What is life? What does it mean to be living?

Wtf ?

 

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their lifespan is much shorter. they do not have capacity to understand higher form of organization than their own local realm. They die in much greater numbers % then humans do. In case of food shortage they cannot use other niches. Environment controls them, not the other way around.


Meanwhile we are already aproaching a point were we are the controllers of our own environment...to the point that we can live outside of the possible original supporting life habitat, Earth. We can now live in space, on International Space Station.

 

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You don't know much about ants do you ?
Ants are highly effective and efficient.
And they are far better suited to their environment than humans are.

 

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you dont know what LIFE really is. do you? or perhaps you chose to not understand it.

 

I don't know what the fuck you mean when you say it. And I don't think you do either..

 

If they're highly ineffective, then why aren't they all dead ?

"High conceptualizations" are the same sort of delusion that the notion that devising said phrase confers a greater understanding of anything.

Those we describe as "inferior creatures" live free of the need to cobble up some high & mighty sounding nonsense to be able to point to and say - "this proves I am alive".

This is what makes them better than us, regardless of the fact that we view ourselves as "masters of all we survey".

 

Tell those people around the world whose homes, towns, cities, etc were destroyed by volcano, tsunami, earthquake, tornado, and hurricane that we are the controllers of our own environment .

Another delusion.

Hell, one good sized rock drops out of space onto Ye Olde Mud-Ball, and it's pretty much over for the Rebel Apes - Space Station & all !

Think about the fact that the presence of human cities in their environment overturned all they previously experienced by radically altering the ecosystem where cities exist....

They just started living in our houses, and feasting on the merest scraps we consider too insignificant to even notice most of the time.

Nice adaptation if you ask me.

 

I think any entity which is self-aware and concious of it's being and surroundings, is alive.

Otherwise it is little more than a chemical reaction, and has little worth.

 

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"Self-awareness" is little more than a chemical reaction.

An unsavory side-effect appears to be making a mountain of that molehill.

 

People that think like this make me sick.

 

says who? and who thinks it's unsavory? a side-effect thinks it's unsavory? why should other side effects listen? why are the apparantly humble so reader to see themselves as teachers?

 

How do you know?

 

I meant that a side-effect of "self-awareness" is overestimating its significance, not that any specific person who holds said belief IS a side-effect of anything.

I consider this overestimation unsavory because it seems to me to be that which gives rise to the notion that humanity is somehow the result
of "supernatural" intent to create a life form which is superior to all others on Earth.

This sounds like some sort of syntax error.

Who is teaching what to whom ?

 

That think like what? It's true. Without experience, consiousness, and self awareness, we humans would hardly be worth anything.

Without thought and wonder, an organism isn't anything more than a set of rules. Flies, for instance, are worthless. They can't think or know, they can't experience, they only do what their body tells them and then die.


Conciousness is what makes Human life valuable.

 

Think again pal. No insects means no humans.

 

Yes, I realize their importance but they are important only as functions of the ecosystem. They aren't entities. Their lives have no value; what they do, does, but their life as in, their being, doesn't.

They are little more than chemical reactions, and it is these reactions and actions that are important. As for them, they really aren't any more valuable than a rock.

 

Thus they have value to humans.

They are only as much entities as you or me.

To who ? Value is not an absolute, it's subjective.
Also, if what they do has value, how are they themselves not valuable ?
Can what they do happen without them being alive ?

Same goes for you and me.

 

What they do does, and therefore, they. But they as individuals are not valuable, but disposable.

No. We Humans can think and know and wonder and love.

That makes each individual valuable. With insects, a thousand of them are not as valuable as a single Human being.

They are each like robots: their purpose is to do what they do, but they are not abstract and thus, disposable.

They are as spiritually valuable as your blender.

No. They are alive, but not in the same way you and I are. We are knowing. If we die, it matters, because our personality and persona die.

They only exist to do what they do and have no feeling, only purpose. This makes them simple tools.

Tools are valuable but disposable.

 

So they do have value.
Humans are only valuable to humans.
Had you been an ant you would have argued that humans are worthless.

en·ti·ty
–noun, plural -ties.
1. something that has a real existence; thing: corporeal entities.
2. being or existence, esp. when considered as distinct, independent, or self-contained: He conceived of society as composed of particular entities requiring special treatment.
3. essential nature: The entity of justice is universality.
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/entity

Explain to me how insects are not entities.
Besides, animals can think and know, and probably love too.

Insects are individuals just like humans are. They are just different.

Our purpose is to do what we do.
In what way are humans abstract that doesn't apply to insects ?
How are they disposable, you admitted earlier that they are valuable to us. Disposing of them would be a disaster to humans, a BIG disaster.
Spirituality is as important as my blender. Actually, I take that back.. my blender is more important.

You ignorant bastard.