Why are we here? V Philisophical Nonsense begins....

[F.U.B.A.R.]

Not so sure about those theories now fubar - big bang is turning out to be a load of bollocks by all recent accounts. Could be an infinite number of universes, ours might've been the only one with goldilocks coefficients for everything (for example if water boiled a few degrees cooler water-based life couldn't exist), or it could be one of million universes with life in all of the feckers.

Oh I don't know Ismene, the only point I made which is likely to be affected if a new 'origin' hypothesis becomes generally accepted, is the age of the universe. The rest of my post pertaining to life and its support system on Earth is still valid.

From what I can gather, the current consensus of opinion regarding the question 'Is there any life out there' is that the developent of basic lifeforms could be inevitable throughout the universe - but complex, intelligent life could well be unique to our planet due to the serendipitous nature of the conditions required for it to evolve and mature. Admittedly, these conditions are specific to carbon based biology, but the only other chemical element that has the potential to form complex molecules like amino acids by chaining together with other elements, is silicon. Silicon based life would likely be dependant upon liquid methane rather than water, which would involve a completely different set of planetary requirements. Perhaps there are other, as yet unknown ways in which life could evolve, but would we even recognise it if we saw it?

Even if 'life as we know it' has developed into alien civilisations numerous times elsewhere in the universe, the chances of our crossing paths with them is extremely remote, simply due to the excessive distances and timescales involved. I used to totally believe that UFO sightings were alien visitors and that they had influenced our development in the past (hell, I even believed everything Erick Von Daniken wrote...). But after studying Science at degree level and subsequent general reading on the subject, I've pretty much concluded that the whole 'x-files' business is no more than a convenient smokescreen spread by the gullible and tolerated by the military to cover up top secret government weapons and aircraft testing.

TL:DR... I believe 'we' are currently alone in at least this galaxy - and even if we're not, to all intents and purposes we may as well be as the chances of finding them, or even recognising them, are infinitesimal.

 

[Sammy G]

I'm here because good Papist women don't take the pill.

 

[alasdairm]

So that's the basis of why WE are here...

i enjoyed reading your well-written post but it's more of an answer to "how are we here?" than "why are we here?" and that may be a clue...

asking "why are we here?" is loaded from the start. it assumes there is some underlying reason (in the metaphysical sense, not in the we are all made of stars sense) for our existence. maybe there is no reason. maybe we just are.

maybe we're here solely so that we can ask questions like "why are we here?"

alasdair

 

[Dark Side]

Sometimes when i'm stoned i have the rare depersonalization moment where i think "How the fuck do i exist" it happened around 2 weeks back; suddenly its like the autopilot has been switched off and i get a little freaked out... I then just tell myself "I don't exist". Not long after my mind goes back to normal and back to Auto pilot. One of the reasons i avoid anything stronger than weed as far as psychedelics go. 8(

 

[Sammy G]

"I am the robot", as RAW once said.

There's a lot to be said for that approach.

 

[F.U.B.A.R.]

i enjoyed reading your well-written post but it's more of an answer to "how are we here?" than "why are we here?" and that may be a clue...

asking "why are we here?" is loaded from the start. it assumes there is some underlying reason (in the metaphysical sense, not in the we are all made of stars sense) for our existence. maybe there is no reason. maybe we just are.

maybe we're here solely so that we can ask questions like "why are we here?"

alasdair

Yes, that's a good point which did occur to me, but I figured that the question should have read 'How are we here' instead. As you point out, the question 'why' implies reason, purpose and design - concepts I'm not very comfortable with in relation to the universe. As an analogy, a child might ask 'Why is the sky blue?' If the parent is knowledgeable enough to answer correctly, their response invariably explains HOW the sky is blue instead. The child was not aware he'd asked the question incorrectly, so continues on satisfied that he now knows the answer.
However, if the parent answers with ''the sky fairies painted it blue 'cos that's their favourite colour'', then child and parent continue on satisfied, in blissful ignorance of the fact that they were both wrong to start with and will likely always be wrong

 

[BecomingJulie]

We're here simply because life is one of the ways that potential energy has discovered for turning itself into kinetic energy. Supremely unlikely, and yet absolutely inevitable in a sufficiently-sized Universe.

OK, so energy isn't anthropomorphic, and doesn't want to change state or discover ways to do so; but nonetheless, it just does, unless something is stopping it. It's just as intrinsic a part of the Universe as gravity or electromagnetism.

Only, if we're going to be here, we may as well make the best of it while we are here -- we know what we like, so treat one another fairly, make one another feel safe and happy. Because if there's no-one else about to look out for us, then we have to do it ourselves. There doesn't need to be any overarching purpose -- besides never being able to doubt, even for one moment, that we did the best we could.

(Incidentally, I watched a social experiment which showed people are more prepared to put up with living in squalor if they believe it's only temporary and they are going to end up somewhere better soon anyway. Talk of an afterlife taps straight into that instinct .....)

