Life knew about death before life began! How?

[Iamme]

It did. It had to have.

All instructions of the universe were encoded into the universe. We accept science's claim that the universe had a beginning and will also have an end. (Although we have no direct *proof* of the impending death, even if we *do* have proof of dying stars. The death of one entity does not necessarily lead to the death of the whole. Read on.)

Since everything came from the early universe, every part of it 'knew' it had to die. But how? What does the death "code" look like, for those that don't think God is the author of such codes. Can we see it under a microscope, for example? (I doubt it) It'd more like it is some law. It's like how we wouldn't be able to see 'love' under a microscope, either. (And with laws, is there not a law giver?)

Do you think life would have begun on earth if it "knew" that it would *not* die and could simply keep creating more of everything without dying??

We know this could not possibly work! The world would fill up with trees, bugs...can you imagine how many mosquitoes there would be right now if no mosquito ever died?

IF the universe were to expand forever into an ever enlarging infinitum, one could suppose, in theory, that death would not necesarily have to be imminant, as more stars, planets, galaxies, etc. could keep developing without ever filling up the universe,... and hence not require a death. But, on a *finite* planet, you can't have infinite life. It just would not work. And if there wasn't some kind of death code, there would have to have been another type of death that is not a cellular death but rather a catastrophic destruction (I'll call it). Even though each organism would not have been encoded with death, there would have wound up being a cataclysm by, say, fire. Like, the entire world would fill up with organic stuff, and then burn up. SOMETHING would have to give.

Now...when life began on earth, do you think it 'knew' there would be death, or do you think it was simply lucky for the sustanance of life, that death occurs? Think about this? Would it have ever begun? (I think Stephen Hawking needs to ponder this one, and get back with me) Just luck of the draw?



Or, could it be that some master planner figured out that this had to be the case, and found a clever scheme to foil death, in a way, by allowing all species to go on living, basically forever, by simply causing every organism to reproduce and then to die individually, but not as a whole?

More to lay in bed pondering.

......................................

My whole objective with my trains of thought is to try to come to some kind of conclusion as to what al might be chance and what might have actually been planned by some supreme mind.

[Iamme]

My friend just said, "If there were no death, think about all the Norwegians!' :)

[wollery]

Wow, every time you start a thread you display your total inability to either research or reason.

Please explain how a hydrogen atom "knows" anything, let alone anything about death.

If living organisms didn't die then there would be no need for reproduction, so there wouldn't be lots of trees and bugs, just a few very old ones! Except, of course, that without reproduction there'd be no evolution, so you'd actually have a few very, very old ameobae.

The Universe cannot keep on producing more stars, sooner or later it will run out of hydrogen.

I think Stephen Hawking has far more interesting and taxing things to think about, like what to have for lunch!

Edit to add - your friend is apparently a master of the stunning non-sequitor!

[Jimbo07]

My whole objective with my trains of thought is to try to come to some kind of conclusion as to what al might be chance and what might have actually been planned by some supreme mind.

Good luck with that! Lemme know what conclusion you come to... :boggled:

[.13.]

If living organisms didn't die then there would be no need for reproduction, so there wouldn't be lots of trees and bugs, just a few very old ones! Except, of course, that without reproduction there'd be no evolution, so you'd actually have a few very, very old ameobae.

Even if there were no need for reproduction it wouldn't necessarily mean organisms wouldn't still reproduce.

[Tirdun]

All instructions of the universe were encoded into the universe.
Because... you say so? What "encoding" are we talking about?
We accept science's claim that the universe had a beginning and will also have an end.
Currently science says the universe as we know it started at some point. Before that point there are a number of theories and conjecture, but there isn't much left to study. There is similar debate about the end. None of that seems to have any relevance to your .... statement.
Since everything came from the early universe, every part of it 'knew' it had to die.
I keep rereading that sentence and I think its making me dumberer. :boggled:
Everything... in the universe... knew .. it has to ...die. No, it doesn't make any more sense. Matter doesn't "die". Death describes the end of life, which is not the same. A bit of matter getting absorbed into a star is not "death". The universe reaching a cold end (or simply existing forever as a very cold, boring place) is not "death" except when you use colorful adjectives.
It'd more like it is some law. It's like how we wouldn't be able to see 'love' under a microscope, either. (And with laws, is there not a law giver?)
Scientific laws are not the same as "Ape shall not kill ape", mister law-giver-looker. A scientific law is generally a mathmatical description or simplification of a demonstrable process. 9.8m/ss or suchlike.
My whole objective with my trains of thought is to try to come to some kind of conclusion as to what al might be chance and what might have actually been planned by some supreme mind.

