• Darkneos
    689
    Think this belongs here, let me preface it with two things:

    https://www.huffpost.com/entry/sex-and-the-illusion-of-p_b_334491

    I see consciousness as an emergent phenomenon, as something that arises from another framework so to speak. Emergency seems to be a property of our universe. Quarks and gluons form atoms, atoms bunched together form other stuff like proteins, proteins form cells, cells form organs and organs form beings.

    So, what is the fundamental difference between a piece of rock and a human being? The evolutionary complexity that allows for the emergent phenomenon we call consciousness to arise in us and not in the piece of rock. For me, the fact that humanity has been able achieve information processing in a silicon chip by organising the connections in a certain way is a good reminder that the only thing that separates me from a piece of rock is more complex way matter is arrange in my body.

    I think I exist just as much as my sofa or my shoes. The fact that we are self-aware is nothing but an illusion, which is a good thing, because this means we don’t die entirely as long as this universe exists. We just change our form. We decay because chaos and entropy(dissipation of energy) are integral parts of our universe. It’s just beautiful that most atoms in our body were forged in stars. But lets not downplay hydrogen as it is an element almost as old as the universe itself.

    But back to your question:

    Are we actually alive/real?

    To me, we are as real as everything around us that is not speaking back to us. We are as real as the universe that allows our existence as much as the existence of my coffee table, the star in the middle of our solar system and my neighbours’s fat cat whose entire existence is characterised by sleeping in the middle of his garden, like a royal, furry piece of rock.

    But are we alive? I think it is important to relative and analyse this from different frameworks and not only by making a contrast between dead and living things. In the physical framework we are as real as everything else and it doesn’t really matter if we are alive or not. In the framework of conscious beings we are alive. It is an illusion if you look from the physical framework, but nonetheless it does matter inside the boundaries of life itself. Atoms affect other atoms, cells affect other cells, conscious beings affect other conscious beings.

    All of these frameworks are bound by rules. We would not have made it this far without attending to our animal, evolutionary needs. I think this is important to notice because people tend to think that because we are self-aware, that we are more in control. While this is relatively true, we are definitely bound by certain behaviours as living things. A living being with disregard to its own life would not have made it through evolution. So our consciousness must too be biased to respect the illusion of life otherwise it wouldn't exist. Being conscious to the extent of a human is dangerous in this regard, because you are able to navigate through the different levels of complexity of reality whereas less conscious beings to the extent of other mammals are more instinctive therefore always readily respecting the rules that allowed their existence. It wasn't even their choice, they simply exist because they stick to a certain behaviour. So we have learned that life is an emergent illusion looking from the framework of physical things, but life does matter a lot inside the framework we perceive everyday, until the matter that forms us is no longer able to keep its complexity due to entropy and chaos thereby disabling the emergent phenomenon we call consciousness, aka death, blending us back with the other less-complex yet just as real stuff that don’t speak back to us.

    I’ll perfect this answer later

    First link is about how we appear to be one way but "in reality" it's not.

    Second one is the same, calling life an illusion because it's just arrangements of atoms or structures.

    I want to know how accurate this view is. Calling everything just base parts seems off, like it missing something in the analysis by trying to cut away everything but the base level. I agree everything is made of the same stuff, sure, but calling life an illusion seems a bit much, if not absurd.
  • Nickolasgaspar
    1k
    Are we actually alive/real?
    If you catch your self asking the above question.....you are alive.
    If you respond to me post...then I am also alive (possibly).
    This is what defines existence....interactions between elements and entities
  • Philosophim
    2.2k
    I wouldn't say life is an illusion, just another state of matter. One way to look at life is it is an internally self-sustaining chemical reaction. In a non-living reaction, the matter required to create the reaction eventually runs out on its own. Life seeks to sustain and extend its own balance of chemical reactions.
  • BC
    13.1k


    The fact that we are self-aware is nothing but an illusion, which is a good thing, because this means we don’t die entirely as long as this universe exists. We just change our form.

    Is that a fact?

    Is this alleged illusion your hedge against death?

    If self-awareness is an illusion, why isn't your claim that we exist (in some form) as long as the universe exists also an illusion?

    Change form -- into what? Not only are the atoms which make up our bodies the products of dying stars, those atoms have been recycled through every organism that has existed since... let's say 3.7 billion years ago, give or take 15 minutes. Not only that, but some of those atoms also partiipated in being rocks for a while. Your atoms are goin to do the same thing -- leave you behind and become something else which will also be short lived.

    In my universe, the lame don't walk, the blind don't see, and the dead stay dead. Entirely. That's what death means. Non-existence, period. But take heart. You sofa and shoes will join you in oblivion at their earliest possible convenience.
  • 180 Proof
    14k
    "Life" might be nothing more than an ongoing, self-esteeming story certain ephemeral, coprophagic arrangements of matter are telling themselves. :flower:
  • Agent Smith
    9.5k
    I've always had trouble with definitions.
  • javi2541997
    4.9k
    Paradoxically, life is only meaningful when death is approaching to us.

