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Is Life Special Just Because It’s Rare?

nautil.us

11–20 of 47 posts

Re: Is Life Special Just Because It’s Rare?

#11
post #4
post #2

The trick lies in the fact that life forms have no obvious boundary. The fact that two creatures are two creatures, and not just a single creature is something that is just endowed to them by us humans. If one of the creatures dies, does it really die, or does the combination of the two creatures just loses half of its brain cells? That second view is just as valid. Hence, in that second view, nothing really ever die…

What you're saying is not unique to lifeforms. It can apply to inanimate objects. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ship_of_Theseus

Although, there's no known mechanism by which ships get all their parts replaced while preserving their function without some life forms involved.

Re: Is Life Special Just Because It’s Rare?

#12

Life is special because it's complex. Modern human society on Earth is the most complex thing in the history of the known universe. Complex things, though, tend to be very fragile. (paraphrased from David Christian's "Big History" Great Courses lecture)

I would say there are much more complex phenomena than a few bajillion atoms and electricity bouncing flailing about on the surface of a mostly-water planet.

Such as? Here is David's Christian's ranking of complexity in the Universe:

http://padlet.com/dpetersen/c6c8g49ynt19

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_History#Complexity.2C_ener...

Re: Is Life Special Just Because It’s Rare?

#13
I think this statement nails it: "we are imprisoned within our own cosmos of meaning. We cannot imagine a universe without meaning. We are not talking necessarily about some grand cosmic meaning, or a divine meaning bestowed by God, or even a lasting, eternal meaning. "

"Special" is a human construct. If something is special, it's because we say it is. Life has no relevance to anything beyond that which we ascribe to it.

Unless, of course, you believe that life was designed according to some kind of grand design. But even that presupposes that we mortals have a chance of understanding an intelligence that can shape reality. I'm sceptical any human interpretation of 'special' in that context is useful.

Reality just is. It has no moral weight.

Re: Is Life Special Just Because It’s Rare?

#14
post #8

Of course not. Shuffle a deck of cards. If you did it properly, the new arrangement is unique. No deck of cards has ever been arranged like that before, and none will ever again, unless you deliberately preserve it. I just drew a scribble on a post-it note. Nobody else has a scribble quite like it, or ever will again, after I throw it away. Every time a snowflake melts, something beautiful and unique is lost forever.…

The order in a deck of cards is unique, but it's not complex. The nucleotide sequence in a chromosome is unique and complex.

An analogy of your comparison would be comparing a single sentence to the sum of mankind's written works, with the latter being life. A complex, organized source of information like that is special.

Re: Is Life Special Just Because It’s Rare?

#15
When I was in school, we knew of no extra-solar planets. Now that we know how to look, they seem to be everywhere. Similarly, I suspect life will turn out to be common once we can send probes to the places that could harbour them.

Intelligent life might well be an order-of-magnitude rarer, and life intelligent enough to be detectable by SETI rarer still. (And we could well be the most advanced civilization in our light cone -- someone has to be.)

Re: Is Life Special Just Because It’s Rare?

#16
post #14
post #8

Of course not. Shuffle a deck of cards. If you did it properly, the new arrangement is unique. No deck of cards has ever been arranged like that before, and none will ever again, unless you deliberately preserve it. I just drew a scribble on a post-it note. Nobody else has a scribble quite like it, or ever will again, after I throw it away. Every time a snowflake melts, something beautiful and unique is lost forever.…

The order in a deck of cards is unique, but it's not complex . The nucleotide sequence in a chromosome is unique and complex. An analogy of your comparison would be comparing a single sentence to the sum of mankind's written works, with the latter being life. A complex, organized source of information like that is special.

If you shuffle a deck of 3 billion cards, the order is less compressible than the human genome. It's still not special. Is it complex, by your definition?

How about my scribble, or a snowflake?

Re: Is Life Special Just Because It’s Rare?

#17
In this universe, for whatever its nature happens to be, where laws of entropy realize themselves relentlessly and indefinitely to increase chaos forever, bit by bit; where everything left to rot will eventually turn into pieces, shards, and break apart into dust there is―I might say―a force, or at least a mechanism―again, whether guided or scientifically spontaneous―that is working its way on the same river as this destructive chaos but to the exactly opposite direction of the downstream where, as shattered pieces of existence and remnants of structure, chaos is slowly but endlessly flowing down.

This force is what we call life and this force is of the nature that it just keeps pushing itself against all the natural destruction that is inherently prevalent in this world. This force constructs and maintains growth, structure, and produces organisms that are enough in some balance―chemical, physical, maybe spiritual, who knows―to survive further.

The force will push through the slightest openings in this river which is chaos, and just keeps growing and growing despite being forever torn down, consumed, and worn by the elements of entropy at the same time. This force, when put down and extinquished in one place will again and again remanifest itself in another place, and continues to create and grow against all the odds and the universal tendency for any space and matter to cool down and energy to return to the lowest possible potential.

Life is nothing but rare. If we blew up this planet into smithereens, I wonder, why would that force that is life stop swimming upstream at the very once? Why would it not reappear elsewhere? Some might say that the live organisms would just die with the Earth, but what started it here? Why wouldn't it emerge again elsewhere just like it did here?

If the force is divine it will exist somewhere regardless of the physical circumstances, merely waiting for a new opening in the physical world; if the force is not divine, then maybe it's some internal counter stream, an energy flow, in the the universe itself, where one part of the energy flows towards chaotic stillness but where the other part flows back into motion and higher potential: while entropy reduces the energy in action the potential must increase somewhere else, as energy cannot disappear. Or maybe you might choose consider the divine to be the universe itself―about that I cannot say a word. But there is something that makes this thing called life opt-in to this world where everything else keeps crumbling to pieces.

If that force is not special in itself, given the setting, then I don't know what is.

Re: Is Life Special Just Because It’s Rare?

#18
post #8

Of course not. Shuffle a deck of cards. If you did it properly, the new arrangement is unique. No deck of cards has ever been arranged like that before, and none will ever again, unless you deliberately preserve it. I just drew a scribble on a post-it note. Nobody else has a scribble quite like it, or ever will again, after I throw it away. Every time a snowflake melts, something beautiful and unique is lost forever.…

The dictionary definition of special is "really weird"?

Literally: "better, greater, or otherwise different from what is usual."

So...if a snowflake is "beautiful" and "unique", you have the necessary and sufficient conditions for "special".

Just saying....

Re: Is Life Special Just Because It’s Rare?

#19
post #11
post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What you're saying is not unique to lifeforms. It can apply to inanimate objects. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ship_of_Theseus

Although, there's no known mechanism by which ships get all their parts replaced while preserving their function without some life forms involved.

That is closer to the heart of what makes life unique, in that life can (and does, as a matter of existence) decrease entropy. At least locally. Life will rebuild a ship instead of watch it rot.

Re: Is Life Special Just Because It’s Rare?

#20

When I was in school, we knew of no extra-solar planets. Now that we know how to look, they seem to be everywhere. Similarly, I suspect life will turn out to be common once we can send probes to the places that could harbour them. Intelligent life might well be an order-of-magnitude rarer, and life intelligent enough to be detectable by SETI rarer still. (And we could well be the most advanced civilization in our lig…

I'm skeptical, if not for the sheer improbability of our own abiogenesis event on Earth.

I think that if we do find naturally occurring "life" elsewhere in the universe, it will be unlike anything that we have ever dreamed of and challenge our definition of the word. Or maybe it will be cellular just like ours and responsible for seeding Earth.

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