Stop the search for the origin of life, please.

Discuss any topics related to metaphysics (the philosophical study of the principles of reality) or epistemology (the philosophical study of knowledge) in this forum.
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Re: Stop the search for the origin of life, please.

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Ranvier wrote:The logic of words...
It would be rational to assume that we're alive, as we were alive yesterday (the past) and the day before. All the way to the individual "conception" of life, which ever way one wishes to define life. The reason we are able to infer such chain of events, is a difficult to argue with fact of the cause and effect (I'm always open to new ideas though). Since we exist today (the effect), it's most likely due to a fact that we existed yesterday (the cause). Unless you can show a single event without a cause, I must conclude that your logic is faulty.
"... your logic is faulty." You being who? Whom are you addressing your post to? As far as I am concerned, it could be anyone who participated on the thread so far (or anyone off the thread, too... as long as the person is alive. For one, I'm staying alive, staying alive)
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Re: Stop the search for the origin of life, please.

Post by Ranvier »

I fallow my own faulty logic that if the recipient is not indicated, the post is aimed at the OP. For more awesome echo effect I would say: I'm alive, I'm alive, I'm alive....
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Re: Stop the search for the origin of life, please.

Post by Empiricist-Bruno »

Ranvier wrote:The logic of words...
It would be rational to assume that we're alive, as we were alive yesterday (the past) and the day before. All the way to the individual "conception" of life, which ever way one wishes to define life. The reason we are able to infer such chain of events, is a difficult to argue with fact of the cause and effect (I'm always open to new ideas though). Since we exist today (the effect), it's most likely due to a fact that we existed yesterday (the cause). Unless you can show a single event without a cause, I must conclude that your logic is faulty.
Thanks for that Ranvier as I love to talk about logic, faulty or not. Here's another way to look at the faulty logic: A snooker ball inside a snooker pocket claims: If I'm in the pocket it's because I fell in it after being knocked there by another ball, so logically, if you get knocked by a snooker ball, then you will find yourself most likely in the pocket of the snooker table. To us, it is obvious that a snooker ball that is knocked often does not end up in the pocket but because the snooker ball is hopelessly self-centered, its argument seems irrefutable from where it stands and perhaps only sheer stupidity would allow others to view things differently.

As far as going back into the past to reach the moment where life begins, I would have to dispute this by suggesting that what you are attempting to do is to find the origin of the story, not that of life. As I mentioned before, the past is contained in a story. If you reach the origin of the past, you're unlikely to come face to face with anything else but the author of the story of which you are a current actor.

Finally, if you say "we were alive..." doesn't it suggests that we are no longer alive or that you know the moment when our existence ceased? Why do you choose these particular words to express yourself since they appear to refer to a situation that no longer is part of the present? Why do you not express yourself rather by saying, "I'm alive since..."

This suspicious kind of talk that upsets me as I think we're dealing with a thick mode of expression and I'm not entirely sure that stupidity caused it; there maybe other factors at play. I'm open to alternative explanations.
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Re: Stop the search for the origin of life, please.

Post by Ranvier »

EB
"A snooker ball inside a snooker pocket claims: If I'm in the pocket it's because I fell in it after being knocked there by another ball, so logically, if you get knocked by a snooker ball, then you will find yourself most likely in the pocket of the snooker table. To us, it is obvious that a snooker ball that is knocked often does not end up in the pocket (contradicts the first sentence) but because the snooker ball is hopelessly self-centered, its argument seems irrefutable from where it stands and perhaps only sheer stupidity would allow others to view things differently".

I utilize words that are available to my frontal cortex in context of the cumulative language comprehension my mind possesses. Clearly, you're not the first one to point this out, my language skills are not sufficient to enter the battle of logic of words nor would I want to. Here is a lovely example: "we were alive..." doesn't it suggests that we are no longer alive or that you know the moment when our existence ceased? When I see words arranged in such sequence, I know it's time to concede to superior oratory skills. Also, it's often telling when others target the language itself or any other personal attribute rather than the thought.

It's nothing more than a dance in the logic of words...
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Re: Stop the search for the origin of life, please.