 

[One Thousand Words]

I'm here because the universe conspired to express energy in the form of a human for a fleeting flash of time. In a thousand millennium it might decide that I'm better off trapped as a complex polycarbon, in the steady construction of an apple product.

Many of you are here because your mothers refused to swallow

 

[atreyaferret]

Many of you are here because your mothers refused to swallow

So I'm just browsing through and see this and lmao.

 

[Vurtual]

Latest research I said suggested life was inevitable given a favourable environment because it's the most energy efficient way of molecules bonding together or something.

Best argument I heard against the existence of life after death was that entropy always goes to the most disorganised state - so keeping you organised enough to be a soul floating round in heaven wouldn't follow.

In the universe though if entropy was the only game in town everything would already be uniform dust. The fact that systems organise themselves and generate novelty around the edges means that there's something else going on which balances it out (or at least slows it down). The universe we see could be thought of as poised between entropy and self organisation/evolution, between shiva (destroyer) and brahma (creator) (with vishnu (maintainer) as energy conservation or something (or maybe the trinity is gravity/dark matter/dark energy).

Entropy is only true statistically looking at a system overall - at a local level, when there's free energy there's plenty of room to violate entropy and create novelty (eg enough room to evolve intelligent life) - sure overall, given enough time everything turns to heat, but at the fractal edges, basking in the spare energy of a star, there's a long time to play with at our cockroach scale (5 billion years to start with if we don't wreck the planet). Look at the dna of earth as a whole system - it's got more complex over time and entropy prunes it all the time, but it doesn't look like stopping it anytime soon.

And beyond that, maybe teillhard de chardin/tipler's idea about omega point is true - that alongside entropy is the general incremental increase in complexity of evolution - and following this into the far future, planets would become more and more dense with complexity and information (noosphere); then at the end of the universe, when/(if) the universe collapsed into a 'big crunch' at the last instant the energy available would be effectively infinite - and using this energy the last god-like beings would maybe run a simulation of the entire universe, perfect to the quark, and in this simulated universe would intervene to right wrongs (for some god-like reason) - and to the inhabitants of that simulated universe, the interventions would appear to be supernatural or religious events (or dmt elves) that would be impossible to prove from within the simulation - and, like, maybe... we're in the simulation (woooo).

Why are we here is a heavy question - the semantic, answer-nothing version is 'the anthropic principle'. I vary; i sometimes take it in the stoical 'all's for the best...' approach' that the totality of all events and all universes all superpose together to make a complete whole, with all wrongs and rights making sense from the one universal viewpoint, which is the only 'why' that will ever make total sense - whether true or not, faith that this whole adding up/cancelling out to nothing overall (nirvana?) should (in theory) make for better acceptance of a world which at our local level sometimes seems cruel and meaningless. When i've seemed to experience a touch of the infinite (on acid) the strong impression i've had is that the universe as a whole is benevolent, or makes complete sense from a 'high' enough viewpoint - but my mind/ego would think that wouldn't it. (sorry for the flowery answer - that 1plsd is good shit)

As bill hicks said would be an interesting good news story:

“Today a young man on acid realized that all matter is merely energy condensed to a slow vibration, that we are all one consciousness experiencing itself subjectively, there is no such thing as death, life is only a dream, and we are the imagination of ourselves. Heres Tom with the Weather.”

 

[da man]

The only problem with the scientific account. Is all themm variables. If one slight adjustment was made too anything, temperature, distances of sun/moon, certain species, oxygen and gas ammounts etc etc. Then we wouldn.t exist. There was an amazing documentory that really emphasized this alot better, and the odds of all these things happening by 'accident/chance was literally impossible. The exact same thing applies to the human body, amazingly complicated and so perfect even down to cellular level and stem cells. The more u learn about how amazingly complicated and clever the human body or any living thing is. The more doubtful the scientific explanation of earth and life appears imo. Too perfect To be made by an accident/ chance. Though i am Religeous and have strong beliefs so my opinion may differ to many others.

 

[One Thousand Words]

Melanoma caused by exposure of our own Sun tends to give me the impression things are far from perfect

 

[alasdairm]

...the odds of all these things happening by 'accident/chance was literally impossible.

if it was literally impossible, it would not have happened. so it's literally, demonstrably and absolutely possible. indeed, it's not just possible - it's certain.

Too perfect To be made by an accident/ chance.

only if you choose to believe that.

when you consider the numbers at play in some models, the it's not just possible that what we are experiencing is likely. its probability is 1.

alasdair

 

[da man]

Yes impossible was a poor choice of word. I wish i could remember the documentary on the subject it was very eye opening. And had a scientist explaining the chance and probabilities of what it took to make earth/life and sustain it. There are So many different things that keep earth/life going.
Also the doc went into the distances and sizes of earth, sun and moon. And how they are mathematically all perfectly proportianate. which explains eclipses and things. I'm not very good at explaining things but i think u get my point. Anyway my stoned ramblings are over.

