(August 29, 2016 at 2:45 am)Thumpalumpacus Wrote:

(August 29, 2016 at 2:34 am)Arkilogue Wrote: Then why/how do some people loose it? I must not be hard wired...more like a suggestion.

Perhaps the will to live is like the speed limit; some people go faster, some people go slower, and some people don't take care of their car and it craps out on them in the middle of the journey.

Evolution doesn't operate on the individual level, but on the species level. One of the first things anyone who's studied it learns.

If it is incremental over time in a species as it changes to another, then it's entirely dependent on and only conveyed through the very slight changes within each individual. You cannot separate them. Evolution can only operate through individuals.

How can the "will to survive" be only present at the species level and not the individual?

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(August 29, 2016 at 2:50 am)RozKek Wrote:

(August 29, 2016 at 2:34 am)Arkilogue Wrote: Then why/how do some people loose it? I must not be hard wired...more like a suggestion.

Perhaps the will to live is like the speed limit; some people go faster, some people go slower, and some people don't take care of their car and it craps out on them in the middle of the journey.

Not completely certain. The human brain isn't perfect, it's subject to fault. It can be the brain structure, diet, worrying, chemical imbalances, and some of em' are genetical, but I've heard from many that it runs through their family, indicating it's genetical. I have a friend, his now ex girlfriend is severely depressed and nothing worked on her, no diet, no medicine, no therapy, nothing. IIRC it is just the way her brain works.

E.g it can be a genetic mutation (happens all the time) that reduces your seratonin production, some are more prone while some are more resiliant. What we know for sure is all your emotions including your will to live as opposed to let's say suicidal thoughts are all chemicals in the brain, if somethings goes wrong, well.

Certainly there's a sea of influences/causes...

I wonder how much of that is also due to the adversarial nature of our current civilization??

I also wonder how many chemical cascades in the body are self created by thought alone or caused by patterns of photons hitting the retina?

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(August 29, 2016 at 2:56 am)RozKek Wrote:

(August 29, 2016 at 2:34 am)Arkilogue Wrote: Then why/how do some people loose it? I must not be hard wired...more like a suggestion.

Perhaps the will to live is like the speed limit; some people go faster, some people go slower, and some people don't take care of their car and it craps out on them in the middle of the journey.

Some unfortunate people's cars don't work properly and are hard to repair* Everything about you isn't under your control whether you like it or not.

I'm under no such delusion, see my signature.

You should have seen what happened when I suggested depression and suicidal thoughts might be caused by pathogens known to colonize the brain like Candida and cause suicidal behavior, like Toxoplasma Gondii in rats and cordycep mushrooms in insects.

It was a shit show.

(August 29, 2016 at 2:07 am)Macoleco Wrote: Jenny A your answer would be appropiate if there was evidence of life with no will to survive.

There is none. Therefore you answer is wrong too.

(I dont know to quote in this forum)

Sorry, life without a will to survive or at least reproduce copiously before death wouldn't last long enough to leave a record.  That really all there is to it.

And will was really too strong a word. Mammals have a will to survive and other orders also appear to have a will to survive.  But do  bacteria have a will to survive?  Mushrooms?  What about trees?  Can you have a will without a mind?  Demonstrate that all living things have a will to survive.  All that can really be said is that all living things passively or actively do that which is likely to enable then to survive long enough to have fertile offspring. 

To quote this post use the reply button.  If there is no reply button because you are using a phone or tab, use the quote button.  

(August 29, 2016 at 2:57 am)Whateverist Wrote:

(August 29, 2016 at 2:10 am)Arkilogue Wrote: Does order and design require intention?

Well you sure do seem to want to say something in that direction.  If you mean "design" in the sense of just the way a thing happens to be structured without suggesting "according to a plan" then perhaps we have no argument.

According to wiki:

Quote:Design is the creation of a plan or convention for the construction of an object, system or measurable human interaction (as in architectural blueprints, engineering drawings, business processes, circuit diagrams, and sewing patterns).[1] Design has different connotations in different fields (see design disciplines below). In some cases, the direct construction of an object (as in pottery, engineering, management, coding, and graphic design) is also considered to be design.