Post by Elan vit »

You can destroy the past?
What kind of nonsense is that?
Nothing in your statement makes sense.
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Re: Stop the search for the origin of life, please.

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Ranvier wrote:I fallow my own faulty logic that if the recipient is not indicated, the post is aimed at the OP. For more awesome echo effect I would say: I'm alive, I'm alive, I'm alive....
You mean, the OP has his words fallen on fallow logic? :wink:
Elan vit wrote:You can destroy the past?
What kind of nonsense is that?
Nothing in your statement makes sense.
Elan vit, thank you for crying out loud, "the emperor is not wearing any clothes whatsoever." We, old timers on these forums, have been accustomed to treat religious fervour, insanity and ill logic with respect and awe. Why, I don't know. Probably because bashing an insane logician is a lot of fun for most people. It makes interesting conversation for them. I pity the insane, I wish we could eliminate them from the forums more kindly and more respectfully, than doing it the way we do, which is using them as whipping boys.
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Re: Stop the search for the origin of life, please.

Post by Empiricist-Bruno »

Elan vit,
The past is part of a story. If you do destroy the story, then there will be nothing left of the past. How is that non-sense? Who is in position to destroy history do you think? If nothing in my statement makes sense then surely it must be really good.

Ranvier, I'm not sure I grasp fully the first part of your last message, or whether you picked up from my answer what I intended you to pick up from it but I do like your last sentence because I feel confident that I can disagree with it. I don't think it's just a dance in the logic of words. If I speak to others and say, "Back in the old days, I was a kid and I was alive." I could be found a bit weird for talking this way. Do you perceive which part of the statement gives this sleightly weird effect and why? If you do perceive it, then I think you will agree with me that the way you dance with words does sends a meanigful message and may not be irrelevant.
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Re: Stop the search for the origin of life, please.

Post by Fooloso4 »

EB:
When people search for the origin of life, and look in the past for it, I always wonder, "is there any life in the past?"
Where else would one look for the origin of life? If there was life before any of us were alive then the origin must have occurred before the present. If your parents were alive before you and their parents before them then whether or not they are still alive they were alive before you.

One problem with this is a confusion of tenses. When we refer the past we use the past tense. The proper question is: was there any life in the past? The obvious answer is yes. Life existed in the past and exists in the present, or more precisely, there were entities in the past that were alive and entities in the present that are alive. As to when any particular entity is no longer a living entity depends on the criteria of a living entity one uses.

Another problem is the relativity of time. Celestial events that we observe now occurred light years in the past. A telescope that is powerful enough could theoretically observe life on a distant planet, but if we ask if life exists on that planet the answer provided by synchronized clocks may be no even though our observation says yes. We are observing in the present what happened in the past.
Another problem is that life may have arisen in many places in the universe independently.

Another problem is that as with other processes there is no exact boundary between before and after, either in terms of time or development.

Another problem is that the term ‘life’ has no precise definition.

Having said all this I see no reason why we should stop looking for the origin of life. Certainly, your logical confusion is not a reason. The goal is not simply to arrive at a definitive answer but rather to learn more about biological processes and our past.
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Re: Stop the search for the origin of life, please.

Post by Empiricist-Bruno »

Fooloso4 wrote:EB:
When people search for the origin of life, and look in the past for it, I always wonder, "is there any life in the past?"
Where else would one look for the origin of life? If there was life before any of us were alive then the origin must have occurred before the present. If your parents were alive before you and their parents before them then whether or not they are still alive they were alive before you.

One problem with this is a confusion of tenses. When we refer the past we use the past tense. The proper question is: was there any life in the past? The obvious answer is yes. Life existed in the past and exists in the present, or more precisely, there were entities in the past that were alive and entities in the present that are alive. As to when any particular entity is no longer a living entity depends on the criteria of a living entity one uses.

Another problem is the relativity of time. Celestial events that we observe now occurred light years in the past. A telescope that is powerful enough could theoretically observe life on a distant planet, but if we ask if life exists on that planet the answer provided by synchronized clocks may be no even though our observation says yes. We are observing in the present what happened in the past.
Another problem is that life may have arisen in many places in the universe independently.

