Tilted Forum Project Discussion Community - View Single Post - Meaning of Life and What it is to be Human

Omagus · 07-14-2003, 02:24 PM

no no no... you aren't thinking about this in the right terms at all. You based your question on the implicet asumption that good and bad exist, which isn't really true at all in the cosmic sence. Good and Bad are concepts used to express the social acceptibility of an action, they are not real. To say that what humans are doing is to the earth today is bad, or, as your put it "Hell, Earth would be a much better place if we were still squatting in our caves, scared shitless of our own shadows.", is to make a moral judgement.
The real problem is that you are not considering humans a natural event: i.e. we are actually products and parts of our environment, and mammals besides. Just because we have inteligence that no other creature has, we have been able to strongarm our way into a dominant position, but we are still part of the system. To put it another way: if there was some earth-like planet out there where insect's DNA could mutate and adapt faster and lead them to dominate all other speces in terms of strength and survivability, that system would also colapse as the insects then bread out of control, exasusted their food supply (which overlaps the food supply of other animals as well), and left their planet a lifeless husk. So, distrying ones planet is a possibility for any speces that can get and maintain an advantage over other lifeforms, inteligence or sellf-awareness dont even come into it.

We are products of nature, anything we do is therefore natural. It might be "bad" in the sence that its undesireable, but it is totally natual for a planet to exist without life.

As for why we are here........ um....
just another evolutionary thing, i think. Though, when you really really look at the physiscs that our universe is based upon, it seems allmost perfectly designed to cultivate life somewhere...
After all, the universe has allmost no curvature, just enough gravity to form stars and planets but not enough to colapse it right away, just the right frezing point for water such that oceans wont freze over, things like that. If there is a god, i think he just setup the inital conditions, i dont think he would actually form anything by hand.

woah, i thnk i got a bit off topic there.

07-14-2003, 02:24 PM	#23 (permalink)
Omagus Upright Location: California, USA, Earth	no no no... you aren't thinking about this in the right terms at all. You based your question on the implicet asumption that good and bad exist, which isn't really true at all in the cosmic sence. Good and Bad are concepts used to express the social acceptibility of an action, they are not real. To say that what humans are doing is to the earth today is bad, or, as your put it "Hell, Earth would be a much better place if we were still squatting in our caves, scared shitless of our own shadows.", is to make a moral judgement. The real problem is that you are not considering humans a natural event: i.e. we are actually products and parts of our environment, and mammals besides. Just because we have inteligence that no other creature has, we have been able to strongarm our way into a dominant position, but we are still part of the system. To put it another way: if there was some earth-like planet out there where insect's DNA could mutate and adapt faster and lead them to dominate all other speces in terms of strength and survivability, that system would also colapse as the insects then bread out of control, exasusted their food supply (which overlaps the food supply of other animals as well), and left their planet a lifeless husk. So, distrying ones planet is a possibility for any speces that can get and maintain an advantage over other lifeforms, inteligence or sellf-awareness dont even come into it. We are products of nature, anything we do is therefore natural. It might be "bad" in the sence that its undesireable, but it is totally natual for a planet to exist without life. As for why we are here........ um.... just another evolutionary thing, i think. Though, when you really really look at the physiscs that our universe is based upon, it seems allmost perfectly designed to cultivate life somewhere... After all, the universe has allmost no curvature, just enough gravity to form stars and planets but not enough to colapse it right away, just the right frezing point for water such that oceans wont freze over, things like that. If there is a god, i think he just setup the inital conditions, i dont think he would actually form anything by hand. woah, i thnk i got a bit off topic there. __________________ "Max i dont really love it [orthodox science], i just lust for it while i stalk it hoping its real boyfriend, Military Science, doesn't see me" -Proxy