The meaning of life?

Question

Just remember that you're standing on a planet that's evolving and revolving at nineteen miles a second ,so it's reckoned, a sun that is the source of all our power.
The sun you and me and all the stars that we can see are moving at a million miles a day.
In an outter spiral arm, at fourty thousand miles an hour, of the galaxy we call the "Milky Way".
Our glaxy itself contains a hundred billion stars.
It's a hundred light years side to side
It bulges in the middle,sixteen thousand light years thick,but out by us, it's just three thousand light years wide.
We're thirty thousand light years from galactic central point.
We go 'round two hundred million years,and our galaxy in only one of only one of millions of billions in this amazing and expanding universe.
The universe itself keeps on expanding and expanding in all the directions it can whizz,as fast as it can go, at the speed of light,you know, tweleve million miles a minute, and thats the fastest speed there is.

so remember , when you're feeling very small and insecure, how amazing and unlikly is your birth, and pray that there's intellegent life somewhere up in space, 'cause these's bugger all down here on Earth.
Can i have your liver please

Answer 1

Life, as contrasted with non-life, is a multi-faceted concept that may refer to the ongoing process of which living things are a part of the period between fertilisation or mitosis and death.


How can one tell when an entity is alive? It would be relatively straightforward to offer a practical set of guidelines if one's only concern were life on Earth as we know it (see biosphere), but as soon as one considers questions about life's origins on Earth, or the possibility of extraterrestrial life, or the concept of artificial life, it becomes clear that the question is fundamentally difficult and comparable in many respects to the problem of defining intelligence.

[edit]
A conventional definition
While there is no universal agreement on the definition of life, scientists generally accept that the biological manifestation of life exhibits the following phenomena:

Organization - Living things are composed of one or more cells, which are the basic units of life.
Metabolism - Metabolism produces energy by converting nonliving material into cellular components (synthesis) and decomposing organic matter (catalysis). Living things require energy to maintain internal organization (homeostasis) and to produce the other phenomena associated with life.
Growth - Growth results from a higher rate of synthesis than catalysis. A growing organism increases in size in all of its parts, rather than simply accumulating matter. The particular species begins to multiply and expand as the evolution countinues to flourish.
Adaptation - Adaptation is the accommodation of a living organism to its environment. It is fundamental to the process of evolution and is determined by the organism's heredity as well as the composition of matabolized substances, and external factors present.
Response to stimuli - A response can take many forms, from the contraction of a unicellular organism when touched to complex reactions involving all the senses of higher animals. A response is often expressed by motion: the leaves of a plant turning toward the sun or an animal chasing its prey.
Reproduction - The division of one cell to form two new cells is reproduction. Usually the term is applied to the production of a new individual (either asexually, from a single parent organism, or sexually, from at least two differing parent organisms), although strictly speaking it also describes the production of new cells in the process of growth.
[edit]
Exceptions to the conventional definition
It is important to note that life is a definition that applies primarily at the level of species, so even though many individuals of any given species do not reproduce, possibly because they belong to specialized Sterile castes (such as ant workers), these are still considered forms of life. One could say that the property of life is inherited; hence, sterile hybrid species such as the mule are considered life although not themselves capable of reproduction. It is also worth noting that non-reproducing individuals may still help the spread of their genes through such mechanisms as kin selection.

For similar reasons, viruses and aberrant prion proteins are often considered replicators rather than forms of life, a distinction warranted because they cannot reproduce without very specialized substrates such as host cells or proteins, respectively. However, most forms of life rely on foods produced by other species, or at least the specific chemistry of Earth's environment.

Some individuals contest such definitions of life on philosophical grounds, and offer the following as examples of life: viruses which reproduce; flames which "grow"; certain computer software programs which are programmed to mutate and evolve; future software programs which may evince (even high-order) behavior; machines which can move; and some forms of proto-life consisting of metabolizing cells without the ability to reproduce.

Still, most scientists would not call such phenomena expressive of life. Generally all six characteristics are required for a population to be considered a life form.

[edit]
Other definitions
The systemic definition is that living things are self-organizing and autopoietic (self-producing). These objects are not to be confused with dissipative structures (e.g. fire).

Variations of this definition include Stuart Kauffman's definition of life as an autonomous agent or a multi-agent system capable of reproducing itself or themselves, and of completing at least one thermodynamic work cycle.

