blows up in the media and before long quantum becomes the new scientific craze that anyone will talk about. It's much older than that, but clearly if it was taken seriously in the past than we all would have been taught about it back in the 60s and 70s. But we weren't, which probably proves most scientists way back then thought it was crackpot science.

So what changed in 2010? I'll tell you what! We have a bunch of crackpot scientists on the job now, that's what! They're so desperate to advance new theories beyond general relativity in order to cash in on government grants. Problem is there hasn't been anything to challenge general relativity in over 80 years. So their solution was to pull out an ancient crackpot theory, pass it on to the public, and lie to governments that it will solve all their problems for cryptography and such. Next, before you know it all those gullible nations are lining up to hand out free cash to the crackpots. Easy money all pocketed and still no advanced cryptography computer in over TEN YEARS!!!

Yeah guys but sorry quantum mechanics is the biggest scam of our time and it can only continue so far before someone who's at the top calls b.s.! Hence 10 -20 years from now all you people's on CFC are gonna thank me for calling out this most inglorious scam that has wasted billions of dollars of hard earned taxpayer money!

Paradigm shifts in scientific thought happen slowly and are usually resisted. You are impatient and discovering true things can both be hard and take time.

In 1915 plate tectonics was formally presented and pooh pooed until the 1950s and 60s.
In 1905 Einstein presented his theory of relativity. It was not widely accepted until the 1920s
Darwin's theory of evolution is not even widely accepted by the public today, 140 years later.
In 1974 Bob Bakker presented dinosaurs as warm blooded and possibly feathered. It took another 10-15 years for his theories to be accepted and expanded on.
While QM has been around for a while, the advancement of experimental techniques to support it have only caught up in recent decades.

You are just a what is known as a "late adapter" to scientific changes. The observer effect, entanglement, quantum tunneling etc. have all been shown to be real. We are now seeing quantum effects found in molecular and chemical layers of science and in living things.

Molecules that are involved in photosynthesis exhibit the same quantum effects as non-living matter, concludes an international team of scientists including University of Groningen theoretical physicist Thomas la Cour Jansen. This is the first time that quantum mechanical behavior was proven to exist in biological systems that are involved in photosynthesis. The interpretation of these quantum effects in photosynthesis may help in the development of nature-inspired light-harvesting devices. The results were published in Nature Chemistry on 21 May.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/05/180521131756.htm

Interesting links worth reading:

http://www.bbc.com/earth/story/20170215-the-strange-link-between-the-human-mind-and-quantum-physics

https://biocentrismnews.com