Your premise is flawed, your logic is flawed and thus your conclusion is invalid.

[strathmeyer]

If I knew I was going to die, why did I choose to be born?

[BenK]

What is "life" exactly? Maybe I'm not even alive. I'm made of atoms that are not alive, so how can I be considered alive. If I'm not alive I can't die.

[Belz...]

It did. It had to have.

Convincing yourself, aren't you ?

All instructions of the universe were encoded into the universe. We accept science's claim that the universe had a beginning and will also have an end.

Do we ? I thought the concept of beginning made no sense, here.

Since everything came from the early universe, every part of it 'knew' it had to die. But how?

Only if the universe is entirely deterministic, which might not be true.

Also, the fact that everything would be set in advance does not mean that anything "knows" this at all.

What does the death "code" look like, for those that don't think God is the author of such codes. Can we see it under a microscope, for example? (I doubt it) It'd more like it is some law. It's like how we wouldn't be able to see 'love' under a microscope, either. (And with laws, is there not a law giver?)

Perhaps a book on elementary physics would suit you.

Do you think life would have begun on earth if it "knew" that it would *not* die and could simply keep creating more of everything without dying??

Okay, you're losing me, here.

We know this could not possibly work! The world would fill up with trees, bugs...can you imagine how many mosquitoes there would be right now if no mosquito ever died?

So mosquitos don't die if they don't KNOW that they die ?

as more stars, planets, galaxies, etc. could keep developing without ever filling up the universe,...

Where would this matter and energy come from ?

More to lay in bed pondering.

My whole objective with my trains of thought is to try to come to some kind of conclusion as to what al might be chance and what might have actually been planned by some supreme mind.

So, you're assuming your conclusion ? Why even bother with thinking about it, then ?

[wollery]

Even if there were no need for reproduction it wouldn't necessarily mean organisms wouldn't still reproduce.Well let's examine reproduction and a lack of death. In order to reproduce animals must take energy and protein on board, so they have to eat. But if there were no death then what would living things eat? Not each other or plants, because then there would be death!! But they have to get energy for movement from somewhere. Everything would be plants, merrily photosynthesising away and filling the atmosphere with oxygen, until all the CO2 was gone, and the plants all, um, die! Ahh, okay, that doesn't work either. So without death things cannot reproduce.

The only way for a lack of death to work is for the living things to be completely immobile, and actually not do anything, even think, or have a heartbeat, because that would require energy, but then how would that be different from being a rock?

I'm making my own head hurt! :D

[Dark Jaguar]

Wow, someone is very bad at the programming analogy. This might stem from a total lack of understanding about programming, but a program doesn't really need to know about it's own results to generate them. All it needs to know are the basic steps of operating, and whatever results from them simply happens.

You tell a program to set a variable as 1, and a second as 2, and then have those added, and then reassign the second variable to the answer to that and the first variable to the second variable (no, strike that, reverse the order of operations there), and then rinse wash and repeat, well the program really has no idea what the results will be until it does them. The universe, if you use this program analogy, doesn't need to know how to die. It merely needs to know how to operate, and if that leads to death, it happens.

[Piscivore]

"Life" and "death" are not entities, but descriptions of the reactions (or cessation thereof) of biochemicals. This is your root error, Iamme.

[cbish]

Did she say she was laying in bed fondling?

[UrsulaV]

All instructions of the universe were encoded into the universe.

Since everything came from the early universe, every part of it 'knew' it had to die.

Provide one shred of material evidence for either of these statements.

