Why do we strive for survival?

Discussion in 'Human Science' started by Jewwy, May 19, 2011.

  1. chimpkin C'mon, get happy! Registered Senior Member

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    Just increases your chances...what they call in the business a "cofactor," I think?

    Most people who do it have depressive disorder...which is another thread.
     
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  3. Pandaemoni Valued Senior Member

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    Do we? If we wanted to live as long as possible, we'd all adopt a calorie restricted diet and live on 1200 calories a day. No one would smoke. No one would purposefully tan. No one would drive drunk. No one would drive faster than 30 mph for that matter (assuming we'd agree to get into those deathtraps at all).

    We strive for survival in that we avoid situations that threaten imminent death "most" of the time (but then there are your base jumpers and others who enjoy activities they understand to be perilous.

    The most likely answer to the question is that most of the time we avoid imminent death because natural selection favored creatures that have an urge to survive. Those that just didn't care actually did die, in disproportionately high numbers, and the risk averse survived. That risk aversion was then passed to subsequent generations.
     
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  5. scheherazade Northern Horse Whisperer Valued Senior Member

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    Survival IS it's own benefit, in that it satisfies our curiosity.

    In a strange form of anti-logic, too much curiosity is a frequent cause of demise, which then satisfies any curiosity one may have in that regard.

    Satisfactory observations of the outcome of death have as yet not been reported in a manner that meets the scientific method, so all is speculation in that regard.

    100% guarantee that all shall eventually be postmarked, 'Return to sender, address unknown.'

    Come to think of it, the address of the original sender remains unknown as well.....mail is starting to pile up, lol....
     
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  7. Dinosaur Rational Skeptic Valued Senior Member

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    The only reason I do not fret & worry about dying is the fact that there is nothing I can do to prevent it.

    Why ruin my enjoyment of today by focusing on my mortality instead of ignoring it & focusing on what I can do today? Starting early in my life, I tried to live by the following principles.
    Do not be a Monday morning quarter back unless it helps you call better plays next week.

    Every dumb decision I ever made seemed like a good idea at the time.

    Do not let regrets about the past or worries about the future interfere with enjoying today.

    Revenge & a quarter used to buy a cup of coffee. Now revenge & $1.50 will buy a cup of coffee. Revenge was never worth much & is becoming worth less as the years go by.

    Do not be miserable because it is over: Be happy that it happened.​
     
  8. KilljoyKlown Whatever Valued Senior Member

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    A little worry might help you live a longer life or push you to strive for a better life.

    Yeah! But if something hurts, it's hard not to focus on it. All I'm saying is focus tends to go where it will and sometimes there's not much you can do about it.

    Did you ever watch that program 'Top 20 Dumbest'? If you have it's hard to imagine anybody thinking it might be a good idea at the time.

    Going broke is a regret that doesn't easily let you forget.

    Maybe so, but if you can just picture it in your mind for a little while it does help.

    Not sure what you are talking about here. Because I can think of a lot of things that have happened that are impossible to be happy about.
     
  9. dhcracker Registered Senior Member

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    One man died the very night after his wife died and he told me he was going to die. He really did want to die, he's the only person I ever saw at peace with his death. He didn't care what was after death really, he was religious but I could tell without his wife his purpose for living was gone. There was nothing wrong with him, he walked around and was in his 70's with no heart problems or anything. He just laid down and died, I didn't believe he would die I figured it would play out the same as always and he didn't really know what he was saying when he said he wanted to die, but then again it was obvious he didn't really want to die he would have prefered to live forever with his wife, he just didn't want to live anymore without her. Sad story but comforting in a way..
     
  10. dhcracker Registered Senior Member

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    BTW I am not going to die I'm going to live forever or cheat death somehow or at least I'd like to build a time machine so I can outlive everyone else lol.

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  11. Hellenologophobia Registered Senior Member

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    Yes, well said.

    Prime Directive…Divide and Multiply…Most Efficient.

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  12. KilljoyKlown Whatever Valued Senior Member

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    My dad has that same attitude and he has more bottles of the newest and greatest supplements laying around his house to prove it. If he never bought another supplement again, he still could never use all he has now. But he has out lived his 4 brothers and his dad, so maybe there is something in those supplements that is making a difference. But to tell you the truth I'm not looking forward to inheriting all those supplements.
     
  13. dhcracker Registered Senior Member

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    My grandfather is 90 years old and drives around and works on tractors.. he'll crawl under your car to fix it and climb up ladders to get on the roof... lol and he eats the worst junk possible for your health, he chews tobacoo and doesn't have not 1 tooth left LOL. I think he is just going on willpower but man is he still going!
     
  14. nicholas1M7 Banned Banned

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    It's simple, we want to love.
     
