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Immortality / Reproduction
falcandor
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Posted 11/02/09 - 02:49 PM:
Subject: Immortality / Reproduction
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#1
First of all, this covers a brief variety of topics (all of which relate to each other, at least I'm trying to prove that they are/aren't), so pardon me if this is misplaced.

1. Death
All living organisms die, everywhere, eventually. Nothing escapes its specific end. This indicates to me:

a) Religion's claims are legitimate, and that all existence is the work of one God. Death is simply a means to transfer from one world to another (though why we were 'placed' here in the first place remains undefinitive and unclear)

b)Death is a universal factor of all life. Life does not, and cannot exist, without an end. And if this is not the case, it implies that we all probably rose from the same source and branched out into our current positions - which is unlikely.
But if our origin were that of the evolutionist's perspective, and we evolved from unicellular, to multicellular, from ammoral unintelligent to moralic intelligence, to man's yearning thus religion, etc., assuming we possessed the adaptive quality we supposedly took advantage of to get here, why would we have ever designed death into ourselves? I don't think we would have. Our cells replenish themselves, and continue to do so until a certain area of time lengths (ages). This implies an outside force, that would have to have existed since the beginning of time, and affects all life equally, and includes the gradual, unrepairable decay of some life-sustaining factor of ourselves. Maybe this answer has been found and I am ignorant...? I wouldn't find it hard to believe.

But if this were the case, would that global death inducer extend universally, or is our outside factor unique to Earth (or at least its galaxy)? If the latter, could there be life elsewhere that does not anticipate death? Immortality, due to the lack of this outside force. If THIS were the case, would reproduction dimnish significantly? Some may argue the commonly insatiable attraction between men and women (which few acknowledge as unwilling control but continue to encourage by participating anyway...)is caused by a desire to further ourselves, our genetic line (although I couldn't care less so already this seems invalid), and therefore reproduce. With immortality in place, would this urge go on?
123savethewhales
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Posted 11/03/09 - 01:58 AM:
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#2
I assume when you say death, you mean death through aging, and not so much on why we are not immune to bullets.

Evolution doesn't "design", and nature doesn't have a plan. It doesn't even bump into the optimum strategy in most cases (just look at pandas). Think of it as an simple rule that what doesn't work "before reproductive age" gets thrown out. There are hardly any evolutionary forces to shift one way or another after that.

That being said, it can still be either design by something external, or that the mutation just so happen by chance and it stick around because it doesn't harm the organisms with this trait enough to wipe them out.

In a more strange sense, without death, there wouldn't be multicellular organism. Certain cells need to die during development to form an organism's shape.



Edited by 123savethewhales on 11/03/09 - 02:07 AM

Keep it simple.
wuliheron
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Posted 11/03/09 - 08:21 AM:
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What has this got to do with the philosophy of social sciences?
Desidude666
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Posted 11/04/09 - 12:29 AM:
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Death is death - religion doesn't suggest life through reproduction, it suggests life as an individual after death. It's obviously wrong as this suggestion has no philosophical value. For our own souls, the proposition of actually existing for our forefathers has been suggested in the East.

I personally believe that I exist as my forefathers - that the very first in our family mated and reproduced to 'immortalize' himself (instinctively, obviously, 'he' might have been an ooze). So life tries to survive and live for as long as possible, and this is indeed collective immortality for human beings as 'he' (and all who have lived before me) lives to this day through me.

You are your father in the future. Your father was your grandfather's future. Your father is your past too and you are growing and he is aging in the present. You are a part of your mother, as intimate as her limbs, such as her arms and legs due to her giving you a physical existence - and represent her existence in Reality even when she lives or passes away. All this while living your father's future.

So really, you would then 'immortalize' your parents' in their future (*you* are their future) and your children would then live you as their past and grow up as you age in their present. They then would be your future (and your ancestor's). It's immortality alright. At least biological attempt at it. Death is the void we face and it ends you and through reproduction we hope to immortalize ourselves with our forefathers.