    "Life" might be nothing more than an ongoing, self-esteeming story certain ephemeral, coprophagic arrangements of matter are telling themselves180 Proof

    :up: :sparkle:
  • Darkneos
    689
    It's not me saying that I'm just asking if that view is valid.

    I personally am leaning towards no, because if there's one thing I've learned is that existence is complicated.
  • BC
    13.1k
    "Life" might be nothing more than an ongoing, self-esteeming story certain ephemeral, coprophagic arrangements of matter are telling themselves.180 Proof

    Succinct summation!
  • frank
    14.5k
    This is what defines existence....interactions between elements and entitiesNickolasgaspar

    How does that work if you're in a void?
  • Nickolasgaspar
    1k
    (absolute)void has not been proven possible within our universe. (Quantum Fluctuations). So we constantly observe interactions in every scale of the universe.
  • 180 Proof
    14k
    It's my first language. Yours?

    Danke.

    :up:
  • BC
    13.1k
    Maybe my response was too aggressive. I hadn't looked at the Huffington Post piece when I responded.

    In New Age wisdom, this truth is easily accepted, but what is the evidence that backs this up? If the physical form is in fact an illusion, who are you having sex with? — Huffington Post

    I don't know what your philosophical/intellectual background is. Sanskrit is not in mine and neither is Indian (Hindu?) thought. Fans of "New Age 'Wisdom'" seem prepared to believe a lot of flaky propositions. (The flakiness occurs during the casual borrowing of bits and pieces of other religious systems.).

    Animal sensory ability--bacteria on up to us--perceives the actual physical world. We can dither about illusions but wolves and rabbits don't. Wolf/rabbit brains work pretty much the same way our do. When our existence is subjected to harsh conditions where survival is dicey, we don't worry about illusions either. We also grab the rabbit and eat it--raw, if necessary.

    Once we have the leisure to roast domestic rabbits, we start spinning out interesting ideas about gods, illusion, Maya, the Trinity, Karma, and so on. Some of this thinking is not illusory, it's delusional. Our - perhaps - overly intellectual brains seem to need a certain amount of delusional thinking to put up with life. Otherwise, some people find reality terrifying.

    Reality IS terrifying, I'm not terrified just right now, but drop me off in the middle of nowhere and I'd be scared shitless.
  • javra
    2.4k
    I want to know how accurate this view is.Darkneos

    From what I’ve read in the OP, life is here considered illusory on account of being emergent (in this case, from non-life). In here granting a materialist’s general perspective, first, on what logical grounds does an emergent property necessitate that it be illusory rather than real? The properties of water are emergent from the properties of two gases - hydrogen and oxygen - when the latter’s atoms are covalently bound together; ergo, the properties of water are illusory? Secondly, from a materialist perspective, what existent would not be in any way emergent from something else - other than, maybe, the quantum vacuum field and/or some free-floating natural laws and the like?

    Seems to me that this same argument for life being illusory offered in the OP quote will, by its own reasoning, also conclude in affirming that everything else we commonly appraise as real is likewise illusory - for it is all in some way or other emergent. That a materialist can be fine with entertaining this while in the same breath deploring notions such as Maya is, to me, something of wonder.
  • Janus
    15.4k
    "Life" might be nothing more than an ongoing, self-esteeming story certain ephemeral, coprophagic arrangements of matter are telling themselves. :flower:180 Proof

    I like the "ephemeral", the "coprophagic" not so much.

    If you were offered the chance to live forever as long as you ate nothing but shit would you take it?
  • 180 Proof
    14k
    Your question assumes that when we eat carcasses (and over-processed foodstuffs) we're not, in effect, eating shit ... how curious.
  • Tom Storm
    8.3k
    Once we have the leisure to roast domestic rabbits, we start spinning out interesting ideas about gods, illusion, Maya, the Trinity, Karma, and so on. Some of this thinking is not illusory, it's delusional. Our - perhaps - overly intellectual brains seem to need a certain amount of delusional thinking to put up with life. Otherwise, some people find reality terrifying.BC

    We certainly seem to need and cherish our bedtime stories.
  • Janus
    15.4k
    Fair enough, I suppose...but I draw a distinction between "eating shit" and eating shit. :lol:
  • frank
    14.5k
    (absolute)void has not been proven possible within our universe. (Quantum Fluctuations). So we constantly observe interactions in every scale of the universe.Nickolasgaspar

    You, alone in the void. That's the beginning of one of Einstein's thought experiments. Did he make a mistake?
  • Agent Smith
    9.5k
    It's my first language. Yours?180 Proof

    Allah rahim.
  • Agent Smith
    9.5k
    Amor fati.180 Proof

    :up:
  • Wayfarer
    20.6k
    I wouldn't say life is an illusion, just another state of matter.Philosophim

    Gee where would I look in my chemistry and physics texts for the description of that state?
  • Philosophim
    2.2k
    Gee where would I look in my chemistry and physics texts for the description of that state?Wayfarer

    I thought you of all people would be interested in exploring ideas outside of established science. Do you have anything to comment about the idea of life being a self-sustaining chemical reaction? Actually contribute Wayfarer.
  • Wayfarer
    20.6k
    I thought you of all people would be interested in exploring ideas outside of established sciencePhilosophim

    That is not 'an idea outside established science'. It is what is described as physicalism, reductionism or materialism. Some scientists adhere to it, but others do not.

