Why does life exist?

Message Bookmarked

Bookmark Removed

It seems odd that life occured randomly.

― Mike Hanle y, Sunday, 25 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Life exists = roxor

Why it exists...hmmmm? I don't know, but the important thing is that it does exist.

― james, Sunday, 25 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Sometimes "evolution" is just as hard for me to rationally believe as "creation".

― Tracer Hand, Sunday, 25 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

YOu mean, you didn't watch the last episode of "Star Trek -- The Next Generation," Hanle y? Yer question was answered there!

― Tadeusz Suchodolski, Sunday, 25 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Why not? I mean, must there be a reason?

― Alan at home, Sunday, 25 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

people are often interested in explanatory models (hence, popularity of conspiracy theories. some sense or order preferable to chaos/random for many people)

i, however, am more interested in good hair

― gareth, Sunday, 25 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

perhaps it doesn't? you R all figments of my dreams and i R made of molybdenum only

― mark s, Sunday, 25 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Either space, time and matter accidentally create intelligence, or intelligence uses these things in order to manifest itself. I go for the latter: no need to bring in God or randomness.

― Johnathan, Sunday, 25 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I have to go to the shop and buy some milk = reason why life exists.

― james, Sunday, 25 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I think the reason that life exists, would be to take care of this earth and we are failing miserable :( The good farms are nonexistant, millions are out of work, people still fighting and people starving, the weather is turning against us due to the ozone layer. I think we have to get back to the basics. Can we achieve this and live on the Barter System? Personally I can't see any reason why we can't! I would give it a shot! Go back to the old horse & buggy and perhaps the ozone layer will mend itself. We have to get rid of polution! Gale

― Gale Deslongchamps, Sunday, 25 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I don't think we're so much stewards of this earth as unconscious changers of it (increasingly more conscious now, perhaps). In terms of the larger issue -- 'happy accident' may be a glib term, but I am content with it.

― Ned Raggett, Sunday, 25 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

so as we can hear the hanle y version of macarthur park.

― geoff, Sunday, 25 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I think we should be leaving this planet.

― james, Sunday, 25 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Let's go to Gor!!

― mark s, Sunday, 25 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

That would be great.! HOW? Gale

― Gale Deslongchamps, Sunday, 25 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Interesting Jonathon. I am fully prepared to accept life as a little interesting oddity randomly formed, but it just seems so odd that these molecules would get together and start causing chemical reactions and it would all lead to deers and cars and beef jerky. Its quite amazing .

― Mike Hanle y, Sunday, 25 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Life exists because life repeats itself, basically. The repetition is all that life is, almost by definition -- "life" is a thing which, once it's happened, will go on happening so long as it's possible. In that sense, life is thoroughly unsurprising -- all it required was one chain of amino acids that could replicate itself, and from that point on we were bound to get to the beef jerky part.

This is why we should never make a machine that can make other machines on its own.

― Nitsuh, Sunday, 25 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

There's some mathematical model, the name of which I can't remember: starts with a grid, you light up certain squares, and then it proceeds by a very simple set of rules to light or de-light other squares (e.g., if two adjacent squares are on, it goes on, etc.). Patterns appear that can replicate themselves, and go off moving in various directions to infinity.

― Nitsuh, Sunday, 25 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

It's called the "Game of Life", Nitsuh. Every go, any lit square adjacent (edge to edge or diaogonally) zero or just one, or else three or more other lit squares goes dark; any unlit square touching two lit squares lights up. It's v.cool.

― mark s, Sunday, 25 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

No, that's not the Game Of Life. The Game Of Life has little cars, pegs which are either pink or blue to represent your family and a spinny thing instead of a dice. Far too much moulded plastic too - and an inbuilt wholesome message that if you go to University you will generally do better in life and end up living on Millionaires Row.

― Pete, Monday, 26 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Not many people know it, but Operation and Ker-plunk were both invented by mathematician John Conway. FACT.

