LIFE ? A Superorganism?

>> The organism that is life is trying to spread throughout the universe, to us it seems in slow motion, but thats all a matter of perspective,


Yep, good way to view "what we are supercells of".

Of course there "has to be a designer", or a Creator.... mmmh not an all seeing eye in the sky... Why?? just because we do not have the understanding at present (or maybe never will) to conceive that the complexity of LIFE can come from nothing, with buit in ROM (innate) imperatives and sequence/ integration controls.

As scientists, it is not cool to explain away what we do not understand by a GOD concept.... but nevertheless.... a Creator of some sort, at least is not involved in godlike manipulation... it is a bit like a mathamatician believing in infinity.
:)


I expect LIFE's destiny is to spread, and infect as many places as possible.

Why ?? well just because !! :)
 
Dr Lou and Zarkov,
The problem I see with your explanation is that I think you have it backwards.
You seem to be saying that animals' instincts are a subset of the instinct of the superorgansim.
That is akin to saying that the reason that the chemical reactions that happen in our bodies are due to our instinct of survival.
I don't think that's the case at all.
The instinct of the superorganism is determined by the collective instincs of the organisms that make it up.
Think of the origin of life...
Chemical A reacts with chemical B, and they find a cooperative balance.
Together they form chemical C.
The properties and actions of chemical C are determined by the results of the interraction between A and B.
Chemical C reatcs with chemical D and they find a cooperative balance.
Together they form chemical E.
The properties of chemical E are determined by the results of the interraction between C and D which are determined by the interraction between A and B.
Keep scaling that up.
Eventually all these chamical reactions form a stable balance and act as a single unit.
The properties, actions and instincts of that single unit life form can all be detarmined by tracing all of the individual cell's interractions backwards.

If the life form determined the behaviors of the cells, the life form would have had to be designed by a cognizant designer with a purpose and intent.
 
Maybe the universe is just the dirt under a superorganism's toenail. :bugeye:

Personally, I can't quite grasp the concept of just being a superorganism's cell. It seems a little unrealistic...
 
What I'm saying is quite basic.
I've made no claims in contrast with anything you are saying.

The life of a single organism from start to finish is destined to be a certain way if conditions are ideal, you can't deny this.
Its not a coincidence that a dragonfly goes through the stages of egg, larvae, pupae and adult.
When you look at the egg of a dragon fly you can predict that is what is going to happen. Life is a far more complex organism than the dragonly, but this doesn't mean it is essentially any different.
It may very well have been "known"(by nobody- I hope you can still follow) what was going to happen, in the same way it is known what will happen to a dragonfly egg.
If you don't think the dragonflies predictable life cycle requires a cognizant designer than I fail to see why life's life cycle does.

I know how evolution works, and I know it appears to contradict any destiny, but thats not enough to say it truely does contradict destiny. The seemingly random nature of it all may only appear that way to humans who have a very purposefull focussed way of "creating" things.
All the randomness may have been bound to happen, we aren't "big" enough to see earth for what it is, we are a tiny piece within it. The history of earth may be the lifecycle of earth, and it might not have been any other way.
Were dinosaurs hit by a meteor? I don't know, and if they were, so what? What reason do we have to believe the predictability of the dragonfly stops once you get into outter space?
The universe seems to run on patterns, I see no evidence against this and countless evidences for it, a meteor hitting earth and allowing mammals to fill leftover niche's could be the equivalent of whatever hormone it is thats activated to make the dragonfly nymph's wings grow and exoskeleton crack.
It seemed like a random event, but who, or rather what, are we to make that assumption?
Going from what we DO know, it seems far more reasonable to assume that life is like its components, and had a destined life cycle from the beginning.
Even if you refuse to accept certain events in earths history as predestined to happen, you can't deny the dragonflies lifecycle, by denying the events in history as predestined you can argue against the assertion that the dragonfly was supposed to be eaten by that bird at that time, but you know full well the dragonfly went, or was supposed to go, through the stages of egg, larvae, pupae, adult.
And so maybe the random things did affect life on earth, but it still started with a basic plan.
IF it is a super-organism.
 
Its not a coincidence that a dragonfly goes through the stages of egg, larvae, pupae and adult.
Click to expand...

Yes it is.
Once the dragonfly, as a species, had reached the stage of evolution that it would go through those stages, then, yes, it "destined" (for lack of a better word) that the single organism to follow those stages of development.
I am not arguing that.

However, the dragonfly species, prior to reaching that point of its evolution was not destined to become a species that would follow those life stages.
THAT was coincidence.
That was a result of the draginfly species adapting and evolving within its environment.
We were not destined to be human.
It was not written somewhere that humans must develop so things fell into place for that to happen (I know you don't believe this, but how you are wording what you are saying, I can't see any way around the destiny of humans to exist being part and parcel to your hypothesis).

