(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.