[edit]
Descent with modification: a "useful" characteristic
A useful characteristic upon which to base a definition of life is that of descent with modification: the ability of a life form to produce offspring that are like its parent or parents, but with the possibility of some variation due to chance. Descent with modification is sufficient by itself to allow evolution, assuming that the variations in the offspring allow for differential survival. The study of this form of heritability is called genetics. In all known life forms (assuming prions are not counted as such), the genetic material is primarily DNA or the related molecule, RNA.

This argument would, however, include replicating elements which have been observed to evolve, but are not generally accepted as being alive. Examples include viruses, plasmids, transposons, satellite DNA. Another exception might be the software code of certain forms of computer viruses and programs created through genetic programming.

[edit]
Origin of life
Main article: Origin of life

There is no truly "standard" model for the origin of life, but most currently accepted scientific models build in one way or another on the following discoveries, which are listed roughly in order of postulated emergence:

Plausible pre-biotic conditions result in the creation of the basic small molecules of life. This was demonstrated in the Urey-Miller experiment.
Phospholipids spontaneously form lipid bilayers, the basic structure of a cell membrane.
Procedures for producing random RNA molecules can produce ribozymes, which are able to produce more of themselves under very specific conditions.
There are many different hypotheses regarding the path that might have been taken from simple organic molecules to protocells and metabolism. Many models fall into the "genes-first" category or the "metabolism-first" category, but a recent trend is the emergence of hybrid models that do not fit into either of these categories.

[edit]
The possibility of extraterrestrial life
Main articles: Extraterrestrial life, Astrobiology

Earth is the only planet in the universe known to harbor life. The Drake equation has been used to estimate the probability of life elsewhere, but scientists disagree on many of the values of variables in this equation. Depending on those values, the equation may either suggest that life arises frequently or infrequently.

Answer 2

Yes I think that life for repeat offenders is good.I mean cause most of these murders could have been prevented if the killers would have stayed in jail. I can relate to the victims families. My friend was killed in 1997 and they have no leads.An I know sometimes the jury lets them off but come on if the guy or girl killed more than once you know hes going to do it again.

Answer 3

WARNING: THE ALIENS MIGHT VISIT YOU TO ERASE YOUR MEMORY IF YOU READ THIS.

Well, you don't think the whole universe works the way Earth does, do you? No! One species, one planet! There is a planet of deer, a planet of Asians, and so on! We put them all together on Earth and the whole universe tunes in to watch the fun!

Most of the races of Earth are descended from alien races, in order to create drama from racial tension from their unnatural cohabitation of the planet.

The purpose of our lives as humans is to entertain the life forms on other planets through the reality television show that they know as EARTH.

After 100 episodes the only reason that the show was not cancelled, the planet of earth not demolished, the sun not turned off, and we are still alive is because I blackmailed the Joozians who produce the show with some dirty pictures that Kenny took of them while they were high on blach. Now, look behind you.



















This was revealed to me in
South Park, 100th episode, Season 7 - Episode 4 - Cancelled.

Answer 4

The answer to life, the universe and everything is 42.


See Hitchhikers guide to the galaxy Books by Douglas Adams. Its in the book tittled (funnily enough) Life. the Universe and Everything.

Answer 5

I think the meaning of life is to realise that we are here for a short time - so make to most of your life; love, laugh and be happy. Pass on your wisdom to others, be fair and true to yourself. Be open to ideas and opinions even if you do not agree with them.

And no you can't have my liver!

Answer 6

life-
(lif) n. 1, the aggregate of the powers of metabolism, reproduction, mobility, etc. 2, animals and plants collectively. 3, duration of existence. 4, a condition or course of living; career;station. 5, a biography. 6, animation; vivacity; vigor.
THAT IS THE MEANING OF LIFE.

Answer 7

You sound depressed to me Big Pete. Try to focus on things you can understand and control instead of boring the **** off people by regurgitating facts found on the internet.

Try and be happy, not deep.

Answer 8

to be happy most of your lifetime in whatever situation and to experience as much as you can so you can have interesting stories when you get to heaven or hell. God certainly didnt give u all your limbs, feelings, intelligence to bring back to him unused did he?

Answer 9

And, did you think that your reason for pointing that out makes any difference...?

Answer 10

The best and only answer to this question is as follows (thanks to Franz Kafka) 'The meaning of life is that it stops'.

Answer 11

life is a box of chocolate.
you never know what you're gonna get.