The Purpose of Life

[quadz]

We don't all have PhD's in Physics: Everyone knows what we're talking about.

Actually I'm still unsure precisely what we're talking about, so to some degree I've been approaching it by a process of elimination.

I guess it's a matter of striking a balance between humanity & science. After all, the question 'what is the purpose of life?' is as much a human question as it is a scientific one.

If it's a human question, mightn't one expect the answer to be more complex than, "to create more life" ?

(Edit: OK, you've expanded on this in your reply to reaper, below...)

[Tubby]

Tubby: I have no interest in having children, yet plenty of purpose.  carry on

Reaper, as I already suggested, procreation is not the only purpose in life, but it is the ultimate purpose.

You could become the next President of the USA, but if you don't procreate (have children), your legacy will die with you. There will be nobody to carry that superior genetic inheretance into the next generation and beyond. You and all your 'purpose' will essentially become a biological corpse.

That's not to say you can't do wonderful things in the world today - which may influence the world tomorrow - but without procreating you're effectively consigning your genes to the dustbin of biological history.

[Tubby]

If it's a human question, mightn't one expect the answer to be more complex than, "to create more life" ?

No, I don't think so.

Occam's Razor; the most simple explanation is usually the correct one.

(ok just saw your edit Quadz LOL!! - disregard the above?)

[quadz]

If it's a human question, mightn't one expect the answer to be more complex than, "to create more life" ?

No, I don't think so.

Occam's Razor; the most simple explanation is usually the correct one.

That's not Occam's Razor, though.

I'm in a hurry, so I'll quote:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occam%27s_razor  <- first two paragraphs especially

In particular, "a principle which generally recommends selecting the competing hypothesis that makes the fewest new assumptions, when the hypotheses are equal in other respects. For instance, they must both sufficiently explain available data in the first place."

You could become the next President of the USA, but if you don't procreate (have children), your legacy will die with you. There will be nobody to carry that superior genetic inheretance into the next generation and beyond. You and all your 'purpose' will essentially become a biological corpse.

That's not to say you can't do wonderful things in the world today - which may influence the world tomorrow - but without procreating you're effectively consigning your genes to the dustbin of biological history.

The snail's pace of biological evolution cannot explain the legacy of the printing press, or the transistor.

We were procreating as a species for at least the past 100,000 years.  During most of that time, there appears to have been little produced in the way of what one might regard as a legacy--neither genetically nor culturally.  There are some exceptions of course, like the way every person having blue eyes apparently has a single common ancestor 6-10,000 years ago.

And, I don't have a link handy, but if I recall correctly, by the same principle almost all living humans are calculated to share some ancestor in common over just the past few thousand years.

So, yes - it's still possible to leave a genetic legacy (like the blue-eyed mutation), but genetic evolution doesn't explain our cultural and technological progress over the past 10000, 1000, 100, 10 years.

Genetic evolution operates over long timescales.  Note that the children of two geniuses are often not in turn themselves geniuses.

Since we're almost all interrelated, whether or not a particular human breeds should be generally irrelevant to our gene pool.  Except for the rare case when that human, by breeding, would be passing on a heritable genetic trait not shared by the rest of us.

Most of us are just passing on a subset of the same genes already shared by most of the rest of us.

[The Dreaming Dragon]

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[reaper]

Note that the children of two geniuses are often not in turn themselves geniuses.

Often they are as well though.

[fdrjk]

B-I-B-L-E F-I-G-H-T !

[Tubby]

whether or not a particular human breeds should be generally irrelevant to our gene pool.

Well, I guess you could say that a great surgeon who saves the lives of a thousand people during the course of his career - but never has a child of his own - contributes more to the gene pool by saving the lives of those people (who can then go on to produce yet more people) than if he himself had produced a child.

That's an interesting thought!!

But it's still only relevant in the wider context of the continuation of the species: As far as nature / biology is concerned, that surgeon has failed in his duty as an individual member of the human race to pass on his genetic inheritance: We are all naturally predisposed to procreate, so, when that great surgeon dies, his own individual genetic legacy will be lost and he will become little more than an agent for the promotion of other people's genes.

A little like a wife who gets pregnant by sleeping with her lover instead of her husband... 

[Tubby]

I never said that OTHER intelligent life would be dangerous, what I said was that it's possible that they are terrified of us given our propensity for war.

Good point Foc.

Mostly we tend to think that 'aliens', if they exist, would be far superior to us in our ability to conquor and destroy. Why is that? Are we as humans so fixated on domination and destruction that we automatically suppose that any alien life form who visits must necessarily wish us harm?

Yes. What would happen if a real UFO touched down in NY Central Park? The US Government would send fighter jets out to greet it...

Says a lot about the human mindset, I guess.

[|iR|Focalor]

B-I-B-L-E F-I-G-H-T !


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[|iR|Focalor]

I never said that OTHER intelligent life would be dangerous, what I said was that it's possible that they are terrified of us given our propensity for war.

Good point Foc.

Mostly we tend to think that 'aliens', if they exist, would be far superior to us in our ability to conquor and destroy. Why is that? Are we as humans so fixated on domination and destruction that we automatically suppose that any alien life form who visits must necessarily wish us harm?

Yes. What would happen if a real UFO touched down in NY Central Park? The US Government would send fighter jets out to greet it...

Says a lot about the human mindset, I guess.