Another problem is that as with other processes there is no exact boundary between before and after, either in terms of time or development.

Another problem is that the term ‘life’ has no precise definition.

Having said all this I see no reason why we should stop looking for the origin of life. Certainly, your logical confusion is not a reason. The goal is not simply to arrive at a definitive answer but rather to learn more about biological processes and our past.
Thanks for this post Fooloso4 as it made me think and it appears to be one of the most thoughtful so far.
Fooloso4 wrote: Where else would one look for the origin of life? If there was life before any of us were alive then the origin must have occurred before the present. If your parents were alive before you and their parents before them then whether or not they are still alive they were alive before you.

Your question as to where one should start to look for the origin of life is a very good question and I much prefer it to the attempts at demonstrating that it starts here to there before us in the story of life. Then you go on stating the possibility that life was there before any of us were alive. Now that's what I have trouble with. How can you conceive of this possibility? When we talk about life in the past, we are normally referring to beings that are now dead: past life is dead life, an oxymoron. Dead life is not life now is it? So when you suggest that there maybe was life in the past, you are implying that it isn't there anymore thereby approving of all I have been saying so far: there surely wasn't any life in the past.

Then you go on to refer to a time before any of us were alive. The act of talking like this is like saying, "Okay, we're now some other people's future" but can we exist as such really? This vision implies that the future has already been set and that that we will arrive when our time comes. But the fact is any one present can have a million different outcomes. If you go back before we were alive, I'd say the likeliness that we will be once again here having this discussion is next to impossible. So, if life exists and we're part of the future, then there is no guarantee we'll ever come to life. As part of the future, I feel as if I have no voice in this discussion and I don't understand where you stand to make the suggestions you make as I feel that you have yet to exist, according to your own views. When you conclude by saying that, "my parents were alive before me." I take it that my parents are now dead before me as they are a matter of the past and your position does not refute my point of view.

This belief that the story of a life comes with a living past may not be born out of idiocy; it may be just a plain religious belief. That would explain it.

Fooloso4, excellent observation about the confusion of times! Yes, the proper way to ask about something that occurred in the past is by using the past time. But in a metaphysics philosophy forum, when we start to question whether something belongs or does not belong to the past, it can be necessary to use the present tense to make one's point in referring to past events: If I were to stand here and question whether life existed in the past, it would be a loaded statement against my own argument because it contains the suggestion that I'm open to this possibility and I certainly am not. If I were open to the possibility that life existed in the past, I'd be doing what I'm criticizing that others are doing.

By asking, "Does life exist in the past?", I can get either philosophers, such as yourself, correcting and replacing my question (by the correct one, the dumb one, the one the philosophers argues I was asking or should have been asking) or I might get straight answers such as, "To go to the past, you need to use the past time, if you aren't using the past time, then you are asking from the present and if that's what you are doing then the easy answer is that no, life does not exist in the past if you aren't there and you aren't there in the past if you aren't using the past time."

Then you go on to say that the obvious answer to the question, "was there life in the past? " is yes. But how obvious can this be given that the only life we see is the one that exist in the present? Your deduction that life exists in the past is based on you imagining yourself in it but the process of doing so is cultural and is about the creation of stories that have for purpose to help us understand things better. Stories we make don't demonstrate that life exist in the past. If they were, fiction would always be real. I know fiction is real to some tough, so I am well aware that I won't be able to convince everyone of my point but still...
Fooloso4 wrote: Life existed in the past and exists in the present, or more precisely, there were entities in the past that were alive and entities in the present that are alive.

If entities were alive in the past it means that they are no longer alive in the past. If my dog was alive in his dog house, it means there is actually no claim that my dog is alive any more there and he may be dead. If my dog was alive in the past, it means that whatever the past is, my dog as he was back then exists no more now. The expression "was alive" is really an equivalent to "is now dead." To say that my dog has past away is neither an equivalent to say that my dog's life exist in the past or his life has existed in the past. What is true is that my dog's life is now completely part of history and history is the story that explains the present to us and not evidence that beings were alive in the past. No one is alive in the past. No one were alive in the past either in the sense that they are no longer alive in it. The use of the past tense is simply a means to say that the voice doing the talking is a future voice in relation to the present. If you say that Elvis Presley was alive, it just means that it is a part of Elvis Presley's future that is currently speaking. It means that the one speaking does not exist yet in relation to Elvis Presley's time. It doesn't mean that there is life in the future or in you the speaker of the future.

