• What could there be beside Life?
    99 replies, posted
Without observation what is existence? I mean... how can the universe really exist if nothing ever develops the ability to know it exists in the first place? (of course it did exist up until the point that any animal developed consciousness, but... it's weird to think about beforehand how so much must have transpired without observation). There'd be no way to 'tell' that it exists (because in order to be able to tell if it exists then something would have to be a self-aware creature... but that's the point I'm trying to make: there wouldn't be any self-aware creatures). [editline]03:46PM[/editline] [QUOTE=Orsenfelt;19364247]Then what is outside space? What is the universe constantly expanding into?[/QUOTE] There is no 'outside'. Everything that exists is within the universe by definition. The universe is all that there is. Just like there was no 'before' the universe. Time began AT the big bang. To ask what came beforehand is meaningless as there WASN'T a beforehand.
[QUOTE=sltungle;19368173]Without observation what is existence? I mean... how can the universe really exist if nothing ever develops the ability to know it exists in the first place? (of course it did exist up until the point that any animal developed consciousness, but... it's weird to think about beforehand how so much must have transpired without observation). There'd be no way to 'tell' that it exists (because in order to be able to tell if it exists then something would have to be a self-aware creature... but that's the point I'm trying to make: there wouldn't be any self-aware creatures).[/QUOTE] I can add to the mind-fuck: There's not much difference between the universe existing, and the universe existing with life. You see, life is just a specific arrangement of matter that's ordered in such a way that stuff happens, like replication. Over time this has become more and more complex here, to the point where we are sentient, but sentience is just a label we assigned to what it is we are capable of. Life isn't some transcendent state, it's just a label we made up, even on Earth we don't consider things like viruses or sperm to be life, in effect, they're just natural results of planets like this and animals like us, respectively. Much in the same way that things like clouds and snow are just naturally occurring systems that have a certain pattern, we're just a different pattern. So does a universe exist without any minds in it? Yes. Is there actually any point to the universe? No. We won't be around this universe forever, eventually this universe will be devoid of matter as we know it and everything that happened within will have ultimately been pointless. But that's only because purpose is also a thing we've made up and assigned to things, the universe exists, that's it. We just happen to be one of the arrangements of stuff that arose from the laws of this universe, we're no more special than planets or stars, we're just different. Thus asking whether or not something has a purpose if there's nothing to observe it isn't a good question.
Don't get me wrong. I don't believe there's any 'purpose'. A hundred trillion years from now the last stars in the universe will burn out and the universe will become a dark, empty, cold place. Everything that ever was will be gone, and anything that ever had any 'value' (even though value isn't some universal constant but a label we attribute as humans to certain thins) will cease to have any real importance. Nothing in the universe has any REAL purpose. The universe is just a collection of... well, shit happening.
Nothing.
robots. because its the robots that are going to kill us/every living thing in the universe.
It's kinda like the chicken and the egg. Can matter exist without life? Our Earth existed for a long time without life, and eventually got around to it. Other planets exist now (to our knowledge) with no life, but they just might be in their evolutionary stages and will harbor life someday. It's all a matter of time.
[QUOTE=Sihav;19377759]It's kinda like the chicken and the egg. Can matter exist without life? Our Earth existed for a long time without life, and eventually got around to it. Other planets exist now (to our knowledge) with no life, but they just might be in their evolutionary stages and will harbor life someday. It's all a matter of time.[/QUOTE] Well then, you busted your own question. Matter can exist without life, but over time it may create life. But I don't think every planet is in their evolutionary stages, I think some planets simply can't have any form of life. Of course there is surely other lifeforms that doesn't depend on anything we depend on, but I still don't think that every planet would over time get life anyways, but maybe, just that their galaxy dies out before they start creating life.
[QUOTE=dgg;19377886]Well then, you busted your own question. Matter can exist without life, but over time it may create life. But I don't think every planet is in their evolutionary stages, I think some planets simply can't have any form of life. Of course there is surely other lifeforms that doesn't depend on anything we depend on, but I still don't think that every planet would over time get life anyways, but maybe, just that their galaxy dies out before they start creating life.[/QUOTE] Sorry, man. It was a rhetorical question. I'm still optimistic we can one day find and interact with life on other planets. It'll be cool.
We would be a race of rock monsters. :smug: Who said that life has to be made with cells and organic materials and stuff?
There would be... everything else :downs:
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