a question that smells of philosophy

At what point does the will to live or the will to avoid death appear in the system?

If something makes an effort to replicate itself can it be said to have a will to replicate itself? If not then what drives the replication? Why bother with replication?

Interesting.

Why the assumption that in the middle of life there is nihil? (Latin for Nothing if my memory serves).

It would seem that between lives there is potential… potential between A and A+ for A to become A Knobs, or A Claws, or A scales, and so on. Admittedly, these variations will be minor… birds don’t lay eggs that hatch into lawyers (for example) yet if A were an island surrounded on all sides by nothing, there is no chain from which one can positively say A knob is linked to A.

If you say meaning is derived from the nihil, using the semantic, could you show (syntatically) how something entirely new arrises out of nothing?
But, of course, it is not entirely new… as you list them yourself, it might be A Knob (and so on)

but then:

Each body being a seperate entity. A is A. Awith knobs is not A, it is AwithKnobs. and so on. The Gulf between each entity is not ‘nihil’, it is (what you term a replicator) surrounded by potential. You mention complete randomness (absolute randomness) as implying lack of design, nothing you have written negates the possibility of a higher design, nor purpose deriving from life itself. Can meaning result from the struggle to survive, yes.
Doesn’t that require living entities? Yes.
Why then must meaning come only as the result of the struggle from something?
You say that the phenotype (semantics/meaning) are the instructions. If I understand you… meaning results from the replicators surviving to replicate, their pattern giving form to purpose.
Here I must repeat Xanderman’s question… if purpose can result from living, and you have a will in which to direct your living, can it not be that additional meaning can result? If meaning results from purpose and we have a will in which we choose our purpose… then isn’t it the obvious conclusion that every individual chooses meaning for themselves?

You could just as easily have said that meaning results from the potential for life. If you take (semantically) the usage of ‘for’ as the negation of 'against’and the usage of ‘life’ as the negation of ‘death’, you could probably even represent this syntactically.

I add this because, if we assume that meaning results from purpose, then every living creature with free will inundated with potential… all of us then has the potential to find whatever meaning we may in our lives. Well, so long as it isn’t a bird laying an egg and it hatching into a lawyer sort of potential… but you get the idea.

Pretty heavy Whitelotus. I think you’ve convinced me that human meaning, in terms of the meaning of words and concepts, owes a great deal to death, and not just in the obvious senses.

X: It’s only will in the sense that an apple has a will to fall when pulled by gravity. It’s just that the LETS NOT DIE gene is probably the most tenaciously replicating roll-of-the-dice a plasmapool graduate could possibly be lucky enough to sprout…even better than two bumps on its back. But it’s still random, and it happens all the time. Just wait till the fucking computers take over.

Ok there is no will, so then what drives the replication?

A apple may have no will to fall but what drives the apple tree to make the apple with the seeds at its core. What drives replication? Where does the lets not die gene come from. It seems like the gene itself has a will. It wants to replicate. How did that instruction come to be? We know what it is still around, because it has suceeded. The replicator keeps replicating. Wherever and whenever possible. The will to replicate, it is the will to live, yes?

Do you mean life coming from non-living substances? Where can we observe this happening all the time?

That seems like the result of the struggle for existence. Struggle is effort. Unless it makes an effort to exist then how can it be said to struggle for existence? How can it make an effort to exist? There is no effort and there is no struggle. It only does or does not, there is no try.

If there is no striving that what is the “struggle” in struggle for existence?

How is death a problem? If the replicator stops replicating what does it matter? How is successful replication different from failure? The consequence of failure is no more replicating. The consequence of success is more replicating. Each is meaningless.

Replication accidentally came into existence. Eventually replication will stop. There is zero meaning. Replication has no meaning.

I am interested, how do they create life everyday at the Museum of Natural History?

And between them is the potential for more, or less. Or are there not “completely random” variations?
That is not nihil.

If you were to mate and reproduce, would you not be passing on your genetic heritage? Also, wouldn’t your child have his or her own identity, seperate from you? This argument does apply to human beings right? Or are we special now?

Lets assume A survives to become A’. A could not become A’ if it lacked the potential to do so. In the domain of discourse all A’ (s) will have characteristics similar to (if not exactly like) A … plus some others that thus define it as A’. You can study Venn diagrams on this if you like, fact is if you were to draw one you would see the problem I have with this argument.

A to A’ to A" are all interlinked, yet you say between each is nihil (nothing). Nothing implies empty space. Empty space implies seperation. If the are seperated they cannot be interlinked, yet you go one further and argue as if they are all one thing. Again, if this applies to human beings, are you your father? Or is your father a seperate being? Are the two of you linked somehow?
Which one of these fits best?
Lets say you and your dad are birds. Your dad has knobs, but you have wings. Are you teh same being, wholly seperate beings, or seperate beings sharing a link? And if you are seperate beings sharing a link, please tell me where there is room for nihil?

