Life..... SCIENTIFICALLY?

Question

Whats your perception of life?? Where did we come from? Why are we here? What should we do? Where are we going?

Answer 1

Seems to me that we may be one of the many life forms in the universe.On earth our physical form is dictated by the conditions on the planet.We are here to try to reach an understanding of a non material state ,this state has only awareness of itself through thinking life forms.So our purpose is to reach outwith our bodies by using our consciousness.
We are going nowhere in the material world but if we reach awareness of the non material world then we will have achieved our purpose.

Answer 2

Defining existence is a factor of the subject. that's glaring once you seem on the huge image. no you're able to confuse a dogs with a rock. The nearer you seem, however, the fuzzier that line gets. once you seem very heavily, you will discover the chemical reactions that make up all existence - that are no longer any distinctive from the chemical reactions that take place in a try tube. that's shuffling of electrons and their chemical bonds, and in a finer experience, the circulate of potential from one place to the subsequent. the only distinction between existence and the try tube is that existence heavily regulates that's reactions. that's, in essence, what micro organism do. The greater complicated you get, the greater those reactions can stack on precise of one yet another, till the full is larger than the sum of that's factors. Deep down, however, it may all by employing defined by employing chemical reactions. Then that's no longer so mind-blowing that existence could have come from non-existence. i think of you're observing it too in simple terms. Take the rock you pronounced, as an occasion. Calling it a rock is an exceedingly gross generalization. seem nearer at it, and what does it incorporate? Carbon, silicon, salts - all issues which could take part in chemical reactions, and all issues that dwelling issues can use in some way or yet another. Likewise, there is water - 2 hydrogens and an oxygen, the two issues that are particularly basic in existence. yet another important part of undergo in concepts is the transition from non-existence to existence. It wasn't a unexpected substitute, like a cellular popping into lifestyles in a puddle. particularly, it substitute right into a sluggish, slow technique. The oceans on the early earth have been warm and packed with chemical compounds. existence slowly arose, steadily transitioning with the aid of levels that we could no longer unavoidably be waiting to tell different than for the complicated chemical reactions occurring around it, and that we could no longer unavoidably understand as existence as we communicate. as quickly because it finally reached a kind that we could call alive, it substitute into nonetheless quite elementary - orders of magnitude easier than even the least confusing modern-day micro organism. it is likewise why no new existence is forming as we communicate. no longer in basic terms are the circumstances no longer precise (the oceans are not a warm chemical soup), yet any new existence could could desire to compete with modern-day existence, which has had billions of years to specialize and streamline - new existence would not stand a guess.

Answer 3

This may sound very creationist, but even though I think I believe in evolution (my opinion on this varies), I can't get my head around how the universe was formed in the first place. Scientists have offered us the big bang theory, but isn't their science merely a philosophy in itself? It is a social construct theory in essence and is not certain, just a mere paradigm.
They claim a big bang created the universe, fine, but what created that bang, who or what created the initial spark and who created whoever created the spark? It confuses me!

As for people who think that after death there is nothing,I would say this; do we not have to have some sort of actual physical awareness of what nothingness to experience nothingness?

Arrrrggghhh! I've confused myself now!

Answer 4

right take a deep breathe. Our purpose is just to understand the workings of our universe. Once we figure it out (and we already know it started on a quantum scale about 15 billion years ago) we will realise that another intelligence created our universe with the parameters we measure. Our purpose is to pass the message on, by creating new universes on a quantum scale, with different conditions. some of these universes will develop intelligent beings who will follow our path, thus perpetuating intelligence. These universes may be generated anyway in the highest energy locations of our universe, in which case humans are insignificant.

Answer 5

Why does your question say 'scientifically'? It strikes me the question has little to do with science! For me it has little to do with religion either.

I'm not clear that much can be said 'in general' on questions like this. And, instead of 'we' it might make more sense to insert 'I'.

So each of us could ask 'why am I here... and where am I going'. For me, I wish I knew the answer to the second question but, then again, maybe not! Perhaps better to travel hopefully than to arrive? Oh, and I'm not at all sure I need a reason for me being here. It is idle to speculate about NOT being here, after all...?

Now, off for another Xmas lunch!

Answer 6

I don't have a problem with the idea life began on this planet billions of years ago and kept evolving into different life forms. I just can't get past the idea of where did it all come from? Good question, I wish I had a better answer...

Answer 7

scientifically ?
i think : we as humans are at the top of the food chain being the most dominant species and are on earth to keep the food chain going and to make sure mother earth doesnt turn into a wasteland...as to where we come from and where we're going i dunno that is no definite answer.
if there is a God then meaning to life would be to find Him and if there is life after death then it would be also to secure a good afterlife

Answer 8

Do you know rainbows ? More you try to catch them more they go far from you. Best thing to do just sit and relaz viewing it.

Same thing for the life , dont try to catch the meaning because it will go away , try to live it, this is the better way to understand it.

Answer 9

Our purpose in life is to seek and do that which is good.