What you are, you are by accident of birth; what I am, I am by myself. There are and will be a thousand princes; there is only one Beethoven. - Ludwig van Beethoven
falcandor
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Posted 11/04/09 - 01:43 AM:
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so what if our compensation for death is simply that regeneration of ourselves, and not an afterlife?
samantabhadra
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Posted 11/04/09 - 11:58 AM:
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The outside force and death producer that you speak of, I think that its a combonation of friction, gravity, nature, entropy and time, give or take. But If we were able to subdue, remove or overcome thoes forces that lead to death or their effects on the body permanantly. We would live forever. In that case I think that we wouldn't have the need to reproduce and the intinct for reproduction would cease to be.

Some side notes:

I don't feel that life itself, apart from humanity, is fundamentaly amoral.

Animals do not:
1)Kill there own species (thou shalt not kill)
2)In a pack of wolves every thing is the packs (much like the early christian community) yes, Alphas eat first but everyone eats or the pack dies. So that rules out stealing and coveting.
3)They can't build or speak, so idols and gods name in vain are out.
4)Alpha male to Alpha female Beta to Beta and on down the line, so coveting neigbors wife is out and so is adultry.
5)They are pack animals so honoring father and mother is a must.

That leaves us with the sabath day and no gods before me.

The last time I checked god dosen't damn you for a lack of knowledge. Wolves don't of know saturday

And I don't think that a wolf knows any god. So there would be no god at all much less another god before him.

There doing better than most of us.


The evolutionsists don't say that we choose to adapt and change our surroundings. If we could change our surroundings we wouldn't need to adapt. Adaptation is a result of evolution because the best breed animals adapt more easily and wind up surviving and reproducing. The less adaptive ones die and/or don't reproduce. The adaptive qualitys we have are inherited and come from our parents. This means that we evolved into what we are, and adapted with what we have to survive and... reproduce so life continues.
(things in motion stay in motion)

Last time I checked an animal dosen't choose what makes it horny. Reproduction just happens. The weak mate with the weak and often die off. The strong mate with strong and survive. That's what led us here. We are a result of the strongest and smartest of our ancestors.

We didn't take advantage of our adaptive qualitys and make our lives as they are. We were born with our qualitys and used what we have to stay alive and... reproduce. We do this out of insticnt so that life survives and grows. Yes the instinct is a desire but it is also an instinct.

allanquartz
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Posted 11/04/09 - 06:49 PM:
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samantabhadra wrote:


Animals do not:
1)Kill there own species (thou shalt not kill)
2)In a pack of wolves every thing is the packs (much like the early christian community) yes, Alphas eat first but everyone eats or the pack dies. So that rules out stealing and coveting.
3)They can't build or speak, so idols and gods name in vain are out.
4)Alpha male to Alpha female Beta to Beta and on down the line, so coveting neigbors wife is out and so is adultry.
5)They are pack animals so honoring father and mother is a must.




Not true at all:

1) Alpha males fight to the death in a number of species. Not only that, there is film footage available that shows monkeys going to war over territory.
2) But the old alpha male is discarded and left to starve on his own
3)
4) There is the term "sneaky f#$%*er" and refers to the male that has sex with the top female while the two alpha males are fighting.
5) How do you figure this when it is often the son of the alpha male who is most likely to take over, given his superior genes?
Desidude666
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Posted 11/05/09 - 12:09 AM:
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samantabhadra wrote:


Some side notes:

I don't feel that life itself, apart from humanity, is fundamentaly amoral.


That I disagree with.

samantabhadra wrote:

1)Kill there own species (thou shalt not kill)



They do, and they are very primitive in these processes. Hamsters kill their own young. So does a snake, it eats it's own offspring if they stay around too long after hatching.

samantabhadra wrote:

2)In a pack of wolves every thing is the packs (much like the early christian community) yes, Alphas eat first but everyone eats or the pack dies. So that rules out stealing and coveting.