One of the defining aspect of life (or of a living entity) is that it is able to choose to make decisions. Decisions are live and can really only be made in the now and are evidence of life. Elvis Presley's life does not exist in the past because he no longer has the option to keep his mouth shut. His life has been captured by history and his life now exist only as a story. If we go back to his time to the day when he had the choice to either sign or keep his mouth shut, then we aren't in the past anymore, we are in the present as Elvis is alive here with us. Obviously, since we don't exist in his time, we can't see him, and neither can he sees us as his life doesn't belong to our time either. The conclusion being that when we go down memory lane, we only reach constructions or the shape of the past. The life that made the past present just isn't there. So looking for the origin of life where it isn't still doesn't make any sense, at least to me and I would argue to anyone except those who have religious beliefs stating otherwise.

The relativity of time is also another interesting point you bring on. Yes, Einstein did away with the universality of time. But I don't really see how this affect this question. Are you suggestion that we don't know anymore when now is and so if life is in the present, we couldn't know about it? Yes, we are observing in the present events that occurred in the past, but that does not make our actual observations a matter of the past, now does it? I always see in the present event if that present can be quite old. No?

"Another problem is that life may have arisen in many places in the universe independently." Well, that's really a problem for those who look for life in the past, not for what I'm saying here.

"The term life has no precise definitions." So it doesn't make sense to talk about it? What's your point?

"Having said all this I see no reason why we should stop looking for the origin of life. Certainly, your logical confusion is not a reason. The goal is not simply to arrive at a definitive answer but rather to learn more about biological processes and our past."

To learn about our past is to learn about our reproduction of it. When we learn from the past, we learn from a shape that has no life in it. I think if you can't realize this, you are no likely to make the most out the history of the past. By looking to the past for life, we are displaying our lack of understanding of the past. This is embarrassing.
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Re: Stop the search for the origin of life, please.

Post by Wayne92587 »

Hello Empiricist-Bruno my name is Empirical Wayne;
When people search for the origin of life, and look in the past for it, I always wonder, "is there any life in the past?"

So why are many people looking far back into the history of the Earth searching for clues to the origin of life when we know it isn't there to be found?

I'm suspecting that gross stupidity is the reason but I'm open to alternative explanations.
The origin of Life, the Life Force existed in the Past, however the origin of life exists in the present and also in the Future.

The origin of Life, the Life Force, is eternal, everlasting, is Infinite.

I'm suspecting that gross stupidity is the reason but I'm open to alternative explanations.

I know that gross stupidity is the reason some deny the Beginning of Life, the Life Force, the origin of the Heavens and the Earth, the Universe, the Reality of Everything that exists in the Material, Physical sense of the word, even a rock.

Any, all, series of events, continuums, processes have a beginning; the question is what is the definition of the Beginning.

The origin of is the beginning of.

The number One-1 in a series of 1 to 10 is the first in a series but One-1 is not the Beginning.

The series of 1 to 10 evolves out of Condition or Stated that existed prior the First in a series of 1 to 10, The Series of 1 to 10 is born, the beginning is the state or condition that precedes the First in a series of a events, One-1 is the first but the but not beginning, the state of condition out of which the Singularity of One-1 evolves.

The Life Force is the beginning out of which was born the First in a Series, the beginning of a continuum, the beginning a the First Singularity to have relative, a Numerical value of One-1.
One-1 precedes 2, 2- follows One-1, two 2 precedes 3; so on and so forth.

So tell me? Do you know what precedes One-1.

A Singularity can not be identified as having numerical value of One-1 without being relative, having Numerical value.

The First singularity to have relative, the numerical value is deemed to be a Singularity having a relative, numerical value of One 1, is given the numerical value of One-1 because it exists as the First in a series, as the beginning of a of a process such as the Evolutionary Process, as the beginning of a continuum such as Space-Time, Space-Time being Identifies as the Relativity of Time and Space.