I find no fault in that at all. I keep a shotgun by the front door and other weapons in various hidden places around my house for that same reason. I'm supposed trust everyone that comes to my door? I did that once and I got bashed in the face with a beer bottle and robbed. Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on ME.

[quadz]

But it's still only relevant in the wider context of the continuation of the species: As far as nature / biology is concerned, that surgeon has failed in his duty as an individual member of the human race to pass on his genetic inheritance: We are all naturally predisposed to procreate, so, when that great surgeon dies, his own individual genetic legacy will be lost and he will become little more than an agent for the promotion of other people's genes.

You keep talking about the individual as though we each possessed an arsenal of custom genes.

Barring mutation (and advantageous heritable mutation is very rare) genes are copied verbatim from parent to offspring.  While the child does get a mix of genes from both parents, those he does inherit are digital copies (again barring mutation.)

(I can't find my copy of the book at the moment, but as I recall this is discussed somewhere around page 1 of Richard Dawkins' The Selfish Gene.)

The point is, we're not passing on a bunch of customized genetic information to our children in the general case.  We're passing on a subset of the same identical genes carried by the rest of the population.

So unless an individual is the carrier of some new advantageous mutation (rare!), his genes are already widespread throughout the population.  If that individual doesn't breed, his genes haven't been lost anyway.

Further, the notion that our being "predisposed to procreate" somehow makes this an overriding goal in a modern context, negelects to account for information we can discover about why we shouldn't breed with a mate--information that is not available intuitively.  It can be irresponsible--perhaps unethical--to breed with someone you are otherwise attracted to, if, for example, you are both carriers of a recessive genetically inherited disease:

http://anthro.palomar.edu/mendel/mendel_2.htm

Let us assume, for instance, that both you and your mate are carriers for a particularly unpleasant genetically inherited disease such as cystic fibrosis click this icon to hear the preceding name pronounced.   Of course, you are worried about whether your children will be healthy and normal.   For this example, let us define "A" as being the dominant normal allele and "a" as the recessive abnormal one that is responsible for cystic fibrosis.  As carriers, you and your mate are both heterozygous (Aa).  This disease only afflicts those who are homozygous recessive (aa).  The Punnett square below makes it clear that at each birth, there will be a 25% chance of you having a normal homozygous (AA) child, a 50% chance of a healthy heterozygous (Aa) carrier child like you and your mate, and a 25% chance of a homozygous recessive (aa) child who probably will eventually die from this condition.

So no matter how "fit" that potential mate seems instinctively, we have information now about why procreating with that person may be dangerous for your offspring--information that was never available to our ancestors.

A little like a wife who gets pregnant by sleeping with her lover instead of her husband...

Nature is complicated that way...

http://www.news-medical.net/news/2006/10/23/20718.aspx?page=2

Homosexual behaviour has been observed in 1,500 animal species.

"We're talking about everything from mammals to crabs and worms. The actual number is of course much higher. Among some animals homosexual behaviour is rare, some having sex with the same gender only a part of their life, while other animals, such as the dwarf chimpanzee, homosexuality is practiced throughout their lives."

Animals that live a completely homosexual life can also be found. This occurs especially among birds that will pair with one partner for life, which is the case with geese and ducks. Four to five percent of the couples are homosexual. Single females will lay eggs in a homosexual pair's nest. It has been observed that the homosexual couple are often better at raising the young than heterosexual couples.

Simple maxims like, "if an individual doesn't breed he/she has failed in his genetic duty" are (a) too simple to account for the interactions of complex life forms (homosexual couple might be better at raising the young), and (b) just wrong at the genetic level (unless that individual has a rare advantageous mutation, he/she didn't have any new genes to pass on that aren't already present in much of the rest of the population.)


 

[Whirlingdervish]

http://www.news-medical.net/news/2006/10/23/20718.aspx?page=2

Homosexual behaviour has been observed in 1,500 animal species.

"We're talking about everything from mammals to crabs and worms. The actual number is of course much higher. Among some animals homosexual behaviour is rare, some having sex with the same gender only a part of their life, while other animals, such as the dwarf chimpanzee, homosexuality is practiced throughout their lives."

Animals that live a completely homosexual life can also be found. This occurs especially among birds that will pair with one partner for life, which is the case with geese and ducks. Four to five percent of the couples are homosexual. Single females will lay eggs in a homosexual pair's nest. It has been observed that the homosexual couple are often better at raising the young than heterosexual couples.

Simple maxims like, "if an individual doesn't breed he/she has failed in his genetic duty" are (a) too simple to account for the interactions of complex life forms (homosexual couple might be better at raising the young), and (b) just wrong at the genetic level (unless that individual has a rare advantageous mutation, he/she didn't have any new genes to pass on that aren't already present in much of the rest of the population.)


 

I feel like we've been over this before.. 

[Sgt. Dick]

But galaxies don't have the ability to ask questions about why they exist. Human beings do, and human beings typically rationalise such things as having some sort of 'purpose' or 'meaning'. I know that's not science, but it's how most human beings generally do things.

Has anyone considered the possibility that plants communicate with each other on a level we do not understand.  Maybe they talk to each other about their "Purpose of Life"

[haunted]

I looked outside and observed nature today... it was so breathtaking and majestic as a whimsical breeze wafted against me. Us retards can just never hope to understand this extraordinary masterpiece we call nature. If you wanna know what i'm talking about smoke some peyote. Just not too much or you will be visited by mesquilito; just enough to observe nature to the point you cannot understand it, so in turn you truly understand it