You won't do it, of course, but I feel obligated to ask just so that you can be shown not having evidence for another one of your crackpot "theories."

[Lamuella]

"death" is a concept that can only occur when there is a concept of "self". As far as I'm aware, this is a fairly advanced concept, and one only held by more intelligent life forms. If follows that life must have been ending for quite some time before a creature was observant enough to notice what was happening and intelligent enough to know what it meant.

[Iamme]

Wow, every time you start a thread you display your total inability to either research or reason.

Please explain how a hydrogen atom "knows" anything, let alone anything about death.

If living organisms didn't die then there would be no need for reproduction, so there wouldn't be lots of trees and bugs, just a few very old ones! Except, of course, that without reproduction there'd be no evolution, so you'd actually have a few very, very old ameobae.

The Universe cannot keep on producing more stars, sooner or later it will run out of hydrogen.

I think Stephen Hawking has far more interesting and taxing things to think about, like what to have for lunch!

Edit to add - your friend is apparently a master of the stunning non-sequitor!

What happens to a hydrogen atom, may I ask?

Regarding your second paragraph; you are forgetting something. Life happened right? At the time it happened, in the very beginning, what made everything know that it needed to reproduce? What was it's motive for doing so? It's motive was...everything knew it was going to die! (The point of my OP) But how did it know???

The Universe can't keep producing more stars you say? Says who? How do you know that for sure? How do you not know that hydrogen is multiplying like our own earth's population of humans has multiplied? How do you not know there a father energy (fertilizer) and a 'mother' energy (seed) out there that keeps giving 'birth' to hydrogen. (This could greatly explain why the universe would NOT have had all be compressed into the size of a marble containing the entire mass of the current universe. Maybe the marble was only the mass of something a little greater than the sun, for example, and then exploded and multiplied, like our own cells multiply...getting it's 'food' from the mother and father energy.

I think Stephen Hawking would be intrigued by this. Because no scientist understands where everything came from, what started it, where and why, or what the driving force behind it is, and can't even fully grasp gravity and magnetism...I think scientists have to look at any plausible theory.

[Iamme]

Even if there were no need for reproduction it wouldn't necessarily mean organisms wouldn't still reproduce.

But WHY do they reproduce? Why did even the first cell reproduce? Why didn't first cells keep being created in the same mannor that the first cell was created? Why did the initial creation of simpel cell organisms stop and then what WAS here created, started to reproduce? Can you answer that with an answer that differs form the cells 'knowledge' that it was going to die, and needed offspring to carry on?

[Iamme]

"death" is a concept that can only occur when there is a concept of "self". As far as I'm aware, this is a fairly advanced concept, and one only held by more intelligent life forms. If follows that life must have been ending for quite some time before a creature was observant enough to notice what was happening and intelligent enough to know what it meant.

Does a tree, then, have a concept of self?

[Lamuella]

Does a tree, then, have a concept of self?

A tree doesn't have a concept of anything. A tree doesn't have a brain or anything resembling a brain.

The fact of an ending to an organism's existence predates the concept of "death". Just like the fact of a star ninety three million miles aeway predates the concept of "sun"

[Iamme]

"Life" and "death" are not entities, but descriptions of the reactions (or cessation thereof) of biochemicals. This is your root error, Iamme.

Did I say they were entities? I can't recall that. But I get your point and I'll let that stand. But please explain then how the life form knew that the chemicals were going to lead to it's own death, so that it had to hurry and get on the stick and reproduce before it died? Reproduction was programmed into whatever was alive, in the very very beginning at the earliest form. If things died of chemicals reaction, then why didn't a life form just die (die out) and that was the end of it? How did it know to invent for itself, reproduction? And it had to have done so IMMEDIATELY, obviously. Hence; it knew about death, first, in order for it to have decided to reproduce. Or, something that is the Supreme Master invented bioth death and reproduction so everything would work.

[Outhere]

Totally off the subject, perhaps, but in the name of all that's holy, will people stop saying "lay" when they mean "lie?" If Iamme is "laying" in bed I assume she is laying eggs? Laying something? Someone? If that is the case, maybe there will be no more time for futile questions.