Space-Time; Time and Space can not be relative with there being a Singularity having displacement, angular motion, Velocity of Speed and Direct, becoming readily apparent, measurable as to location and momentum in Space-Time.

The beginning existed as the State or Condition in which Singularity was both Omni present and Omniscient, existed as both a microcosm and a Macrocosm.

Singularity as a microcosm existing as an Infinitely Finite Indivisible Singularity having no relative, numerical value; Singularity as a Macrocosm existing as a State or Condition consisting of an unspoken of, ever-present Quantity, Number of Infinitely Finite, Indivisible Singularities having no relative, numerical value, which were not readily apparent, were not measurable as to location and momentum.

The Beginning State or Condition of the Reality of Everything exists as the Transcendental, Fully Random Metaphysical State of Quantum Singularity.

-- Updated August 16th, 2017, 1:50 pm to add the following --

Error correction; Space-Time; Time and Space can not be relative without there being a Singularity having displacement, angular motion, Velocity of Speed and Direct, becoming readily apparent, measurable as to location and momentum in Space-Time.
I went over and over my post and sill made errors.

Error, Should read "Space-Time; Time and Space can not be relative with there being a Singularity having displacement, angular motion, Velocity of Speed and Direct, becoming readily apparent, without measurable as to location and momentum in Space-Time.
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Re: Stop the search for the origin of life, please.

Post by Fooloso4 »

EB:
Then you go on stating the possibility that life was there before any of us were alive. Now that's what I have trouble with. How can you conceive of this possibility?
What I have trouble with is conceiving of it being any other way. Do you think that you were not conceived by living human beings who were alive before you were born or that your parents were not conceived by living human beings who were alive before they were born and so on? Within a few generations you come to the point where none of the people who are alive today were alive, and yet surely the oldest among us were conceived by living human beings who are no longer alive.
… past life is dead life, an oxymoron.
That is not an oxymoron, it ambiguous and that seems to have confused you deeply. Life and being alive are two different things.
Dead life is not life now is it?
The life of those who lived remains only as a memory. That is not a reason for denying that they lived.
So when you suggest that there maybe was life in the past, you are implying that it isn't there anymore thereby approving of all I have been saying so far: there surely wasn't any life in the past.
That is not what is implied. That there was life in the past, and there is no maybe about it, means that there were things that were alive yesterday or the day before yesterday or a hundred or a thousand or a billion years ago. Some things that were alive in the past may still be alive but others that are no longer alive. Life itself remains, but life is not something that is alive. We have very reliable scientific methods to determine that life did exist in the past.
The act of talking like this is like saying, "Okay, we're now some other people's future" but can we exist as such really?
What was tells us nothing about what will be, but if there is to be human life in the future it will come from human beings that were alive before those generations to come. If someone two hundred years from now reads this they will be very puzzled to learn that there was no life in 2017.
This vision implies that the future has already been set and that that we will arrive when our time comes.
This may be implied by your blurred vision but certainly not by anything I have said.
If you go back before we were alive, I'd say the likeliness that we will be once again here having this discussion is next to impossible.
The probability of any of us having been born is exceedingly small, and yet against all odds we were. None of this has anything to do with a recurrence of the same.
So, if life exists and we're part of the future, then there is no guarantee we'll ever come to life.
We are part of the future only to the extent that we are alive in the present. It is too late for a guarantee we’ll come to life, we are already alive.
As part of the future, I feel as if I have no voice in this discussion and I don't understand where you stand to make the suggestions you make as I feel that you have yet to exist, according to your own views.
Are you now denying the existence of life in the present or only my life? Or just getting more and more entangled in confusion?
When you conclude by saying that, "my parents were alive before me." I take it that my parents are now dead before me as they are a matter of the past and your position does not refute my point of view.
That my parents were alive before me says nothing about whether they are still alive or if they will be alive when I no longer am.
This belief that the story of a life comes with a living past may not be born out of idiocy; it may be just a plain religious belief. That would explain it.
It remains an open question whether or not I am an idiot (although I may be demonstrating my idiocy by my fruitless attempt to help you sort things out), but my beliefs are not born out of religious belief. They are instead firmly supported by science. I suggest that instead of dismissing those who do not follow your tangled and confused illogic as either idiots or religious you look a little more carefully in order to identify the sources of your confusion.
If I were to stand here and question whether life existed in the past, it would be a loaded statement against my own argument because it contains the suggestion that I'm open to this possibility and I certainly am not.
So, you opt for protecting your argument rather than searching for the truth. If you did stand here and question whether life existed in the past you would have answer in the affirmative and your misguided claims would come crashing down around you. It is, as you said a metaphysics forum, not a forum on rhetoric.
"To go to the past, you need to use the past time, if you aren't using the past time, then you are asking from the present and if that's what you are doing then the easy answer is that no, life does not exist in the past if you aren't there and you aren't there in the past if you aren't using the past time."
As far as I know we cannot “go to the past” or “use the past time”. It is not about easy answers but correct answers. Do you deny that you were not alive yesterday because you are not “there” today? If, as you should, you affirm that you were alive yesterday, then you must affirm that there was life yesterday. Those who are alive who are older than you can affirm that there was life before you were born. Life existed before you. Life existed before any of us.
But how obvious can this be given that the only life we see is the one that exist in the present?