Designing often necessitates considering the aesthetic, functional, economic, and sociopolitical dimensions of both the design object and design process. It may involve considerable research, thought, modeling, interactive adjustment, and re-design. Meanwhile, diverse kinds of objects may be designed, including clothing, graphical user interfaces, skyscrapers, corporate identities, business processes, and even methods of designing.[2]

Thus "design" may be a substantive referring to a categorical abstraction of a created thing or things (the design of something), or a verb for the process of creation, as is made clear by grammatical context.

Can you see why I would interpret your use of "design" as signifying creation according to a plan?

(August 29, 2016 at 2:10 am)Arkilogue Wrote: Does a human father or mother design the fetus? No, the design of the fetus is inherent in the DNA re-combination of the parents. No "intelligent design" required. I have found the same in the relationship of the universe to God.  The order/design is inherent in the Origin, it is geometric and self limiting. Even science speaks of  the current individuation of forces and things as in inherent and "unfolded/unfurled" from the singularity of space/time/matter/forces before inflation.

(Where I've bolded) why not just say the "structure of the fetus" if you have no attachment to "design" as the carrying out of a plan or intention?  For that matter if you are a deist who thinks the universe is something that God cannot help but produce, then the use of "design" is problematic.  When I defecate I create something but I do not design it.  It has a structure, one devoid of any intention of mine.  Likewise, if the universe were truly God's creation but unreflective of any intention on His part - why not simply refer to its structure?

(August 29, 2016 at 2:10 am)Arkilogue Wrote: From what I have found in macro universal structure (several nested structures), life is inevitable and the total vibration of these structures on the fabric of space-time directly pattern for DNA. Geometrically.

Even without being privy to 'macro universal structure' (are you?), I too have often thought that life is a kind of complex chemical reaction which is inevitable under the right conditions.  (I have no idea why you've written the part I've struck out.  What are you trying to say?)

Great delineations between "design" and "structure", thank you!

So glad you asked and are interested! This is what I am referring to...@ 4:02. (I can share with you my confidence (deterministic, predictive metaversal model) and evidence of macro universal structure later.)

Russian scientists aboard the ISS took a plasma crystal cloud (inert dust suspended in an ionized gas, subject to magnetic fields) and all they did was rapidly cool it. It condensed into a double helix with rungs. Now imagine what is happening in charged nebular clouds, filled with organic molecules, cooling and rotating in space. That's where I think the first "life" formed, and it's life soup out there.





Found a few articles about circumpolarized starlight shining on a contracting clouds of "dust and gas" being responsible for the left-handed chirality of life we find on earth.

http://phys.org/news/2016-06-life-handsh...ellar.html
http://phys.org/news/2014-11-spiraling-n...-life.html

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What about the cells that make up the protective dead layer of our skin?

And even more interesting...what about the 20% of cells that self sacrifice in slime mold stalks so that the others can launch out of the spore head?

(August 28, 2016 at 9:17 pm)Macoleco Wrote: I have been wondering, why is life designed and programmed to survive? From our genes to our teeth, everything we have is in order to survive. This is also the case for plants, and every living being. We also know how this process happens from a biological perspective. Evolution, etc.

But now the question remains, why does life struggle to survive? This universe, or even Earth, does not care if there is life or not. And actually, chances are every life on Earth will disappear, as it has happened to 99% of all species that have existed. The Sun will eventually grow enough to absorb planet Earth, and then it will explode, making sure nothing will be left. 

I know this may be a philosphical question too, not only a scientific one. But as far as I know this question has not been answered. On the big scheme of things, we does life fight to survive?

What is alive now are the descendants of the things that did not die in the past and went on to breed.
We come from the lucky, the fighters, the hardy and the triers.
Its all due to evolution.

(August 28, 2016 at 9:17 pm)Macoleco Wrote: I have been wondering, why is life designed and programmed to survive? From our genes to our teeth, everything we have is in order to survive. This is also the case for plants, and every living being. We also know how this process happens from a biological perspective. Evolution, etc.

But now the question remains, why does life struggle to survive? This universe, or even Earth, does not care if there is life or not. And actually, chances are every life on Earth will disappear, as it has happened to 99% of all species that have existed. The Sun will eventually grow enough to absorb planet Earth, and then it will explode, making sure nothing will be left. 