Nihil is not between, but around.

Really?

Can I ask, where did yonder intelligence originate? There is no higher design (thus no designer) yet a wing is an “intelligent” solution. Pardon my sarcasm but hmmm.

Hmm.

Simply doing something qualifies as intelligence now?

Pv~P

Either it is true that A will survive, or it is not.
A has the potential for both.

This potential is passed on to offspring who share similar genes and phenotypes until death. (nihil) Here I will do a Ross Perot and make a diagram of what I am saying:

nihil nihil nihil nihil nihil nihil nihil nihil nihil nihil
A potential A’ potential A" potential A": potential / NIHIL.
nihil nihil nihil nihil nihil nihil nihil nihil nihil nihil

Now, here is a diagram of what I believe you are saying:

A nihil A’ nihil A’ nihil / so on.

taps forehead. My will is in there.

How it works? However I want it… its my will. I can prove you have one as well.

If you decide to reply it will be with your will that you type your reply. Human beings possess no innate ability to type out the exact message you will reply (in so far as) we do it because we are beholden to. If any human being does so it is because they choose to do so. Unless, of course, you can show me a video tape of thousands of young children typing out your reply as just a normal function, like eating babyfood or shitting in their diapers… I will assume you will write your reply because you want to, and from that desire the mind answers by directing the body to make it so. Unless you are going to say your reply is predetermined… but if that is so then it can be so via our genetic heritage, and if it could be so for such a petty thing like a written message, it could be so as well for form and function… thus evolution may not be as random as you claim.
No?

You are confusing purpose with the destination (nihil). Odd that you should write “nothing is striving towards a certain goal”.

Come on now Whitey… you throw out these absolutes like its the blue light special at the Idealist’s Bargain Bin and then mock other “metaphysical bullshit”

Nothing is an absolute term, in that, it is devoid of both any and everything.
If nothing is the destination (not even survival) then there may be no Ultimate, absolute wow bejeezus purpose… but between hereand the nihilist heaven of entropy purpose can still be choosing how one lives… even in the face of extinction.

I refer you to Viktor Frankl’s “Man’s Search for Meaning” for a concrete example of what I mean.

This would explain how your argument defies logic. Just piss on logic, your argument is valid, damnit! But this isn’t a deductive argument anyway, now is it? Next time you sit down to write an inductive argument understand that it may be sound, etc and may appeal to you (either because you wrote it or for more personal reasons)… but unexamined assumptions, do not, a good premise make. least not necessarily so.

Because,

Lets say “meaning” is a baby that “emerges” from the womb… why should one make a convoluted argument avoiding the terms baby/womb/ meaning, to say what is, connotatively, the same damn thing?

thus:

then it has meaning unto itself… or gasp in it’s purpose.

The only way i can say it entails wind moving over my vocal chords etc… Reverse engineering, Darwinism came long after humans had the ability to speak.

If what you are implying is that whatever “meaning” we ascribe to a phenotype comes as a result of our own phenotypes, well then you get a gold star.

Since we, you and I, are not casual observers of this great Darwinistic drama, but partaking in it actively as living creatures who are here as a result of various evolutionary struggles and we are here capable of assigning words that hold meaning to us to whatever we deem fit, then I would agree, and I would also think you have either contradicted yourself or have taken the argument to its logical conclusion.

As a result of evolution, the human animal is capable of ascribing whatever meaning it likes on whatever object or act it wants. Whetehr or not this meaning is absolutely true or not will never be known, human beings are finite… they will meet with the nihil. Between then and there, however, what you have written here has not disproven this, merely added to it.

There, that sound ok?

“The future thus gives the past its meaning (hence retrospective corronation).”

How can the future (which does not exist) give meaning to the past (which does exist)?

“‘retrospective coronation’, or looking back and attaching special significance to property that was trivial at the time.”

FROM: unipeak.com/getpage.php?_u_r … AzMTIxLw==

“As my conclusions have lately been much misrepresented, and it has been stated that I attribute the modification of species exclusively to natural selection, I may be permitted to remark that in the first edition of this work, and subsequently, I placed in a most conspicuous position—namely at the close of the Introduction—the following words: “I am convinced that natural selection has been the main but not the exclusive means of modification.” This has been of no avail. Great is the power of steady misrepresentation.”