I was present in the past when it was the present. It is obvious that there was life yesterday even though yesterday is not the present.
Your deduction that life exists in the past is based on you imagining yourself in it …
It is not a deduction and I do not have to imagine it, I lived it, yesterday and the day before and the day before. It is only when you become philosophically confused that you imagine a deduction in needed to think that there was life yesterday and life before you were born. Just ask anyone who was alive before you were born.
If entities were alive in the past it means that they are no longer alive in the past.
Some entities that were alive in the past are still alive in the present, but even if they are not it does mean that there was no life in the past when they were alive.
What is true is that my dog's life is now completely part of history and history is the story that explains the present to us and not evidence that beings were alive in the past.
If you had a real live dog that died then you have all the evidence you need to say that it was alive in the past.
So looking for the origin of life where it isn't still doesn't make any sense, at least to me and I would argue to anyone except those who have religious beliefs stating otherwise.
We look for that origin based on the evidence we have in the present. It has nothing to do with religious beliefs. In addition to common sense there is reliable scientific and historical evidence of life in the past.
Yes, we are observing in the present events that occurred in the past, but that does not make our actual observations a matter of the past, now does it?
No, it means that past and present are relative terms. The star you are observing now might no longer exist, but since you are observing it you know that it did exist but cannot say whether it still exists.
I always see in the present event if that present can be quite old. No?
No. If the event occurred 12 billion years after the Big Bang and we are only observing it now that does not mean it is an event now occurring in the present or an event now occurring in the past.
"The term life has no precise definitions." So it doesn't make sense to talk about it? What's your point?
Something does not have to have a precise definition in order to talk about it. The point is that the search for the origin of life is not the search for a singular event.
When we learn from the past, we learn from a shape that has no life in it.
By your illogic we cannot learn from the past because it is not.
By looking to the past for life, we are displaying our lack of understanding of the past. This is embarrassing.
So, you think others should be embarrassed because they are free of your confusion? I made an honest attempt to help you sort this out only to have you tell me I should be embarrassed for not agreeing with you. And now I am a bit embarrassed to find my efforts were repaid with condescension.
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Re: Stop the search for the origin of life, please.

Post by Empiricist-Bruno »

Fooloso4, I am extremely impressed by the speed of your reply along with the many points you make. I mean, I come here with an uncommon vision of things and really expect to be snubbed or being attacked or mocked but you're real. You deal with my arguments head on. You are indeed a person of science and an open minded person. I salute you. Sorry for this off topic praise, I'm moving on to on topic talk right now.

I feel that you're getting closer to seeing things my way. But there are certain things above that you presume that are clearly wrong:
If you did stand here and question whether life existed in the past you would have answer in the affirmative and your misguided claims would come crashing down around you.
Here, I presume that you meant 'would have answered,' correct me if I'm wrong. Anyway, to answer your question I'd say that no, I , the person who I am right now, never did stand here and question whether life existed in the past: I always stand here and question whether life existed in the past. I make no claim that this is a matter of the past because this suggestion hasn't died I carry it on with full blazing force. To say that I did make that claim does not necessarily imply that I'm no longer making it but it does creates possible confusion about what is going on.