[wollery]

What happens to a hydrogen atom, may I ask?

Regarding your second paragraph; you are forgetting something. Life happened right? At the time it happened, in the very beginning, what made everything know that it needed to reproduce? What was it's motive for doing so? It's motive was...everything knew it was going to die! (The point of my OP) But how did it know???

The Universe can't keep producing more stars you say? Says who? How do you know that for sure? How do you not know that hydrogen is multiplying like our own earth's population of humans has multiplied? How do you not know there a father energy (fertilizer) and a 'mother' energy (seed) out there that keeps giving 'birth' to hydrogen. (This could greatly explain why the universe would NOT have had all be compressed into the size of a marble containing the entire mass of the current universe. Maybe the marble was only the mass of something a little greater than the sun, for example, and then exploded and multiplied, like our own cells multiply...getting it's 'food' from the mother and father energy.

I think Stephen Hawking would be intrigued by this. Because no scientist understands where everything came from, what started it, where and why, or what the driving force behind it is, and can't even fully grasp gravity and magnetism...I think scientists have to look at any plausible theory.
There really is no point in engaging you in debate, if you have absolutely no intent in engaging with reality. :nope:

Your logic is so faulty it beggars belief. Your arguments are so circular they're making me dizzy. Your wishful thinking is high on wishful, but completely lacks any thinking. And your "theory", although it actually barely qualifies as a hypothesis, is about as far from plausible as it is possible to get.

You keep saying that you want to understand, but all you are really doing is starting from the premise that God exists and then dreaming up ridiculous fantasy variations of reality that you think support your case, but in fact merely demonstrate your psychosis.

The only thing that would intrigue Stephen Hawking is that anyone could be as mindbogglingly ignorant and illogical as you are. :confused:

[pchams]

Iamme, can we not just say we don't know, and continue to try to find out?
One thing that puzzles me, is that you seem to concieve a body the size of the sun to be a starting point, but not a marble.
In the scope of relativity, are they not the same size?
From 10 miles away, how big of a difference is sensed in the size of a basketball or a pea with the human eye?
From 1000?
In an electron microscope?

[Iamme]

A tree doesn't have a concept of anything. A tree doesn't have a brain or anything resembling a brain.

The fact of an ending to an organism's existence predates the concept of "death". Just like the fact of a star ninety three million miles aeway predates the concept of "sun"

But a tree knew enough to reproduce.

The first sentence of your second paragraph sounds circular. You are basicaly saying that death predates the concept of death. Read it again. Since "ending to an organism's existance" is the same thing as death, then the sentence could read, ' The fact of a [death] predates the concept of "death". See what I mean? I think you got too profound for yourself. :)

And what are you getting regarding your last sentence? I see no relevance...no way to compare with my point.

[Iamme]

Iamme, can we not just say we don't know, and continue to try to find out?
One thing that puzzles me, is that you seem to concieve a body the size of the sun to be a starting point, but not a marble.
In the scope of relativity, are they not almost the same size?
From 10 miles away, how big of a difference is sensed in the size of a basketball or a pea with the human eye?
From 1000?



Ahhhh. But I already covered this somewhere, in a previous post. Relativity. But if we say that the marble size was really say as large as a gallaxy...then that would mean that what we observe as galaxies are actually the size of universes. Etc. Please note that it was not ME who made the claim that the universe was marble size. It was Yale, and Princeton University scientists and ? physicists who are making the claim. And I think THEY know a thing or two about relativity. Yet, THEY called it marble sized. And it isn't just them. I have often heard, in recent past, that the entire mass of the universe was of some super-small order like this. And I could never believe that the entoire mass of the known universe could be condensed that small .

If the universe were that small, yet as heavy as that, could God pick it up? (Just being silly.)

[Lamuella]

But a tree knew enough to reproduce.

The first sentence of your second paragraph sounds circular. You are basicaly saying that death predates the concept of death. Read it again. Since "ending to an organism's existance" is the same thing as death, then the sentence could read, ' The fact of a [death] predates the concept of "death". See what I mean? I think you got too profound for yourself. :)

And what are you getting regarding your last sentence? I see no relevance...no way to compare with my point.