Charles Darwin (1872) edition of The Origin of Species:

Darwinian Fundamentalism: nybooks.com/articles/1151 By Stephen Jay Gould

Any living X has the potential to replicate… if it didn’t there could be no struggle, thus no replication without the potential to do so.

The offspring of X do not jump wholly out of the earth free from this potential… and in order to have offspring of their own they too must have the potential to replicate further.

As you have stated some things survive to replicate, and some don’t. Some things realize their potential, and some don’t.

A decent discussion would address this point. When X replicates does it create an exact carbon copy or not? You have admitted that it does not… follow where that leads. Between X and its offspring are gaps… it is not one long continous chain of the same being replicating itself over and over…perhaps creatures on the microscopic level can do this… but not human beings… unless all mothers give birth to their twin.

Right! A survives long enough to replicate… giving birth to A’. A’ could not exist if A did not have the potential to do so.

Lets say mommy is A, I am B … we get it on one night and nine months later pops out B?? B+??

No.
A+B.

A+B is not is not A nor B… it is a seperate entity combining characteristics of not only its parent but its parents parents on down the line…

Between me and my child is the replication. If I do not partake in the act of reproduction I cannot be said to reproduce. A clear causal relationship is not ‘nothing’. Nothing is the lack of any and everything… even causal relationships. Admit this and amend your argument. Or don’t… there is no rule that says arguments must be consistent I suppose.

A is seperated from B… does the fact that they are seperated alone argue that A=B?

Yeah, the law of identity would be a nice thing right about now.

That is fine for explaining a species it makes no note of the individuals that share in this. For any group comprised of beings who share in replicating must also be comprised of individual replicators.

And this is done individually, thus some individuals are changed randomly and branch out into new groups… No bird with wings had it not been for the bid with knobs, for example. And for the Individual bird with wings to have made it here, the bird with knobs had to have the potential to survive.

If the bird with knobs could not survive… individually… birds with wings would not be here. This is not seperated replication… this is a chain… interlinked… its existence is the result of survival… thus if there is anything shared between consecutive individuals it is the potential to survive. If there arrises an individual that lacks the potential to survive… well there goes the offspring… no?

I have already addressed this. The causal relationship between X and its offspring is not ‘nothing’. Furthermore for individuals to survive to replicate they must have the potential to do so. Potential is not ‘nothing’.

Are you not a replicator? If you know nothing etc, how do you know the solution is intelligent?

You did write

Note now such actions are a matter of choice (in human beings at least). Seems odd that evolution would give rise to a creature that could choose to not reproduce.

Since you know that all things must meet with nihil I can see the logic in your contradiction… now please explain this universal awareness you have been granted and you might even gain a few ardent followers. Were you bitten by a radioactive spider… this allows you to peer in the future to know the ~P?

Wait it must be ~P because the argument accepts ~P as the premise, ergo the conclusion must be true.

I submit NO finite creature can prove your premise as being true… thus the conclusion can also false.

But logic is more metaphysical bullshit… nihil isn’t… because nihil is what gets us erect I guess.

Either A will survive or it will not… this question is repeated per individual.
If No A’s will survive then I concede the point.

I think what you are saying is that from A to A’ means that ultimately no A(s) will surivive… but how you get there with nihil is a flippin mystery.

Before you piss all over logic some more here is a form you might like…
plato.stanford.edu/entries/logic-paraconsistent/

Thats right, I am half man half fish. Worship my divinity.

And ya still chose to type this… thank you for proving my point.

In english goal and destination can be the same thing.
From dictionary.reference.com/search?q=goal

"A noun or noun phrase referring to the place to which something moves.
"

from dictionary.reference.com/search?q=destination
“The place to which one is going or directed.”

You had said:
“nothing is striving towards a certain goal”.
And what is the Latin term for nothing btw?

Then P.~P would be so much metaphysical bullshit, ditto nihil.

So you say… Col. Sanders says a wing is to fill out a three piece order. Alot of good all that fancy replication did for chickens… eh?

We can ascribe meaning to that which was… that which is… and to that which will be. We can even ascribe meaning to that which isn’t. Meaning is felt by the subject in relation to the act or object. Or even a third party observing the interaction… thus when you say

It gives it that meaning… to you. This is important to you (I suppose) because you believe it to be the truth… maybe you even mange the affairs in your life based around this… thats all fine and good. But when you say death gives it meaning answer:

Meaning to who?
To death? To itself? To genes? To you? To all of us?

Well then I will ask you to point to nihil. Kinda hard to point at absolutely nothing aint it?

Prove to me that it is absolutely random. You can’t of course. Thus another dirty little assumption of yours rears its ugly little head.