History does exist and there are certainly forms of me that can be laid out in a book, video, log, etc., where yesterday I (as the form) claimed the same thing as I am now claiming today. Are you suggesting that this is evidence of life in the past? This is evidence of history and nothing else. The person that I was yesterday or even an hour ago has past away: it is no longer alive and there is no life to be found in there. Are you suggesting that the person I was an hour ago is the same that I am now? If you do, it is because you are putting me in a series or in a story. I may agree that what you say about me in a story represents me but this person cannot be the same as the person with which you are now talking. It's not because I agree that a representation stands for me in my past that this representation is now me. It is only part of my reputation, the living reputation of me right now, a living being.
Within a few generations you come to the point where none of the people who are alive today were alive, and yet surely the oldest among us were conceived by living human beings who are no longer alive.
Here you go again, showing my point but apparently without seeing it: Nobody has ever been conceived by human beings who are no longer alive. Human beings who are no longer alive are not living human beings. I understand you are as stubborn in not wanting to see my point as I am stubborn in standing up to make this point. I guess we wont make progress here.

You see to view history as a succession of live events with all events being alive and present but the only present that is visible is the current present as if all other presents are, for a reason that you still have to explain, not visible to the real present. Or maybe that's your point, the real present of a person does not exist? My view that life is only present in the present explains why we aren't seeing memories as live events, at least I'm not, I hope.

I have much more to say, thanks to your thorough replies but there is just so much time in a day, I'll update later. This is it for now.
Watch out for the hidden paradoxes around you!
Fooloso4
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Re: Stop the search for the origin of life, please.

Post by Fooloso4 »

EB:
I feel that you're getting closer to seeing things my way.


Then you have misunderstood me. My view has not changed at all. If anything all that you have accomplished to provide further confirmation that you confused.
The person that I was yesterday or even an hour ago has past away: it is no longer alive and there is no life to be found in there.
Am I conversing with a dead person? With someone who is not alive? Or with a discrete series of individuals? At what rate do you become someone else? Every breath, every second, every millisecond, Planck time? Was the EB you were a second ago alive a second ago even if he no longer is? If so then there was life a second ago, there was life in the past.
Nobody has ever been conceived by human beings who are no longer alive.


Then either everyone who has ever been conceived is still alive, in which case there was life it the past, or, as is obviously the case, many if not most of the human being who have ever been conceived by human beings were conceived by human beings who are no longer alive. All, however, were conceived by human beings who were alive when they were conceived, in which case there was life in the past.
Human beings who are no longer alive are not living human beings.
On this we can agree. They were, however, once living human beings, in which case there was life in the past, that is, human beings that were alive in the past.
I understand you are as stubborn in not wanting to see my point as I am stubborn in standing up to make this point.
It is not a matter of me being stubborn. I see your point and think it is the result of confusion. If you want to believe that you are right and I am wrong then go ahead. I have been extremely patient with you but that has come to an end with your accusing me of being stubborn. I am done.
Tamminen
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Re: Stop the search for the origin of life, please.

Post by Tamminen »

EB: are you saying that (1) the past is pure fiction, or (2) what we call 'the past' is somehow included in the present?
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Re: Stop the search for the origin of life, please.

Post by Empiricist-Bruno »

Tamminen, what is pure fiction to you? The past? Most likely it isn't. If you read pure fiction, it just means either that what you read is a creation that you can imagine to represent part of the world's past but isn't or that someone is trying to deceive you. What I'm saying is that when you refer to any story in which you are a current live player in it, your past will be known to you through pure fiction form, there is no life in it. I'm sorry, I can't seem to express it in any more simple terms. Searching for the origin of your life in a medium that does not contain it is a fruitless search.

2) What is past is not included in the present. Stories can have a past and stories do exist in the present but other than the actual non-fiction story of life, stories have no real life in their present. The present always flees the past; it doesn't include it because there is no life in it.
Watch out for the hidden paradoxes around you!
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