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Topic: Why are we alive?

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1

why and how did we come on this earth is there any real answer?

2

We are alive because all our parents had sex and managed to achieve conception. In this way they ensured that their DNA would be passed to the next generation.

Why are we here? The purpose of life is to ensure the reproduction of your DNA. That is the purpose of all living things.

It's that simple. 

3

I think that if you are looking for some idea of existence from a biological point of view, the above point does a nice job of articulating it.  If you are seeking a "spiritual"answer to the question, this might be where religious belief or more personalized notions of existence come into play.  I think that the standards you use to judge these visions' effectiveness will end up being critical in how you proceed from here.  At some point or another, all strong thinkers have pondered such a question. Your exploration of such a question might be as valid as theirs.

4

krishna-agrawala

Sex and conception as the creator of life is not only a too mechanistic view of life. In addition. it is inaccurate. the egg and and the sperm that combine to produce the embryo, are living cells even before the sex takes place.

I have no answer to the nature and purpose of life. But when we start to think about these issues we must begin by developing clarity on two issues.

  1. Is the body of a living being and the life in it are same or different.
  2. If body and life are separate, then what is the purpose of the two, in relation of each other. The purpose of bode is to serve the life within, or the purpose of life is to serve the body.

5

art7319

As I remember things, the main purpose of life is to replicate itself so it does not become extinct.

How and why we became into two different sexes and the reason for that happening is a huge question.

If one is to take the basic statistical approach and figure out the chances for this to happen, the odds would be staggering.  However, that said the real thought has to be, now that we are here, what do we do with our environment.

The genetics as we know them took millions of years to develop and are still changing through mutations and genetic mixing.  Consider the fact that we are only half of the genetic make up from one side of each parent (family) and then start going back generations and it becomes mind boggling to realize how lucky we are to be alive.  Your egg not arriving on time or another sperm getting lucky, and you would not exist, or someone else would from one of those million of sperm from one ejaculate.  Makes one realize that life is one in a million and tenuous at best. 

The act of procreation is one of a mechanical adjoining of two partners. 

To me what makes this joining special is that it is not random, but chosen by both partners for any number of reasons.  And in many cases, the whole idea of this joining is to have an off spring that will carry the traits forward we wish to have placed into eternity, our heritage.

As for a religious setting to this, well I am not one to say that there could not be some outside force that brought this all together and we are the result.  But then again, religions have gone to war to be the only representative of the one true force.  Not my cup of tea.

Attraction of one member to another is not just fate or an accident.  It seems that we have the ability to pick mates that have genes that are opposite our genetic weakness, so if the perfect match was made and the DNA split perfectly then the offspring would have the strengths of both contributors and the weaknesses would fall by the way side.

That has not happened yet, so we are a combination of both genetic parts, a breath of faith, and a questioning of where we have been and where we are going.

The answer to the question is as old as time and is open to interpretation over time.  There is no one answer in my book, but all the answers are possible.

6

WHY we are "alive" is a difficult question to answer.

I agree that the purpose of life (from a biological perspective) is to reproduce and pass on our genes. However, I do not know if that is the same as WHY we are alive.

I also agree that the concept of what is alive and what is not alive is debatable.

There is, however, a considerable amount of evidence for the HOW part of your question. Consider our current knowledge of the geologic time scale, which divides Earth's history into time periods based on biologic and geologic events.

Earth is about 4.6 billion years old. We know this from dating meteoroids (because the oldest Earth rocks are only about 3.8 billion years old). About 540 million years ago, there was a sudden explosion of life on Earth, termed the Cambrian explosion. No one knows exactly how or why, although there are many hypotheses. We call the time from about 540 million to 250 million years ago the Paleozoic Era or "Age of Invertebrates" because marine invertebrates were the dominant life forms.

We call the time period from about 250 million to 65 million years ago the Mesozoic era or "Age of Reptiles" because dinosaurs and reptiles were the dominant life forms. We have evidence (iridium layer) for a catastrophic event (asteroid impact) that caused the extinction of the dinosaurs at 65 million years ago.

We call the time period from about 65 million years ago to the present the Cenozoic Era or "Age of Mammals" because we are the dominant life forms.

As far as we can tell, no matter what happens, life has been able to find a way to survive. First, there were invertebrates, then there were reptiles, and then mammals. Life has taken different forms, but all are forms of life. Life has adapted to its environment. When one branch of the evolutionary tree ends, another one grows.

If you are searching for a philosophical or religious or spiritual perspective on WHY we are alive, then I can only offer you some conventional wisdom to contemplate:

(1) Live, love, laugh, learn.

(2) Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the Earth. Genesis 9:1

(3) If a tree falls in a forest and no one is there to hear it, does it make a sound?

Good luck!

7

"If a tree falls in a forest and no one is there to hear it, does it make a sound?" mrsdelossantos

I can never understand why people find this question paradoxical. :-) To me, this 'thought provoking' philosophical conundrum is interesting only becuase so many people find it perplexing. The truly interesting feature of this question is that it shows how hugely ego-centric the human brain is. We are incapable of believing that life, the universe and 'everything' is perfectly capable of carrying on without us and has done for 99.9999% of history.

If a tree falls in a forest, the impact when it hits the ground stimulates waves in the atmosphere which our ears can convert into aural signals. Just because we didn't hear it, why should it behave any differently.

You might as well ask...

'if there is a room with no-one in it, is there anything to see?'

'Did the apple that never got eaten, taste like an apple?'

'Does a flower in the empty desert smell like a flower.'

there's a very simple answer... yes.

8

lastlilt

The purpose of life is an ultimate question that does not have a real scientific answer. By real scientific answer I mean answer with logical, physical, reasonable evidence and not based on faith or belief. Yes, I can believe anything I want to, and you have the right to believe or not to believe what I believe. So please do not discuss religion and creationsm under science discussion group. So, to answer this question, there is no real answer yet. Up until today, human beings do not have the knowledge to understand and explain this kind of question. The idea of soul or two parts of life are purely philosophical. The social aspects and expectation of life are completely artificial ( in another word, human created their own beliefs and purpose of life with respect to society, religion, philosophy,...etc). There are too many human reasonings surrouding this, but the absolute truth is yet to revealed. It is up to everybody to think and answer for him/herself.

9

Why does there have to be a big meaningful 'explanation' to life? Human life evolved from more primitive life-forms and there is no particular 'reason' you are alive beyond the biologocal urge to reproduce your DNA.

As the philosophers seem to have generally concluded, "Life is absurd, there is no explanation for it." You are the semi-random development of self-replicating DNA. There is no purpose behind this. You're a random event.

 

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