  15. NMSquirrel OCD ADHD THC IMO UR12 Valued Senior Member

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    because usually it hurts like hell..
    would we have a fear of death if it didn't hurt?

    there are other species on the planet that die(or get killed ) soon after mating, just long enough to procreate.
     
  16. Absane Rocket Surgeon Valued Senior Member

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    Philosophically, my contention is that the question "what is the meaning of life?" is as meaningless as the questions "what does blue taste like?" or "where is the universe?". But something's meaning is not the same as something's purpose. The purpose of the first life being is unknown to me. The purpose of the first life's process of bringing more life ("the process") is unknown to me. However, the purpose of life as we know it today is to bring more life. Why does life want to replicate? I think that to be able to answer that question, we need to understand both the purpose of the first life form and the purpose of "the process."

    Why the first life form? It could have just been from the hand of God. But, that answer is both too simple and too complex. It's simple in that most people will not progress past that answer. It is complex because it opens Pandora's Box of unanswerable questions that lead us nowhere. I think that for the time being, rational people can try to consider "the hand of God" answer to be one brought about by elimination of the other answers. One such answer that I hold on to is that life started simply as a fortunate chemical reaction. Maybe the reaction was initiated by a lightening bolt striking the ocean near this mixture of chemicals.

    What is the purpose of the first life's process to bring more life? We can create computer systems with AI (or close enough to it) but no system we create has in it a process that promotes replication of itself unless we put it there. When considering the first generation, the difference between a self-replicating AI system and replicable life form is that the former has a clear motivation behind it. The latter, as far as I can see, simply just happened out of luck. By a bolt a lightening, billions of "life-like" molecules could have been created. Perhaps a lot of them were slightly different from the all the others if the reaction occurred in a heterogeneous solution. A very small minority may have had just the right chemical make-up and structure to initiate more chemical reactions to produce more "life-like" molecules similar to their own. However, this is speculation and to advance from this to answer the questions of how and why everything evolved into more complex macro-organisms would require further speculations.
     
  17. iany Registered Member

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    Go easy on me guys this is my first post... I was reading this thread and i didnt really see any answers to the quesiton, its one i've had in my mind for a while, i dont eally swallow the "creationism" answer as that throws up antoher quesiton of "then who created god" and then "who created gods creater" and so on and so on....

    there appears to be a lot of answers in this thread to "how" we and all other "living" things survive rather than to "why" , its a difficult question to pose and the closest example i can think of that might get the right viewpoint which lies at a higher level rather than the deaper detailed answeres on here is "why is the ball going to hit the wall?" the obvious answer is "because its heading towards it" rather than the answer i'd be after which is "Someone threw it"

    this then poses question 2, "did someone throw it and if not what happened to the ball for it to be in the air, moving at speed towards the wall...?",

    hope that made sense coz i aint got any clue of another way of asking the same question :bawl:
     
  18. KilljoyKlown Whatever Valued Senior Member

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    I always find the topic of a persons first post to be interesting in and of itself. It seems to me you picked a topic which doesn't have an iron clad answer. Why is that? But you do know if life didn't strive for survival, we probably wouldn't be here now. But I'd be willing to bet if we knew why there's such a thing as life ,we might be closer to the answer.
     
  19. iany Registered Member

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    That's a good point, maybe that's the quesiton, "why is there life" , I work in IT so i find it easy to understand that something can exist as a sum of its parts and that pure chance could have brought these parts together to "create" it given eternity technically allows anything to be possible, but that "something" only comes allive and has purpose once its been programmed, question is who or what wrote the software....? (fingers crossed it aint MS, although i aint had a service pack yet so chances are it wasnt

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    Oh, and If i'd picked an easy one it just wouldnt have been the same

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  20. KilljoyKlown Whatever Valued Senior Member

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    So I take it you think there's programing responsible for animal survival instinct? Maybe, but now the question of a programer come into play. I don't believe in any God, so what does that leave? A natural process of some kind for sure.
     
  21. iany Registered Member

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    yep.. me too and that's where i get stuck with this one, i cant believe that there's a programmer, nor can i beleive that life , "conciousness" and the will to survive could have just popped into existance...

    Its just another thing that physics cant yet explain and they're the type of things that can easily make you loose sleep....
     
  22. scheherazade Northern Horse Whisperer Valued Senior Member

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    'Why' is an illogical question, a genetic 'search' programmed by life itself as the circular question provides it's own answer, and the purpose for continuance.

    Seeking the answer to an impossible riddle is a brilliant way for a closed system to function, IMO.

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  23. iany Registered Member

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    So would you subscribe to the "Moneky + typewriter + infinite amount of time = the works of shakespeare" theorem ?

    I suppose a few billion years is plenty of time for the strangest of things to occur at random, life perhaps being one of them....
     

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