All of everything around us is a result of a string of coincidences down to the very lowset level of life and development.
If plankton wasn't plentiful, then the whales that subsist on a diet of plankton would simply not be.

Because of this, I think it is clear that the instincts of the individuals in the unit drive the instincts in the unit.
The instincts of the superorganism are nothing more than the instincts of all the individuals interacting with each other much in the same way that the instincts of the individual are nothing more than the instincts of all the cells and organs interaction with each other.

Do we agree on this but somehow the concepts are just getting lost in the cumbersome wording?

Maybe it is the word "destiny".
"Destiny", as far as I am concerned, implies foresight, which implied forethought, which implies outside consciousness.
Is this what is tripping us up?
 
Dr Lou Natic said:
IF it is a super-organism.
Click to expand...

I don't think that there should even BE an "if".
As long as humans are considered to be an organism by science, rather than a cooperative community of distinct interating life forms, then the earth (or maybe more accurately the global ecosystem) HAS to be considered an organism.

I don't know how anyone can make that distinction.
I could be wrong, of course, but what could the distinction possibly be?
 
one_raven said:
Yes it is.
Once the dragonfly, as a species, had reached the stage of evolution that it would go through those stages, then, yes, it "destined" (for lack of a better word) that the single organism to follow those stages of development.
I am not arguing that.
However, the dragonfly species, prior to reaching that point of its evolution was not destined to become a species that would follow those life stages.
THAT was coincidence.
Click to expand...
Well life being a single organism is comparable to the single dragonfly.
We aren't talking about life's ancestral history, I have no idea about that, we're talking about life the super-organism.
Life on earth is in a sense an individual organism.
And so I think its lifecycle may be predictable, not meaning there is any intelligent being predicting it.
I mean predictable in the same sense the dragonfly lifecycle is predictable, no one has to be predicting it for it to be predictable, millions of years ago before there were humans the dragonfly's life cycle was predictable In the way i am suggesting.

We were not destined to be human.
It was not written somewhere that humans must develop so things fell into place for that to happen (I know you don't believe this, but how you are wording what you are saying, I can't see any way around the destiny of humans to exist being part and parcel to your hypothesis)
Click to expand...
I'm not so sure I don't believe that anymore.
I've only started entertaining the concept since this thread started, but I'm starting to feel stronger and stronger that it was "written" that humans would develop(along with every other animal that developed).
Written somewhere in the dna of the very first single celled organisms.
Like in the dragonfly egg(I love dragonflies:D) it is "written" that it will become an adult.

All of everything around us is a result of a string of coincidences down to the very lowset level of life and development.
If plankton wasn't plentiful, then the whales that subsist on a diet of plankton would simply not be.
Click to expand...
Trust me, I understand, and I understand why you feel the need to keep pointing this out to me. I would be using similar arguments against soomeone saying what I'm saying had I not had this recent "revelation".
All those coincidences, which admittedly appear in every way shape and form to be coincidences, may not be so coincidental.
I hate the word destiny too, it always seems to have a magical/delussional connotation.
But when you break it all down, you can see how perhaps things couldn't have happened any other way, its almost MORE magical to say otherwise.
When you realise that organisms have no free will, accompanied by the fact that geological changes and weather etc have no magic hand orchestrating them, its like it was inevitable that the bear stood on a spot of snow, causing an avolanche to crush the wooly mammoth below, naturally not selecting him (for a particularly stupid example).
Any situation that you can imagine, the environment and the animals involved couldn't have been any other way.
And thus the evolutionary tree couldn't have branched in any other way.

Maybe it is the word "destiny".
"Destiny", as far as I am concerned, implies foresight, which implied forethought, which implies outside consciousness.
Is this what is tripping us up?
Click to expand...
I think so.
I'm not sure, maybe I've made myself clearer? if not we can just keep yapping:) Its a cool subject regardless IMO.

I don't think that there should even BE an "if".
As long as humans are considered to be an organism by science, rather than a cooperative community of distinct interating life forms, then the earth (or maybe more accurately the global ecosystem) HAS to be considered an organism.

I don't know how anyone can make that distinction.
I could be wrong, of course, but what could the distinction possibly be?
Click to expand...
Agree 100% on that.
 
Wow you guys are going for it... I will catch up tomorrow

>> That is akin to saying that the reason that the chemical reactions that happen in our bodies are due to our instinct of survival.

Ok, lets us examine a skin cell on your knee.... it is simple cell, with no knowledge of you as such, it is just there and if it is doing its job, it is happy and automatically doing GOOD for you. It is survival orientated, for you

The concept of super-organism is that the greater organism is ONE organism in reality, and made up of "co-operating super cells all doing GOOD for the super-organism".

The prime task is to survive and reproduce.. all written in ROM. We call these concepts rational, but in reality they are entirely irrational... at least as much as "love" is.

Talk later
:)
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top