lifeforms, disease, infection

Discussion in 'General Philosophy' started by birch, May 22, 2017.

  1. birch Valued Senior Member

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    It's possible that lifeforms including us in this universe can be likened to a disease or infection. Albeit, that good people could be defined as more benign and bad people as more pathogenic but overall the unceasing reproduction/replication, predator/prey scenario, greed, exploitation and waste very much like a disease. Maybe we aren't supposed to exist. here.

     
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  3. danshawen Valued Senior Member

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    Somewhere there is an actual pathogen thinking the same thing about their existence.

    The plants (a few of them at least) seem to love us. Why else would they bother to grow all kinds of delicious food for us to consume? It's a mystery.
     
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  5. Jeeves Valued Senior Member

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    A blight. Sooner eradicated, sooner forgotten.
     
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  7. Michael 345 New year. PRESENT is 72 years oldl Valued Senior Member

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    Possible

    But the smaller life forms bacteria and viruses are having a hard time killing us off

    And no aliens have shown up with large cans of spray with the slogan

    Guaranteed to kill 99% of all humans

    Or huge wipes

    Use Earth wipes to keep your Earth looking shiny and new

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  8. Jeeves Valued Senior Member

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    No need.
    Successful pathogens cause only mild symptoms, thus keeping the host alive indefinitely, or until they find a mode of transmission to another host.
    Unsuccessful pathogens overreach and kill the host. In the absence of a host, they're doomed.
     
  9. spidergoat pubic diorama Valued Senior Member

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    So what? Diseases are part of the ecosystem too.
     
  10. DaveC426913 Valued Senior Member

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    What exactly would be the healthy state, were this disease not present?

    The lifeless universe?

    Does that even make sense?
     
  11. Michael 345 New year. PRESENT is 72 years oldl Valued Senior Member

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    Ask god

    If if if he put us here

    surely he is the one who infected the Universe

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  12. timojin Valued Senior Member

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    You want free will now that you have it you bitch and bitch
     
  13. Michael 345 New year. PRESENT is 72 years oldl Valued Senior Member

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    I haven't got free will

    It comes at the expense of having to make up my mind

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  14. timojin Valued Senior Member

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    You are always right . by any chance are you a female ? My wife is always right .
     
  15. Michael 345 New year. PRESENT is 72 years oldl Valued Senior Member

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    Can I respond by being very politically correct and say I am gender fluid?

    My friends say I am a wuss and full of piss

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    Male

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  16. wellwisher Banned Banned

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    If you look at the human body, it is composed of a large number of different cell types, all with the same DNA. One exception are all the helpful bacteria that live in the body and form a symbiosis, such as in the digestive system. Most of our DNA related cells are parts of fixed structures, like organs. Others cells, like the blood cells can go free style. Some cells are herd animals and some are loners. Many of these cells, like skin cells, reproduce often, while others like brain cells, never reproduce after a certain point, but can last a lifetime.

    They are not all the same, doing the same things, looking the same. Rather they are all doing different things in different ways, which combined are helping the common cause. The hands are different from the feet, with neither being optimized for the needs of both duties. But as different both work for the same larger team, better, by being different.

    This body team, scales up to the sum of all humans living on the earth. This even larger body, called the human race, is composed of the cells and organs implicit of the various cultures and races. In modern times, the human race body is like a sponge or mushroom. It is a loose association of spores rather than a complex unity of differences, with a high level of adaptation; animal. This animal analogy may be in the future. It will take acceptance of each other, as parts of the whole, so conformity is not needed or expected, yet all work for the same goal.

    One wild card, has to do with will power and choice. If I was born a kidney cell, in the body of the human race, I would be born with a certain level of optimization in terms of the body. But with willpower and choice, say I decided I wanted to be a brain cell, or a blood cell. This can create a problem such as cancer, where something different appears that is not designed to be there. Or a new bacteria who is not part of the symbiosis wants to be part of the body, but instead of health, causes instability; sickness. The white blood cells are like the police to maintain order. But even the police or immune system can become comprised; AIDS.
     
  17. Michael 345 New year. PRESENT is 72 years oldl Valued Senior Member

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    I don't know what you are meaning to say but this is seriously weird take on human biology and anatomy

    This might help

    Up to the eight-cell stage, all of the cells are identical.

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/gcsebi..._2011/growth_development/singlecellrev1.shtml

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    Last edited: May 23, 2017
  18. Yazata Valued Senior Member

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    I don't want to say that.

    The word 'disease' isn't synonymous with 'infection'. 'Disease' means something like 'disfunction'.

    So, to define 'disease' we would have to have already defined 'health'. With a biological organism that isn't typically very hard since so much of biological function is teleological. (Hearts exist to pump blood. When they fail to pump blood properly, they are 'diseased'.)

    But with the natural environment, that is probably impossible, since there doesn't seem to be any pre-ordained way that the universe is supposed to behave or how future events are supposed to unfold. That means that there isn't any way to know when things are on- or off-track, hence no way of determining what events are and aren't 'disease' on the universal scale.
     
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  19. origin Heading towards oblivion Valued Senior Member

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    Reported for calling members names.
     
  20. origin Heading towards oblivion Valued Senior Member

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    Maybe the problem is not your wife (the poor woman), maybe you are just always wrong. There is strong evidence for that on this site....
     
  21. DaveC426913 Valued Senior Member

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    Teehee. Tim wasn't calling names; those are verbs.

    "You want free will; and now that you have it, all you do is kavetch and moan."
     
  22. DaveC426913 Valued Senior Member

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    Thank you. this is exactly what I was trying to get at in post 7, questioning what the opposite of "diseased" might be. A healthy, lifeless universe is non-sensical because there's no driver for survival.
     
  23. origin Heading towards oblivion Valued Senior Member

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    Well la-di-da, using all that fancy punctuation to convey meaning!! Is that really what Tim was trying to say?
     

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