Answer 10

From a scientific point of view, living organisms are best understood as self-organizing systems. (Actually, the biosphere as a whole is self-organizing, and for that matter, I think that Existence itself is self-organizing, but that's gets to be a pretty deep topic.) A self-organizing system is essentially a collection of elements that follow rules. Ant colonies, slime molds, major cities, central nervous systems, weather patterns, frost on your window, and the internet are all classic examples of self-organizing systems. In fact, because of the feedback functions of Yahoo Answers, you are actually an element in a self-organizing system at this very moment. The basic point is that the principles of self-organization apply to many different kinds of elements – not just living systems – which can go a long ways toward explaining how living systems were able to arise from the basic non-living elements of the earth's early environment. One key thing to understand is that self-organization takes energy, and this energy is acquired from the larger environment. To create or maintain a complex pattern, energy in the environment (that is otherwise mostly random and unfocused) must be channeled into the sorts of elemental interactions that create the complex patterns. This happens spontaneously with self-organizing systems. Scientists use the phrase "far from thermodynamic equilibrium" to describe this situation.

Of course the universality of self-organizing systems leaves us with this question: What is the essential difference between a living organism and a non-living self-organizing system? (like the formation of frost patterns)? Since both are self-organizing, there must be something else that characterizes life. One answer is goal-directed behavior. Living systems are self-organizing systems that are able to "seek out" the energy that they need in order to maintain their organization. Most pants grow roots into the soil, and branch out toward the sun. Animals develop means of locomotion to seek out more hospitable surroundings. There are also microscopic organisms that depend on pure luck. When they happen to be in a good environment, they flourish; in a bad environment they die. These organisms are not goal-seeking in the sense that more complex organisms are, but we still call them living because the reproduce genetically.

This brings us to another obvious difference between living and non-living systems: self-reproduction. Living systems carry blueprints for their construction within themselves, and of course these blueprints get used to create offspring.

So, scientifically speaking, why are we here? We are here because the universe is a fundamentally self-organizing system composed of innumerable smaller self-organizing systems. (System within systems within systems…) Some of these systems evolved special capacities like goal-seeking, reproduction, etc.

But the nature of your question suggests that you really want more than just scientific answers, so I will toss in some philosophical musings as a sort of extra bonus. "Why are we here" is a fundamental mystery that not even God can answer. (I will assume for the moment that there is a God, just to make this point.) God did not ask to be created, any more than we did. God either exists eternally, or else popped into existence out of Nothing – either way, God had no choice in the matter. God simply IS. There is no possible explanation for this. If God created us, then you could say we are here because God created us, but since there is no explanation for God's existence, there is ultimately no explanation for ours either. God might have had a purpose in mind for creating us, but since God's existence ultimately has no purpose beyond simply Existence, then ultimately our existence has no purpose beyond simply Existence Itself, which is utterly and forever mysterious. But notice this: if we can talk this way about God's existence, then why do we need to posit God as a creator? The same mystery that we find at the root of God's existence could just as well be applied directly to our own existence. We are here simply because Existence exists, and Existence is fundamentally self-organizing. Self-organization is the evolution of complex patterns out of chaos. The Bible says that the universe was created out of Chaos, and on this point, it is basically correct.

But as a final thought, you might notice that none of this explains our experiential nature - the feeling of what it is like to be a living creature. Presumably there is nothing that it is like to be a rock or a cloud, but there probably something that it is like to be a fish, and there is definitely something that it is like to be a person. So we have another mystery. Presumably the newly-formed earth was just rocks and gases, so there was nothing on the early earth that experienced anything. Self-organization can roughly explain how living systems might have evolved (when considered just from a behavioral point of view) but it does not seem able to explain how Experience came into the world. How could experiential nature arise from non-experiential materials? My answer: It can't. I believe that Experience is, in some sense, fundamental to Existence. Just as we cannot explain why there is anything rather than nothing, we also cannot explain why Existence is Experiential. But it is, and this is where I believe that the notion of 'God' comes into the picture. (I actually think in terms of Goddess, as my personal preference, but of course gender really has nothing much to do with Experience in its pure essence).

Obviously this is not science, but I would claim that it does have a lot to do with logic and wisdom. Logic can prove its own limits (Gödel's theorem), so it is perfectly logical to believe that the foundations of Being are beyond reason and explanation. Thus, even the most rigorous scientist ought to embrace the fundamental mystery of Being. This, essentially, is what spirituality is – coming to terms, as best we can, with the amazing mystery of our existence. You ask: "What should we do?" I say: First and foremost we need to explore and embrace our spiritual core – the mystery of Being – and acknowledge the insolvability of the ultimate "why". You ask: "Where are we going?" I say: None of us can know this – not even "God" – but wherever we go, it will be totally up to us to get there, and once we get there, we will discover that it is just the beginning to another journey. The only "final destination" is Death, which Existence might or might not be able to avoid eternally, but either way, Death will always be the companion of Existence, and understanding this is another vital aspect of true spirituality.