I deemed your thread meaningful enough (to me) to reply to it. Whether I think it fit or not didn’t matter to me… I could have assumed I knew the TRUTH and ignored it, I could have accepted it as the TRUTH and started putting on my mascara for Goth night at the local bar… or I could be seeking the TRUTH by engaging you in what should be a friendly debate in the hopes that it is possible that both of us might learn something.

But

If I assumed that anything had a particular end, I would already be weighing it before the discussion had been concluded. Maybe your ideas are valid, maybe what you say is the TRUTH… being that you are human requires you to prove it. If that entails you writing more clearly and concisely… well I could be an idiot I suppose… but then think of all the other idiots out there you will never convince.

Darwinism is great if it can help organisms like whitelotus evolve into someone whose brusk, insecure posturing doesn’t constantly get in the way of his formidable (but still forming) intelligence and obvious desire to give over important insights.

Whitelotus,

What are the consequences of this?

since when does it not? Stop living in a Heideggerian fantasy world

1.Heidegger’s philosophical belief that technology was something to be questioned/problematized led him to attach himself to the Nazi Party. As a member of the Nazi party he turned down several Jewish Professors requests for tenure (It is more complicated than this, but in a nutshell that’s the story). Philosophy with a consequence

  1. The United States of America is a Philosophical consequence. The structure and foundation of the nation, I mean, not the original colonization.

  2. Do you like Jacques Brel by chance?

There is when Heidegger himself says that National Socialism is the only movement that positions itself against global technology.

The US Constitution is dripping with philosophy, Locke especially, Just read the preamble. The Revolution occurred after several of the Americans were able to philosophically justify their claims of sovereignty in the Declaration of Independece. The US is an Enlightenment country like no other.

If you wanted to have a discussion about the theory of evolution or Darwinism or whatever, then you could have easily requested this. Instead you posted a challenge.

Did you want somebody to refute the theory of evolution? Or was there a particular thesis of your own creation that you wanted refuted?

If you wanted a discussion about evolution then why not post the thread under the Natural Sciences heading?

I will admit that I am not well read about evolution. It does not fascinate me, as it seems to fascinate you. Darwin’s theory makes use of natural selection, a large period of time and random variation. All of that is in Darwin.

I don’t have to prove anything. Other people have done that work. The website I posted pointed to a document by a man who apparently suggests other minor methods that went along with natural selection in the net process of evolution. If you are interested in that then do your own research. I don’t want to become an expert on evolution.

If you want a debate with an opponent whom you would consider equally informed in the field of evolution then make the effort to go and find one.

I don’t know Darwin’s motivation for writing that line. It could have been in an effort to sell more books. I suspect that he had already sold quite a few copies and did not need to edit one line to sell more. Controversy sells itself.

Evolution is still controversial. It is still selling books.

Whitelotus,
I’m not going to play grapheme tennis with you. It’s silly. My point in asking about the consequences of Death being that which gives meaning to life was to find out what type of action this would cause us do. The reason for the question of consequences is that your whole trip through darwinism ends up with a widely known truism. At least do something interesting for your last act. It’s like closing a comedy set with “Why did the chicken cross the road”

So, I ask again, what are the consequences, even in terms of thinking and such abstractions and not in utilitarian productivist terms, of the statement “Death is thus that which gives meaning to everything”? This is so wide a statement, too wide in fact as it attempts to cram all being into its maw.

I may be wrong, and I think the Evil Buddha can defend himself just fine, but i took it to mean that origins of the meaning of words and concepts, and the idea of “concepts” at all, can be attributed in an indirect way to the fact that there is “death” (which is also a concept.) Whitelotus did an OKAY job of saying this, unless I read it wrong, which is possible. I sort of zoned out because in addition to being an insecure, posturing blowhard, whitelotus is also not the most clear or colorful writer (even though he clearly wants to be) especially when he gets into his deeper explanations.

I love all this philosophical pompousity and one-upsmanship. I hate to see it, but at times, it’s far more interesting than actually doing real philosophy…whatever that means (nod to whitelotus).

A concept is: something you do not have. It’s clear that the only thing you believe in is conflict. If you weren’t saying what I thought you were saying, then A, thanks for making me think of something far more profound, and B, Hermes is right, go tell your chicken cross the road jokes at the Delusions Of Grandeur Anonymous forum.

LOL
You’re a cynical a-hole, but I like you. You remind me of a cynical a-hole friend. He’s constantly sucking in his cheeks to make his chubby face look more defined. What he doesn’t realize is the chubbiness is in the bone structure…too bad. You and him are a lot alike.

Anyway, bored is one thing I am not, partly thanks to you. It has been an odd pleasure. Have a good night.