 

[alasdairm]

^ right. but some people's response to these ideas is "it's so unlikely it can't possibly be an accident" whereas others (myself included) think that it is unlikely but that it's still quite possible and, in a way, that's quite straightforward.. doesn't make it any less beautiful.

alasdair

 

[Shambles]

maybe we just are. maybe there's no why.

This...

Latest research I said suggested life was inevitable given a favourable environment because it's the most energy efficient way of molecules bonding together or something.

... that...

We ain't really here. Spirits are controlling us and eveyrhing is just an projection and our weird brain controlled by the spirit just doesn't gets it :D one day theres gonna be a star gate invented so we can turn into our real reptilian creatures and destroy the universe. The spirit wrote that.

...the other...

We are here simply because of an amazing series of chance factors which has led to our planet being totally suited to nurture, protect and sustain life from the very first proto-cells to human intelligence.

For example,

The universe is old enough for the heavy elements required by life to have been forged in previous generations of stars, but young enough to be a long way from the 'heat death' it will ultimitely face.

Our neighbourhood in the galaxy is relatively quiet, so we've managed to (narrowly) avoid being destroyed thus far.

Our star is of just the right mass to sustain prolonged steady fusion for billions of years, allowing time for planetary formation and evolution.

Our planet is orbiting at just the right distance from the sun for liquid water to be the normal state and is the right mass to stop our atmosphere from boiling away. Earth is also tilted on its axis which helps distribute the suns energy more evenly than a vertical axis, leading to a relatively narrow temperature range over the planet.

Then we have a moon which was spawned from earth while we were still cooling. This moon has enough mass to exert the tidal forces necessary to drive Earths geological processes such as plate tectonics. It also helps keep the Earth's iron outer core liquid around the solid inner core - this results in the dynamo effect that creates our magnetosphere which deflects most of the harmful charged particles from space such as cosmic rays and the solar winds. Much of the UV radiation from the sun is blocked by the ozone layer, and thanks to the greenhouse effect of carbon we are not locked in a permanent ice age.

Then during life's evolution, there have been enough catastrophic events to cleanse the Earth of the evolutionary dead ends and make way for a species that can adapt to survive.

The Earth is an integrated system of cycles and feedback loops which means everything is in a constant state of flux and rebirth. All of these factors have conspired to allow life to evolve without being destroyed as soon as it gets a foothold. Life is a constant struggle against entropy and without all these systems in place it would probably not have got any further than bacteria.

So that's the basis of why WE are here...

... but mostly that.

 

[Shambles]

Not so sure about those theories now fubar - big bang is turning out to be a load of bollocks by all recent accounts. Could be an infinite number of universes, ours might've been the only one with goldilocks coefficients for everything (for example if water boiled a few degrees cooler water-based life couldn't exist), or it could be one of million universes with life in all of the feckers.

It would appear you have precious little knowledge of Big Bang theory then as what you just said is a direct outcome of one aspect of said theory (specifically the concept of eternal inflation which is required to make Big Bang theory work and is recently gaining leaps and bounds from observational evidence to back up the existing theory - I suspect this is what you are referring to but perhaps missed out on the context? (get your cosmology from the heil by any chance? )

 

[BecomingJulie]

However unlikely our own existence, the existence of an intelligent being who could have designed us is surely orders of magnitude less likely.

 

[Allein]

However unlikely our own existence.

The fact we are seemingly here and able to pose that question makes the whole question of likelihood somewhat .....irrelevant....maybe

 

[Eveleivibe]

Finding this discussion fascinating. I will put my thoughts down when I've a mo n in my next philosophical thinking mood. It's usually when I'm doing fast paced walking as that's when I'm most relaxed. I like the discussion around "why" and "how?" It is fascinating how small words can change a whole question n response, but is the case.

Someone mentioned previously that we are willing to live in not so nice environment if we know it's temporary n things will be better. On a personal level this may have impacted on my spiritual thinking n thoughts of afterlife. I've always classed myself as Christian but after watching an interview by Michael Drosmin on Wednesday 21 January 2004, I started worrying, thinking that we're all going to die - that there'll be fire on earth n we'll perish n great pain. Of course this was just me being extremely paranoid but it led me into reading much books on spirituality, the afterlife n reincarnation.

Now, as I said I'll get my feelings down n share them at a later date when I feel more comfortable doing so, but for now I'll say that I feel my belief system (other than christianity which has always been there as a result of discussion with my Nain, n school assemblies) started as a result of fear of the future n non-existence - so maybe, thinking about it, its not that I was in an awful situation i know wilk change but from fearing a possible future situation that has not yet happened n needed reaasuring that some sort of comfort will follow.

Evey