Roger Penrose still gets royalties for Buck-a-roo (non-repeating space-filling edition)

― Alan Trewartha, Monday, 26 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

surely that penrose fact = a barnet-ape style lie!? (RP was my lecturer in Non-Euclidean Geometry: Buckaroo is sadly Newtonian in its space-curve implications…)

― mark s, Monday, 26 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Sometimes, I think that when people ask this question, they really mean "Why does conscious life exist?". And after blitzing on books on the subject some years ago, I am none the wiser. Still life's great mystery, in my opinion.

― Nick, Monday, 26 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I would counter "Why does life exist?" with "Well, what would you rather be doing?", basically because when you don't know the answer to something it's better to retort with a question of your own.

― Trevor, Monday, 26 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

RP = My Enemy. And if a mathmo designed Buckaroo it would be a lot better than that plastic horse easy to work out when aboutto buck nonsense.

Why does life exist. Well if it didn't, somebbody would have to invent it.

― Pete, Monday, 26 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

alright it was lie -- all of it. a colleague has just claimed that RP successfully sued a loo-roll company for using his non-repeating tiles on their product and that he receives royalties to this day.

― Alan Trewartha, Monday, 26 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

a-and surely buckaroo is negatively-curved "saddle"-type space. (arrrr, i don't know what i'm talking about)

― Alan Trewartha, Monday, 26 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Life R being here for purpose of worshipping FATNICK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

― I R knowing this one..., Monday, 26 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

No, the only shit related product RP still gets royalties for is The Emperor's New Mind.

― Pete, Monday, 26 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

THe Emperor's New Mind does get the award for most consistent missing the point. I r confessed Daniel Denett disciple. I was dismayed to find that the guy that wrote the Turing biography (a FINE book) is a RP-er.

― Alan Trewartha, Monday, 26 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Life, eh? What are the chances of that happening?

Is there a statistician in the house??

― Harry Hill, Monday, 26 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Dennett never seemed to explain the qualitative difference (=understatement of all time) between the material and the mental either. All these consciousness researchers seem to be missing the point to my way of seeing things, interesting though their work is. Oh yeah - 'qualia' - that's the word. I think I'm just an old fashioned dualist (although I have my doubts about the pineal gland).

― Nick, Monday, 26 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I own ENM but only got to page 12.

RP is a world-beater on non-euclidean geom, i'm sorry, i stick by that: it was my favourite subj, and the paper i did best in. Also originator of those kewl Escher pix of rubbery men walking up and down and infinite staircase.

Who can explain to me that there Chinese room thing-o?: it always seems to me to be obvious rubbidge, so I assume I am not listening properly in the first place.

― mark s, Monday, 26 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

i feel another thread in the offing. (p.s. RP is ace on geometry no doubt.)

The chinese room thing-o is meant to convince you that no amount of formal machine-like processing (manipulation of symbols) will ever amount to real understanding. it's a bit of a cheap trick tho, cos it never considers the complexity of what is required to look like understanding.

― Alan Trewartha, Monday, 26 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

yeah i always reckoned the puir wee charver IN the room wd pick up chinese on the sly to stave off boredom, after all he had bugger all ELSE to read during slack time

but i gather this is not considered a "refutation" round john searle's way

― mark s, Monday, 26 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I like the radical position that states that consciousness arises from any application of any algorithm. Thus not only are computers already conscious, but thermostats too!

― Nick, Monday, 26 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

This is all very silly indeed.

― Ally C, Monday, 26 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I am a swelling of energy, wrapped in pants. I exist so that existence may witness itself, create itself anew, and change itself again. I am a dust mite in the threads of the fabric of the sheet of the bed of a room of an apartment in a building on a street on a block in a city in a state of a coutry on the globe in the expanse of everything. I eat the dead flesh that flakes from your skin while you sleep.

― Nude Spock, Tuesday, 27 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I am the by-product of bad Thurston Moore lyrics.

― Nude Spock, Tuesday, 27 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Why does life exist = so we can sit around saying why does life exist?

It's all just a loop.

― james, Tuesday, 27 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Oh yeah, like Lost Highway. You're right.

― Nude Spock, Tuesday, 27 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

The game with the squares is just called "Life", I believe. "The Game of Life" is that game where a player can get money for discovering Atlantis twice.

― Vinnie, Wednesday, 28 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

You must be logged in to post. Please either login here, or if you are not registered, you may register here.