"death predates the concept of death" is EXACTLY what I was getting at. The key word here is "concept" Let me rephrase. "Things predate the CONCEPT of things".

Consciousness is a newcomer to this universe of ours. Things were happening long before there was anything with any kind of mind. There was matter before there was thought. A LONG time before there was thought.

A tree doesn't "know" to reproduce any more than the planet Earth "knows" to orbit around the sun.

[pchams]

Ahhhh. But I already covered this somewhere, in a previous post. Relativity. But if we say that the marble size was really say as large as a gallaxy...then that would mean that what we observe as galaxies are actually the size of universes. Etc. Please note that it was not ME who made the claim that the universe was marble size. It was Yale, and Princeton University scientists and ? physicists who are making the claim. And I think THEY know a thing or two about relativity. Yet, THEY called it marble sized. And it isn't just them. I have often heard, in recent past, that the entire mass of the universe was of some super-small order like this. And I could never believe that the entoire mass of the known universe could be condensed that small .

If the universe were that small, yet as heavy as that, could God pick it up? (Just being silly.)
I don't claim to make the claim [snigger] either, but I do remember a dream as a child learning chemistry, that there didn't seem much difference from the atomic theory envisioned, or the astronomy proclaimed.
As we look smaller and smaller, and larger and larger, do we see the difference?

[Gravy]

More to lay in bed pondering.
I always find that a brisk walk helps clear my mind.

I think scientists have to look at any plausible theory.
Agreed. And when they get done with those, Perhaps they'll look into your idea. Now I have to go and try to stretch out the telomeres that just shrank while I read the OP.

[Lynx2174]

What happens to a hydrogen atom, may I ask?

Regarding your second paragraph; you are forgetting something. Life happened right? At the time it happened, in the very beginning, what made everything know that it needed to reproduce? What was it's motive for doing so? It's motive was...everything knew it was going to die! (The point of my OP) But how did it know???

The Universe can't keep producing more stars you say? Says who? How do you know that for sure? How do you not know that hydrogen is multiplying like our own earth's population of humans has multiplied? How do you not know there a father energy (fertilizer) and a 'mother' energy (seed) out there that keeps giving 'birth' to hydrogen. (This could greatly explain why the universe would NOT have had all be compressed into the size of a marble containing the entire mass of the current universe. Maybe the marble was only the mass of something a little greater than the sun, for example, and then exploded and multiplied, like our own cells multiply...getting it's 'food' from the mother and father energy.

I think Stephen Hawking would be intrigued by this. Because no scientist understands where everything came from, what started it, where and why, or what the driving force behind it is, and can't even fully grasp gravity and magnetism...I think scientists have to look at any plausible theory.

First, the simple organisms that you would expect to find if abiogenisis happened do not need to know anything. they are little more than self-propigating chemical reactions. if their structure is not conductive to automatically reproduce, then they will die off, and would not become the life we have today. this probably happened countless millions of times before one that actually reproduced occurred.

there is no need for anything to "know" anything, it's more like throwing an unlimited number of coins untill you have a hundred thousand heads in a row. the coins don't have to know what the previous one was, it will happen eventually. once you have something that can reproduce, chances are it will also die. it's just a bag of chemicals; a stray UV photon striking it could knock something out of place and the reaction will stop. there is no knowledge involved, no justified belief, only chemestry and physics. there is nothing special about death; it's just when someting living ceases to function.

Personally, I think Stephen Hawkings would find the question just as completely inane as everyone else here does.

and the hydrogen atom would end up being absorbed into a star and fused with other hydrogen atoms eventually, or otherwise fused somehow, or it will sit around bonded or not until the heat death of the universe. after that, IIRC eventually protons are expected to decay away with time, leaving only the electron, and neutron if it happens to be deuterium.

[UrsulaV]

But WHY do they reproduce? Why did even the first cell reproduce?

The first cell may NOT have reproduced. Do you have any proof it did?

Hell, for all we know, the first hundred thousand cells didn't reproduce. And they died leaving no progeny, and their stories ended right there.