    Do you have anything to comment about the idea of life being a self-sustaining chemical reaction?Philosophim

    I've mentioned a source recently - a journal article in biology, as it happens - that disputes this contention. It claims that there is nothing in any known chemical process which can account for the ability of organisms to store and transmit biological information, to maintain homeostasis, and so forth. 'Ernst Mayr, one of the architects of the modern synthesis [advocates] the view that life is fundamentally different from inanimate matter. In The growth of biological thought, p. 124, he made this point in no uncertain terms: 'The discovery of the genetic code was a breakthrough of the first order. It showed why organisms are fundamentally different from any kind of nonliving material. There is nothing in the inanimate world that has a genetic program which stores information with a history of three thousand million years!’

    The idea that ‘life is chemistry plus information’ implies that information is ontologically different from chemistry.'

    Ernst Walter Mayr was one of the 20th century's leading evolutionary biologists.

    So - why do you think that life can be described as a 'self-sustaining chemical reaction'? Do you have any grounds for that belief?
  • javra
    2.4k
    Once we have the leisure to roast domestic rabbits, we start spinning out interesting ideas about gods, illusion, Maya, the Trinity, Karma, and so on. Some of this thinking is not illusory, it's delusional. Our - perhaps - overly intellectual brains seem to need a certain amount of delusional thinking to put up with life. Otherwise, some people find reality terrifying. — BC

    We certainly seem to need and cherish our bedtime stories.
    Tom Storm

    I so far don't understand how any of this is relevant to the OP.

    The elephant in the room in this thread is vitalism (not specific variants which oddly enough sought to measure the immeasurable as though life were itself somehow a physical property, but simply as the general idea that life is fundamentally different from non-life). If, as is commonly believed today, vitalism is false such that there is no fundamental difference between life and non-life, and if all that we deem life is emergent in all respects from non-life, then - as per the OP quote - life can be deemed an illusion rather than real. One of those delusional bedtime stories we tell ourselves and our children: that we are alive.

    Consequences of materialism 101.

    Don’t know about others, but this way of thinking gives me a good laugh. Still, for the typical materialist, it’s nowhere near as worrisome as the prospect of vitalism - wherein the reality of life becomes, for the materialist, something to be scared about.
  • Wayfarer
    20.6k
    The elephant in the room in this thread is vitalismjavra

    'Vitalism' is a reference to Henri Bergson's 'élan vital' - conceived as a 'vital force or impetus'. It is generally said to have been completely discredited by genetic science.

    But then, I think it's mistaken to believe that the élan vital exists in the sense that, say, enzymes exist, or magnetic fields exist. There's no such actual thing or force. But it might be interpreted metaphorically to signify a quality that living organisms possess. I think a way of conceiving it might be along the lines of the relationship between meaning and the symbolic form in which meaning is encoded. You wouldn't try to identify 'meaning' as some ingredient of the ink and paper on a page you were reading. Nevertheless the meaning is what makes the words 'come alive', so to speak; without it, you lliterally have a meaningless string of characters. Meaning is implicit in the text.

    When I was just last in New York, I went for a walk, leaving Fifth Avenue and the Business section behind me, into the crowded streets near the Bowery. And while I was there, I had a sudden feeling of relief and confidence. There was Bergson’s élan vital—there was assimilation causing life to exert as much pressure, though embodied here in the shape of men, as it has ever done in the earliest year of evolution: there was the driving force of progress. — Julian Huxley
  • Nickolasgaspar
    1k
    That is an irrelevant example.
    Albert's thought experiments ARE NOT claims about facts of reality....the keyword is "thought experiments"
    His work was not on QM and the Nobel awarded model of Quantum fluctuations came much later.
    Absolute void is NOT possible (according to our current data) in our universe. Quantum foam is everywhere.
  • javra
    2.4k
    But it might be interpreted metaphorically to signify a quality that living organisms possess. I think a way of conceiving it might be along the lines of the relationship between meaning and the symbolic form in which meaning is encoded.Wayfarer

    I agree.

    Another prominent factor I find of interest is that of intentions (teloi). Life is overtly intentional, goal-oriented. Whereas non-life is either fully devoid of intentionality or - if interpreted through certain ancient philosophical perspectives - can potentially be deemed covertly intentional only in so far as it abides by the logos' (universal reasoning's) laws in progressing toward an Aristotelian final cause as prime mover. Although I grant this latter option is very offbeat. Still, either way, I do find that life is fundamentally different from non-life; that there is a "vital impetus" intrinsic to life that is missing in non-life.

    At any rate, I deem this a better perspective than declaring life to be illusory. :wink:
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