The End of Life

What happens when we die?

Thread moved here from the Proposed New Topics forum.

Hopefully we get buried or burnt, but that sorta depends on your wants. So you may rot or be reduced to oxides. As to what happens to the you you, well that is the you you rotting in the heap there. Complete obliteration no further function or thought, i doubt anyone can imagine it fully as that would involve turning off fully whilst still observing, and hence not turned off, sorta like the large blank spots that can form when blind drunk or similar, only you never get back to a position to appreciate them from.Unseul

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Give a man a fire and he's warm for a day. Set a man on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life....Do unto others before they do unto you.

We know what happens when we die. We do crumble and descend into dust. But what happens? Do you believe that we have soul and spirit? And purpose? Why do you think that we live?

So as we dont get too offtopic in proof of evolution i shall answer your no purpose quesiton here.Erm, because i make very little difference in the great scheme of things. Even Hitler has done very little, i mean has the world stopped spinning, has the solar system stopped existing, have the galaxies come together to oberve my work? No.My purpose possibly is to replicate, that is what i was evolved to do. But even that is not a concious thing, just a byproduct of what would occur if something started replicating. Just because i dont believe i have a purpose doesnt mean that i cant enjoy myself though. I just dont feel the need to pretend that there is an eternal life out there for me, or that there is something out there watching over me. Id love to find a way to live forever, but i dont think its going to happen, so yeah ill just come to an end and stop. But since im here for now, and have all these drives, i may as well follow them just to see what happens next.Unseul

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Give a man a fire and he's warm for a day. Set a man on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life....Do unto others before they do unto you.

No soul, no spirit, no purpose.Lotsa little chemicals floating around causing various reactions that give my replicating spirals of dna a better chance of replicating into the future.Unseul

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Give a man a fire and he's warm for a day. Set a man on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life....Do unto others before they do unto you.

Why do you believe that? Do you think things happen for a reason? Do you think we live just to die? In that case, there is no reason to live. The soul is who we are (our rationality), and our spirit is our connection to the ethereal. Now you can doubt me on the ethereal part, but there is no doubt a soul. Animals have souls, also.

I believe that when I die, that will be the end of me as a conscious being. My personality, or whatever you mean by soul, ceases to exist.Is there a purpose to life? Not in the sense that there is a cosmic, universal purpose to life. We just are here. But I realize that we all "need" a purpose in life, but it is up to each of us to decide what that purpose is.

I believe we are alive to continue the replication of DNA. I believe this because it seems to me to be the best explaination of life, and what we observe using rules that we observe. I think we replicate because once something starts replicating it continues to no matter how simple, then as something replicates faster it outcompetes the other replicator, even consuming it to replicate itself, once this stage is reached various adaptions will take place to protect and increase the chance of replication, purely because they increase the chance of replication.What you call a soul is merely what i believe to be chemical reactions in my brain, its who i am, i am this series of reactions. I will agree that animals also use various chemical reactions to do things. As you appear to have guessed i do disagree with the spirit thing, i dont believe there is an etheral. I personally believe it is merely an extension of survival instinct, but because we have the ability to think we can convince ourselves that even if we die we dont really die and still survive.Unseul

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Give a man a fire and he's warm for a day. Set a man on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life....Do unto others before they do unto you.

What about potential? Do you see any relevance there? When you see a bum on the street, don't you think that he can do better? Do you think that that is his purpose? Do you think there is a reason as to why people are the only beings that can reason? Why can't cats or dogs reason? They can communicate, but they can not reason. Do you see the importance of life? Why do you think we live?Peace

According to this replicating malarchy, it means there is no reason. Basically, it seems as foolish as the notion that one day an explosion just happened for no reason - out of nothingness, instead of it just remaining nothingness, afterall - there's no reason for anything to come about so it wouldn't, it would remain nothing. If there is no reason, then there is No-thing. Therefore, we don't exist. So if you believe there is no reason to this other than "chance" then I guess I'm part of other people's nothingness.
This message has been edited by mike the wiz, 06-01-2004 05:43 PM

Not quite mike. Crystal structures have naturally repeating patterns, replicating themselves. This can just come about from what we had on earth (my belief, yet to be truly proven of course, but still). Once we have replicators the replicators that replicate the most are going to replicate more etc etc.Why does there have to be reason for something to exist? Why cant it be due to chance? I mean i believe that you exist and think etc etc, but personally i dont think that you are there for any reason in particular cept for continuation of dna.Unseul

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Give a man a fire and he's warm for a day. Set a man on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life....Do unto others before they do unto you.

Prove that I think. How do you know that this post isn't just created by chance? abiogenesis is more unlikely my friend. You believe I think, prove I think. Why don't you think this post is just chance when it is more likely to be if abiogenesis happened?If there is no reason to exist, then nothing exists. Nothing will remain nothing. Why? Why should there be anything? Why would nothing cause something? There must be a reason?This message has been edited by mike the wiz, 06-01-2004 05:59 PM

TheNewGuy03 What evidential reason is there for accepting such an entity as a soul?Not only is there an excellent reason to doubt a souls existence on (a lack of) evidential grounds, but it also reduces your argument to the level of tooth-fairies, dragons & unicorns. Not a good place to be.MarkThis message has been edited by mark24, 06-01-2004 06:13 PM

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What about potential? Do you see any relevance there? When you see a bum on the street, don't you think that he can do better?

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Barring physical or mental barriers, almost everyone can be doing "better" than they are right now. I've seen Donald Trump on TV, not exactly the brightest light in the harbor. We give ourselves the impetus to meet certain potentials, life as an entity has nothing to do with it.

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Do you think there is a reason as to why people are the only beings that can reason?

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We aren't the only ones. Most mammals have intuitive reasoning skills. For example, Pavlov's famous experiments showed that dogs reasoned that food was on the way when they heard a bell. If you have had any contact with animals, you will soon discover that many species have a keen sense of reasoning. Just a personal anecdote, we once had a pig that could open almost any gate (combo locks seemed to work). He wanted out of the pen, and he could reason his way out. Sorry, reason is not a "human-only" characteristic.

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Why do you think we live?

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Because Mom and Dad were horny one night. Conception is an understood mechanism for bringing new human beings into the world, you might want to look into it .Of course, you want to know about the bigger WHY. WHY the human species is here. There is no logical, objective reason that I have ever heard, except for the commonalities between every culture (eating, f*cking, and socializing). Perhaps we give ourselves, either through introspection or religion. Either way, it is US who decide what the meaning of life is, and therefore it is ourselves who give it meaning. If this includes having a "soul", the more power to ya. However, don't expect everyone else to understand or accept your definition of how life should be lead or what gives it meaning.