I know this may be a philosphical question too, not only a scientific one. But as far as I know this question has not been answered. On the big scheme of things, we does life fight to survive?

It depends on what you mean. 
1. Why do living things "have a will to survive"? Because every ancestor they have were the ones that survived long enough to reproduce. Why did they do that? Ultimately, because of chance. Some animals just so happened to be better at surviving and reproducing, because of a difference in their DNA. And of course, that caused those individuals to be more successful at reproducing, thus having more offspring, thus taking over the population. In time, the initial improvement one individual had, became the standard within the population, because it had spread. And if an individual didn't "have a will to survive", he would leave no descendants, therefor the ones that did have a will to survive would outnumber him. By a lot It's really the basics of natural selection.

2. Why does life, as a whole, "have a will to survive"? Because every single life form has that will. If every single component of what we call 'all of life' has a will to survive, the sum of those components probably seems to have that will as well. But it's just an incidental result of natural selection, because that doesn't work at that level, only at the level of, ultimately, genes.

Why does fire burn?

(August 29, 2016 at 10:15 am)LastPoet Wrote: Why does fire burn?

I think what you're trying to ask is "why is fire designed to burn?"

(August 29, 2016 at 2:04 am)Macoleco Wrote:  I would like to know why he thinks this way, and why those words are euphisms.

They're euphimisms for the same reason that anything is a euphism.  Substitute terms for something that is otherwise difficult or harsh- for any number of reasons.  We'd rather say "designed to survive or programmed to survive" than meticulously explain what we're referring to.  

As a point of fact, we aren't designed at all.  We're simply whats left...currently...and we too will soon be dead.  Some design.  

Similarly, if we're programmed at all it's obviously not in the strictest sense of that word nor is the notion of being programmed -to survive- accurate in any sense.  We're "programmed" to avoid being chewed on, we're "programmed" to avoid the pain of starvation.  We survive incidentally, sometimes, and temporarily.  Some program.

You simply have survived, thusfar....you simply haven't done anything that would get you killed...yet.  You won't survive...nor will any of this life you see.  You will die, as will all of this life you see....armed with that realization you'd have to either propose that we suddenly stop being designed and programmed to survive, or question the validity of the statements which formed the question.  The euphisms we choose to describe this in our wonderings describe us, as intentional agents with a penchant for anthropomorphism...but they don't describe the subject of our wonderings.  




[/quote]

We dont know yet. This question is as grand as "How everything including space came in to existance?".

It would take many generations to answer such questions.

(August 29, 2016 at 5:00 am)downbeatplumb Wrote:

(August 28, 2016 at 9:17 pm)Macoleco Wrote: I have been wondering, why is life designed and programmed to survive? From our genes to our teeth, everything we have is in order to survive. This is also the case for plants, and every living being. We also know how this process happens from a biological perspective. Evolution, etc.

But now the question remains, why does life struggle to survive? This universe, or even Earth, does not care if there is life or not. And actually, chances are every life on Earth will disappear, as it has happened to 99% of all species that have existed. The Sun will eventually grow enough to absorb planet Earth, and then it will explode, making sure nothing will be left. 

I know this may be a philosphical question too, not only a scientific one. But as far as I know this question has not been answered. On the big scheme of things, we does life fight to survive?

What is alive now are the descendants of the things that did not die in the past and went on to breed.
We come from the lucky, the fighters, the hardy and the triers.
Its all due to evolution.

I can hear what you're saying but somehow all the talk about "the will to survive" and "trying" and so forth seem wrong headed to me.  Our organisms have been evolving and continually passing the survivability/reproduction sweepstakes for a very long time.  Since long before our forebears had enough neurons concentrated to make use of a concept, let alone the concept of effort.  More recently our forebears have made use of instinct to continue the winning streak.  Is effort called for under instinct?  Now we have so many neurons concentrated in our bulbous heads that we have concepts for almost everything, including our subjective states.  Only now can we make sense of effort and trying and so on.  It just seems wrong to assign these concepts that apply to carrying out our own conscious intentions to what our forebears have been doing since before conscious intention was a thing.