Hare Krishna

[Whateverist]

Life happens and it ends... ok, yeah, but why? And what if I don't feel like getting old, getting sick, and dying?

Well you could always adopt a belief system that allows you to have it your way. But what is true and what you would like to believe to be true are only rarely the same thing.

Taking the premise that life is the evolution of chance combinations of chemicals, why would death be a given?

Better to ask, if life is the evolution of chance combinations of chemicals, why would there be an answer to the why question? "Why?" is a logical question only if life is the creation of a magical being. We might then seek to know her motivation or intentions. But if life is the product of chance combinations, then the answer could only be "cuz that's the way it happened". Of course, mortality is a by product of sex. Simple, asexual creatures are immortal clones .. except for the ones that get eaten by the others.

Your second paragraph makes very little sense to me. The point is: Is there consciousness and intelligence at the core of reality, or isn't there? We're not talking about magical beings. We're talking about the foundation of existence. Is it just physics and chemistry? If so, how do you get life out of physics and chemistry?

OR is life at the foundation of reality itself?

I would say it is physics all the way down. Consciousness and intelligence are attributes of beings who initially came about through abiogenesis. Turns out these attributes are highly desirable for survival. We're very fortunate to be creatures with a shitload of each.

You certainly can, using these very attributes, pose the question 'what if all physics and life are but an idea in a cosmic consciousness?' It might make a good idea for a Twilight Zone episode, and probably has been. It is sort of like the story of the person who dreamed he was a butterfly and then wondered if he might really be a butterfly dreaming he was a person who only dreams he is a butterfly. All these hypotheticals and inversions are available to us -I would say- by way of the rich accretion of cognitive abilities selected for through evolution over the eons. But you of course are free to imagine that I am but a dream of a magical being. Totally your call where your reality is concerned.