Forums > Social Discussion > The meaning of life...

Posted: 2nd Dec 2004
Alright, the dictionary this was a bit of a cheap shot.

Anyhoo, life (as far as I'm concerned) has no meaning beyond that that you give it. During my life I hope that I can learn, question, laugh, love and bring meaning to someone else's life.

Give me a lever long enough and a place to stand and I can beat the world into submission.

Posted: 2nd Dec 2004
If a rock is in a useful place for us to use as a stepping stone over a river, we use it and appreciate not getting our feet wet, but it is wrong to think that the whole purpose of that rock, from its creation maybe 3.6 billion years ago, to the erosional processes that put it there, are for that reason.

Life, the Universe and everything have evolved over 46000000000 years (approx), they don't care whether we are here or not, what we do with our lives: they simply are .

What was the question again? I got lost for a while there.

There is a slight possibility that I am not actually right all of the time.

Posted: 2nd Dec 2004
would you care if i killed you? what about loved you? If you care about that, then how can you say "they dont care whether we are here or not"
if i can care why can't they.

If I could be granted one wish I would ask for all the questions of the universe.

Posted: 6th Dec 2004
Charles Darwin wrote: "I cannot persuade myself that a beneficient and omnipotent God would have designedly created the Ichneumonidae with the express intention of their feeding within the living bodies of caterpillars."

God thing aside (not this thread), he was referring to the feeding habits of the larvae of the Ichnuemonidae: wasps that lay their eggs within living caterpillars after paralysing them. It is not known whether the sting acts as a general anasthetic or if it inhibits the animal from moving, therefore allowing it to be fully aware of being eaten alive form the inside and unable to do a thing about it.

Is this cruelty on the part of nature? Is the terror an antelope feels while being persued by a cheetah, or a musk-ox having its intestines pulled out by a wolf.

Nature is not cruel, only indifferent. The planet is not bound by very human concepts of good or evil, cruel and kind, but is simply callous.

There is a slight possibility that I am not actually right all of the time.

Posted: 8th Dec 2004
i was having this exact discussion with a friend of mine yesterday and we came to the 'conclusion' that there is a difference between the goal of life and the meaning of life..

i think the goal of life is to sustain itself (and im talking life in general, the phenomenon of life, not humans), to reproduce, to make sure life continues to exist..
however WHY this happens is still the age-old question that has bugged people for centuries.. why is there life? what purpose does life on this planet serve? .

heres another brain buster: assuming the evolution theory is correct, and that life started in the water, then did it start with life that lived off oxygen? as there are creatures who live so far under the surface of the ocean that there is no oxygen there and they survive off of the sulfur coming up throught the ocean floor.. so did life there start way down under (so to speak) or at the surface, and spread from there?

Posted: 8th Dec 2004
There have always been aerobic and anaerobic organisms. We are actually colonies of both. Overall we are aerobic, but certain internal bits would have a very hard time if exposed to air.

"If you didn't like something the first time, the cud won't be any good either." --Elsie the Cow, Ruminations

Posted: 8th Dec 2004
ok, so what do you think.. were the first organisms aerobic or anaerobic??
and why

Posted: 8th Dec 2004
The early atmosphere would have consisted of the products of volcanic degassing: H2O, CO2, H2S and HCl.



If you have a look back in the geological record you'll find the Banded Iron Formation (BIF) which is a series of oxidised and reduced iron rich layers in chert. This thing formed sometime around 2.5 - 1.8 Ga and is used as some of the earliest evidence of life; oxygen being the by-product of photosynthetic respiration which would not occur in a free form readily before the blue-green algae evolved. Oxygen is also a toxin and it's thought that the reduced layers are a consequence of the O2 killing off the very creatures that breathed it out.




EDITED_BY: Eera (1102567409)

There is a slight possibility that I am not actually right all of the time.

Posted: 18th Dec 2004
,you're all wrong! spanner was exactly on the money with his picture exlanation.

evolution doesnt explain why we are here, its just a theory as to how we became what we are, now why we became.

thats very interesting Eera, i'd never thought about the animals being areobic or anaerobic, not sure how it helps the meaning of life, but still!

"but have you considered there is more to life than your eyelids?"

jointly owned by Fire_Spinning_Angel and Blu_Valley