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So I was enjoying the devil's plant (ya know) and I started thinking - what actually constitutes life ?
Let's go ahead and pass the definition of something that grows and "consciousness" or animate and inanimate.
All we are is an assembly of elements and compounds. Right? No element that makes our bodies are exclusive to entities that are considered to be alive.
So, what makes us different from the wooden desk my computer is sitting on? What makes us any different from the breeze blowing through my window or the box my cat shits in? Because, after all, we're just a bunch of atoms at most. Just atoms that disperse and meet around the same entity.
So is it this concept of consciousness that seperates us? Then what is consciousness? Simply being aware and/or being a part of some type of cause/effect event? If so, then something doesn't have to fit our definition of being alive to be conscious does it? By the definition of consciousness, isn't the simple act of action and reaction consciousness? Cell replication? The rain cycle?
Is it the ability to analyze and/or manipulate our surroundings? Again, that could be anything? And in such a respect, couldn't the sun be alive? It manipulates everything in teh solar system that it is the impetus of.
How are we able to confidently say what is conscious or aware and what is not? Maybe there are forms of communication and existence that humans cannot understand. Kind of like how a dog can hear a whistle that humans can't. Who are we to say that this thing thinks this way or taht thinks that way? We don't know. We're not in their heads. Now, we can say that we're so advanced and that's how, but the time between the dawn of modern humans and Tuesday August 19th, 2008 12:36 AM est is nothing but the blink of an eye. Not nearly enough "time" to become the omnipotent omniscient beings that we fancy ourselves to be.
Maybe there are "conscious" entities that occupy the parts of the electromagnetic spectrum that light doesn't occupy and we just can't see (or hear) them.
So, again I ask, what exactly qualifies something as life? This has been bothering me for a while.
Am I just being pretentious or is this a valid question.
Definately looking forward to what Jason_els', Phil Ayesho's and JustAsking's and Stapledshut's thoughts.......
Let's go ahead and pass the definition of something that grows and "consciousness" or animate and inanimate.
All we are is an assembly of elements and compounds. Right? No element that makes our bodies are exclusive to entities that are considered to be alive.
So, what makes us different from the wooden desk my computer is sitting on? What makes us any different from the breeze blowing through my window or the box my cat shits in? Because, after all, we're just a bunch of atoms at most. Just atoms that disperse and meet around the same entity.
So is it this concept of consciousness that seperates us? Then what is consciousness? Simply being aware and/or being a part of some type of cause/effect event? If so, then something doesn't have to fit our definition of being alive to be conscious does it? By the definition of consciousness, isn't the simple act of action and reaction consciousness? Cell replication? The rain cycle?
Is it the ability to analyze and/or manipulate our surroundings? Again, that could be anything? And in such a respect, couldn't the sun be alive? It manipulates everything in teh solar system that it is the impetus of.
How are we able to confidently say what is conscious or aware and what is not? Maybe there are forms of communication and existence that humans cannot understand. Kind of like how a dog can hear a whistle that humans can't. Who are we to say that this thing thinks this way or taht thinks that way? We don't know. We're not in their heads. Now, we can say that we're so advanced and that's how, but the time between the dawn of modern humans and Tuesday August 19th, 2008 12:36 AM est is nothing but the blink of an eye. Not nearly enough "time" to become the omnipotent omniscient beings that we fancy ourselves to be.
Maybe there are "conscious" entities that occupy the parts of the electromagnetic spectrum that light doesn't occupy and we just can't see (or hear) them.
So, again I ask, what exactly qualifies something as life? This has been bothering me for a while.
Am I just being pretentious or is this a valid question.
Definately looking forward to what Jason_els', Phil Ayesho's and JustAsking's and Stapledshut's thoughts.......