Self-Replication in All Life Forms: Philosophy Forums

Philosophy Forums » Philosophy of Science » Self-Replication in All Life Forms » Self-Replication in All Life Forms

Self-Replication in All Life Forms

CalicoCat
Initiate

Usergroup: Members
Joined: Oct 19, 2009

Total Topics: 3
Total Posts: 13

Posted 10/19/09 - 10:14 PM: Subject: Self-Replication in All Life Forms	#1
I was wondering if anybody could provide words of insight or resources for further reading. Why is it that all life forms self-replicate? What is the impetus for this? Why is it that by processes as surreally different as splitting into two cells or having sex/getting pregnant/giving birth, all life forms on Earth have this mandate to reproduce, to self-replicate? I mean, what gives? I know that at bottom, even human reproduction is as first as simple as cell division, but... look what it takes to get to that point, is two people deciding they're going to copulate and and the end of this process is birth and the reproduction process is complete. Surreally different from simple cell division, yet the end result is exactly the same and it is successful reproduction. Why is there a univeral mandate for self-replication in life forms?

swstephe
Tenured Poster

Usergroup: Moderators
Joined: Apr 20, 2006
Location: borneo island

Total Topics: 28
Total Posts: 3304

Posted 10/19/09 - 11:23 PM:	#2
Replication is existential. Since no life-form is immortal, if it doesn't replicate, it dies and no longer exists. But who is giving mandates? I think most life-forms don't even think about replication. They replicate because it is fun or satisfies some biological urges. Those urges and pleasures, however they are achieved, help to promote replication, which leads to existence. It is a correlation, but not tied directly. You have to wonder -- if reproduction wasn't fun or pleasurable, would anyone or anything want to do it?
Ethics is the measuring of morality. Morality is the measuring of good. Good is the measuring of benefit. Benefit is the measure of values.

CalicoCat
Initiate

Usergroup: Members
Joined: Oct 19, 2009

Total Topics: 3
Total Posts: 13

Posted 10/20/09 - 02:23 AM:	#3
The thing that fascinates me about my question is the fact that this common thread of continuing to reproduce is woven throughout all living things, and yet science has no explanation of why/how it really happens. The mechanisms behind it are not comprehended. I must admit that I come from this question from the perspective of someone "searching for God" I am someone who deep down I have a gut feeling that God exists, and I am biased that way in everything I see, but somehow I can't help but note that maybe the force of self-replication which drives all living beings to reproduce and continue forever might be the closest thing we currently witness to God, or the spirit of God. Cause you know, we don't even have a consensus on what the definition of God is so it's pretty much open to the imagination where one could try to find God, but if we go by Dawkins, "intelligent creator of the universe" then this life force that gives a strange incomprehensible impetus to all living things to continue to reproduce in every odd shape and form ad infinitum... this force that has a life and inexplicable purpose all its own, it's almost like that is what I would call God. I am fully aware of the fact that "What we understand we call science, and what we don't understand we tend to mysticize into the realm of religion" But why should we look down upon our intellect for doing that? To me, from my "God exists - bias", it seems to only make too much sense for us to compartmentalize like that. What if that is God's way of one day leading us straight to him? The more and more we learn about our world through science, who is to say that scientific knowledge will not one day lead us straight to God? Why should it not?... might be another way to look at it. The more we learn through science the less we call religion, until maybe one day the only thing left we have to call religion ends up being simply God, undeniably God. What shape or form we will recognize God in I have no clue, but this pattern in nature I can't seem to ignore. I would love to know the driving force in the self-replicating molecule, on a scientific level. Does anyone know of any decent research done on this and where I could read it? I don't think it's going to lead me straight to pure and unadulterated, undeniable experience of "God", of course, but it's very fascinating. At the very least, it keeps my faith alive, because it seems like pure magic. Edited by unenlightened on 10/21/09 - 04:28 AM. Reason: a spoonful of spacing helps the philosophy go down...

Kwalish Kid
Tenured Poster

Usergroup: Members
Joined: Sep 26, 2004

Total Topics: 33
Total Posts: 3844

1 of 1 people found this post helpful Posted 10/20/09 - 03:18 AM:	#4
It seems quite obviously and easily explained. Simply think about what swstephe has said. Those organisms that did not have a drive, however implemented, to reproduce generally do not, and thus their descendants are not seen. Those organisms that did can be seen around us today in the form of their ancestors. Thus we will not see a type of organisms that doesn't reproduce at some rate. I suspect that every day we see hundreds, if not thousands, of organisms that will not reproduce.
"Scientific truth is always paradox, if judged by everyday experience, which catches only the delusive nature of things." - KM, V, P and P Can you pass Religion 101?

wuliheron
Tenured Poster

Usergroup: Members
Joined: Jun 02, 2003
Location: Newport News, Va

Total Topics: 15
Total Posts: 4153

Posted 10/20/09 - 05:00 AM:	#5
Living things are not the only things that replicate themselves, in fact, the distinction between living and inanimate is merely a convention. Nor does every so-called living thing replicate. Just because someone chooses not to have children we don't describe them as dead or inanimate because, again, the words are merely conventions that have no meaning outside of a specific context. So you could ask why does anything replicate itself and the only answer I can give is that the principle of synergy applies. That is, the observation that the whole created by any two or more things is greater than or, at least, different from the mere sum of its parts. The result is that when certain things come together, they replicate while others transform into something completely different.

Sorry, you don't have permission to post. Log in, or register if you haven't yet.