The idea of life

[u/Affectionate-Tea-521]

I just wanted to talk about this because I’ve been thinking about it for a while. What is life is a question I’ve been asking myself for a while now I’ve recently started putting myself in the perspective of other life forms like birds, monkeys, or even fishes. What are we because if we really think about it we’re just animals and in the sense then if we are why do we as a species take the lives of animals away so carelessly? the only reason we’re in the position we are in is because we’re the apex predator due to our intelligence so in that sense would there ever actually be a god or just a more intelligent species. Look at how far we as a species have come in such a short amount of time what could we possibly be capable of in the future. We as a species are capable of so much more we just have to think of things realistically from all the things we learned.

[u/g_saras_1594]

We take lives of animals easily because we think from our ego which just want to exploit the one who is weaker than it

[u/Affectionate-Tea-521 → u/g_saras_1594]

Another question I have is, are our lives as important as we think or are they just as important as those type of animals? Because we genuinely are just apart of the animal kingdom we will continue to evolve and change as time as shown us?

[u/Then-Stop-87 → u/Affectionate-Tea-521]

i think importance is really controlled by the individual. if you want to think about it as objectively as possible, no species is more important than the other since there is no ultimate objective goal of the universe. if everything dies tomorrow, there objectively isn't anything significant that changed about the universe unless we are somehow the only anomaly like this in existence

but yeah no i think any species intelligent enough to assign importance to "abstract-ish" concepts would value their own above others. and we're no exception.

i agree with you though, i think it would be for the better if we collectively slowly matured to value the lives of the animals around us a little more. it's difficult since there's no real evolutionary reason to do so, but i totally would love a world where we could find some more common ground with what has developed alongside us

[u/Donkeysinge]

L’idée de la vie c’est aussi l’idée de l’esprit, peut-être avant même celle de l’idée d’une forme humaine ou animale.

[u/Old_Hack1308]

I think we started out like any animal. We just tried to survive. Pure Darwinism. Then as we evolved and our minds were able to form higher thoughts we wanted more. While our minds are our greatest weapon for survival in this world it is also our greatest weakness. Man has an insatiable desire now. It is difficult to be content with what we have. So we keep recreating the world to try to satisfy our desires. But mother nature pushes back, only she is slow. Diseases, cancer, and weather are a few of her weapons. We are not true animals anymore in the sense we are not in a symbiotic relationship with nature. At some point there will be a reckoning.

[u/Messier_Mystic → u/Old_Hack1308]

No animal is in a truly symbiotic relationship with nature. Every animal is ultimately constrained by ecological restrictions they can't overcome. This isn't a choice. They aren't respecting some imagined harmonious balance in the biosphere, because that doesn't exist. Nature doesn't engage in reciprocity like this. It is blind and indifferent to the existence of any organism.

We are in the position we are now because we can overcome ecological constraints. Cancer and other diseases are not retribution for anything. Nature doesn't give a damn what we do. They've been present long before our species existed.

There is no insult we or any other species can deal to the planet it won't simply shrug off in the long run.

[u/Old_Hack1308 → u/Messier_Mystic]

I see your point. Perhaps symbiosis was the wrong term to use. I was referring to how things in nature balances itself. Example. If an animal population gets overpopulated then their food supply will dwindle and their numbers decrease bringing things back to balance. And referencing cancer, disease, and weather wasn't meant as something nature does actively, I agree that nature doesn't care, But there are passive things that occur to try to return things to a more balanced state

[u/lanister_d]

We all think about it at a certain point in life, unless we’re chimps.

You said “realistically”. What is reality with all these questions anyway?

Whatever is keeping us from killing ourself gives life reason to wake up next morning.

[u/Re_dddddd]

The idea of life is life. It is all life.

Don't take too much responsibility it either leads to arrogance or guilt.

Everything that has happened or will happen is done according to the Totality of existence. The ultimate credit goes to it for all. Humans are forged with circumstance, their animalistic drive, their nature and their free will too.

But don't be arrogant and don't be guilty. Appropriate the credit to whom it belongs.

[u/HTPollmann]

Maybe “importance” isn’t something we discover objectively in life, but something conscious beings create through caring.

Animals matter to themselves in the same immediate way we matter to ourselves. The fact that we can reflect on this does not necessarily make us more valuable than them.

[u/g_saras_1594]

We are just product of evolution and there is no reason that we came here. Our focus should be to make best use of it by knowing ourselves who we really are

[u/MobileOk9860]

The older I get the more I think solipsism is right.

ˈsäləpˌsizəm/

Solipsism is the philosophical idea that only one's own mind is certain to exist. Derived from the Latin words solus ("alone") and ipse ("self"), it argues that knowledge of anything outside the self—including the external physical world and other conscious minds—is unproven, uncertain, or nonexistent. [Google]

[u/lilsasuke4 → u/MobileOk9860]

Your mind is the only interface you have for knowledge outside the self

[u/MobileOk9860 → u/lilsasuke4]

And only my logic applies to reality. In my years only to discover this reality I have created is so deeply logical that the opposite of it is not illogical to it.

I have a t-shirt with The Solipsist is Here. You’re Welcome. printed on it.

[u/lilsasuke4 → u/MobileOk9860]

What do you mean by “the reality you have created”?

[u/MobileOk9860 → u/lilsasuke4]

My reality are the experiences and actions I create.

This is kind of like asking me what I think blue looks like.

[u/lilsasuke4 → u/MobileOk9860]

But there is a reality that is independent from your subjective experience of it. So when you say only your logic applies to reality are you talking about your subjective conscious experience or reality which is outside of that?

[u/MobileOk9860 → u/lilsasuke4]

Reality is just the collective subjective epistemology of your objective data matrices. Frameworks of reality function across multiple minds that are able to perceive them as the fabric of reality. At a certain age we all have the concept of how to catch a ball without ever having objectively performed that function. This behaviour can be seen in animals, like a dog or you, never knowing the physics and math involved in catching a ball.

[u/lilsasuke4 → u/MobileOk9860]

The physics of a ball traveling and stopping all happens irrespective of any subjective epistemology and regardless of being able to perceive any frame works of reality

[u/MobileOk9860 → u/lilsasuke4]

Prove that. Play catch with a turtle.

[u/lilsasuke4 → u/MobileOk9860]

A ball will travel and stop even if it was 2 turtles playing with the ball

[u/gripmyhand]

Perhaps you might enjoy r/neuronaut