Not really. In a pride, Lions eat what the lioness kills. They get their fill at the female's effort, they have no purpose but to fight and kill the offspring of other males and possibly guard their pride, even that is done by female lionesses. Hyenas are known scavengers. Animals which are scavengers live and thrive on stealing. Rodents are scavengers and, for your information, mammals were scavengers - they succeeded by stealing.

Our evolution suggests that the Judeo Christian God's commandment on stealing was utterly wrong, and probably false.

samantabhadra wrote:

3)They can't build or speak, so idols and gods name in vain are out.


They do communicate. Ants give out chemical signals, animals 'speak' through communication processes. Elephants communicate and speak to each other, even cry for their dead. Even trees are known to release chemical signals for other trees.

Really, there is nothing unique in the human body apart from our consciousness. Nothing at all.

samantabhadra wrote:

4)Alpha male to Alpha female Beta to Beta and on down the line, so coveting neigbors wife is out and so is adultry.


It's the females that choose - they do not have life-long (at least a majority of them) matrimony. They keep on changing mates and thus coveting other females, breaking another commandment.

samantabhadra wrote:

5)They are pack animals so honoring father and mother is a must.


And they dump their parents at adult-hood, so much for honouring parents in their time of need.

samantabhadra wrote:

That leaves us with the sabath day and no gods before me.


Right... exactly. The most 'logical' (pun intended) point.

samantabhadra wrote:

The last time I checked god dosen't damn you for a lack of knowledge. Wolves don't of know saturday


You should read your little book more carefully - animals are made to serve human beings and have no souls. And if you don't know or deny Jesus (or the Holy Spirit), you are damned. So much for ethics and morality, irregardless of your own life and good deeds.

Damning another just because it has no conscious or thinks Christianity is plain bollocks. Buddhism makes more sense than Christianity really. And I consider it (Buddhism) rather inferior as a philosophy.

samantabhadra wrote:

And I don't think that a wolf knows any god. So there would be no god at all much less another god before him.


So you know, I assume. Did you see him yourself? If not, whether you think you know your God is irrelevant. You *don't* know your God as you have never seen him/her/them. If you do see them/him/her, make sure you can confirm this sighting with others as well as material witnesses or else it might be your own brain playing tricks on you.

samantabhadra wrote:

There doing better than most of us.


Live in the jungle for just 3 days, without your cooked food/clean water or modern resources, tell me that if you survive. Just 3 days.

samantabhadra wrote:

The evolutionsists don't say that we choose to adapt and change our surroundings. If we could change our surroundings we wouldn't need to adapt. Adaptation is a result of evolution because the best breed animals adapt more easily and wind up surviving and reproducing. The less adaptive ones die and/or don't reproduce. The adaptive qualitys we have are inherited and come from our parents. This means that we evolved into what we are, and adapted with what we have to survive and... reproduce so life continues.
(things in motion stay in motion)


That I agree. And evolution is about adaptation. Survival of the fittest doesn't mean physical fitness, it might also mean scavengers and vegetarian animals might stand a better chance at survival - as they are 'fit' for their environment.

samantabhadra wrote:

Last time I checked an animal dosen't choose what makes it horny. Reproduction just happens. The weak mate with the weak and often die off. The strong mate with strong and survive. That's what led us here. We are a result of the strongest and smartest of our ancestors.


Not really, we are a result of the 'smartest' and the most ruthless of our ancestors, with all due respect. They might have stolen if they had to to survive. While I agree to your praise of your ancestors, I do not agree with the praise offered to a Judeo Christian God and co-relating his commandments with evolution.

samantabhadra wrote:

We didn't take advantage of our adaptive qualitys and make our lives as they are. We were born with our qualitys and used what we have to stay alive and... reproduce. We do this out of insticnt so that life survives and grows. Yes the instinct is a desire but it is also an instinct.



We did, hence we survived. And today still live.

What you are, you are by accident of birth; what I am, I am by myself. There are and will be a thousand princes; there is only one Beethoven. - Ludwig van Beethoven
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