Only the cells that reproduced have descendants today. But we have no idea how many false starts there were at life, (at a level significantly below the complexity of whole cells) before something came along that could reproduce itself. There may have been surprisingly complex bits of amino acid that "died" without ever going anywhere in particular, until one came along that for whatever quirky reason self-replicated.

Your whole statement is predicated on a very big assumption--that everything that ever lived knew it was supposed to reproduce. And you have no proof of that at all. We are the end product of a long line of things that reproduced, but there may well have been all kinds of life that lasted a single generation and winked out, incapable or uninterested in replicating itself.

Now, self-replication doesn't actually require a lot. Clay replicates itself, after a fashion. It's not alive by any particular definition, but a clay bed will grow, as particles of clay attract and capture similiarly fine particles washed by in the river. That's a crude form of self-replication. Does clay "know" it needs to reproduce? Does it "die" if it doesn't? Nah. It's just clay, and the nature of clay is such that over time, it makes more clay, through mechnical processes with no need for thought or intent. Early life may have been a lot like that. We don't know yet.

[voidx]

Regarding your second paragraph; you are forgetting something. Life happened right? At the time it happened, in the very beginning, what made everything know that it needed to reproduce? What was it's motive for doing so? It's motive was...everything knew it was going to die! (The point of my OP) But how did it know???

Here's your first unjustified assumption. Things need a motive for doing anything. Why do you assume this? "Life" needed to motive to reproduce? It did because it could. Things happen, because in this environment, it's possible or probable for them to happen. You are looking for and attempting to assign some form of conscious intent where there is none. Your whole OP pretty much screeches to a halt right about here.

[Jimbo07]

Ithere didn't seem much difference from the atomic theory envisioned, or the astronomy proclaimed.
As we look smaller and smaller, and larger and larger, do we see the difference?

And, of course, since the solar system model of the atom doesn't hold, you lament the loss of the childhood dream? I know that I once entertained the thought that we could all be part of an atom of some larger being...

:cool:

[.13.]

But WHY do they reproduce? Why did even the first cell reproduce? Why didn't first cells keep being created in the same mannor that the first cell was created? Why did the initial creation of simpel cell organisms stop and then what WAS here created, started to reproduce? Can you answer that with an answer that differs form the cells 'knowledge' that it was going to die, and needed offspring to carry on?

I really can't answer your questions properly. I'm not that well educated in biology. But I'll try to answer some of them as best as I can.


Why didn't first cells keep being created in the same mannor that the first cell was created? Why did the initial creation of simpel cell organisms stop and then what WAS here created, started to reproduce?

I don't think the creation of cells necessarily stopped. (I'm not talking about biblical kind of creation. I'm unsure if you are but I just wanted to clarify.) But because selfreplication was more efficient (I assume it was.) copies of replicating cells quickly outnumbered the number of cells being created from scratch. But new cells would be created from scratch as long as there were suitable conditions. There might still be such conditions in sediments of ocean floors or black smokers but I don't know for sure. Maybe someone else could clarify that.

But WHY do they reproduce?

I don't know how the mechanisms for reproduction work. You should probably read about molecular biology.


Can you answer that with an answer that differs form the cells 'knowledge' that it was going to die, and needed offspring to carry on?


I don't understand your question.

[Ladewig]

Or, could it be that some master planner figured out that this had to be the case, and found a clever scheme to foil death, in a way, by allowing all species to go on living, basically forever, by simply causing every organism to reproduce and then to die individually, but not as a whole?


Except that all species do not "go on living, basically forever, by simply [reproducing]." Some species become extinct.

The Universe can't keep producing more stars you say? Says who? How do you know that for sure? How do you not know that hydrogen is multiplying like our own earth's population of humans has multiplied?

Iamme, have you ever thought about reading a science textbook? There are lots of things that scientists know about the universe. Some people, like me, find the story of how these scientists know things interesting. You might also.

Learning new things is far more productive (and probably more interesting) than sitting on your bed focusing on your idee fixe that if you can't imagine any explanation other than God, then it is proof that God exists. There are lots of other explanations - why not go learn about them.