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Are we alive or dead?

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Reply 20
Original post by The person
But the definition of "alive" was created by humans, right? What makes our definition correct?


Well yeah it's socially constructed, just like the concept of right and wrong. I'm just curious because a lot of things are attached to the concept of life and death, so knowing this and possibly believing it, does it change your perspective on life and death things that surround you and also yourself. Is there a distinction between what we consider alive and dead?
Original post by tailred
Please answer it. :smile:


Scientific wise - it's the mrs gren checklist. Viruses aren't considered living since they can't reproduce without the help of a host cell. Therefore, in a scientific perspective, we are living. But this is very clear cut.

Philosophical wise, one can consider oneself to not be living. This is a bit deep but there was a philosopher (forgotten his name :colondollar:), who suggested that we could possibly be dead right now. Perhaps we are born into death? Is death now the beginning of something? Who knows if the things we are experiencing at this moment is actually something our 'mass collected consciousness' have produced.

However Descartes provided a simple 'evidence' that we are living - "I think therefore I am" - pretty sure most of you here know the details about his statement so I won't go into detail on it.

There was someone else who provided the possibility that we are all attached to a computer. It is the computers that has created the environment now that we think we are living in.

Note that the philosophical arguments can touch upon religion matters. E.g. Buddhism claims that we are neither dead nor alive. We were never born so how can we 'die'? 'Birth' meaning enlightenment I suppose.

Other religions could say that our birth happens when we die.

etc etc etc

Spoiler

Has anyone had a dream where you actually felt it was real? I mean, a dream where everything felt like reality, almost like virtual reality?
Reply 23
Original post by Ordo
I agree with some people who think that life includes certain qualities in addition to an ability to replicate so the viruses may be alive.


So you believe in a obvious distinction between life and death. ite gg:smile:
Original post by Namita Gurung
Scientific wise - it's the mrs gren checklist. Viruses aren't considered living since they can't reproduce without the help of a host cell. Therefore, in a scientific perspective, we are living. But this is very clear cut.

Philosophical wise, one can consider oneself to not be living. This is a bit deep but there was a philosopher (forgotten his name :colondollar:), who suggested that we could possibly be dead right now. Perhaps we are born into death? Is death now the beginning of something? Who knows if the things we are experiencing at this moment is actually something our 'mass collected consciousness' have produced.

However Descartes provided a simple 'evidence' that we are living - "I think therefore I am" - pretty sure most of you here know the details about his statement so I won't go into detail on it.

There was someone else who provided the possibility that we are all attached to a computer. It is the computers that has created the environment now that we think we are living in.

Note that the philosophical arguments can touch upon religion matters. E.g. Buddhism claims that we are neither dead nor alive. We were never born so how can we 'die'? 'Birth' meaning enlightenment I suppose.

Other religions could say that our birth happens when we die.

etc etc etc

Spoiler



But isn't the Earth OUR host cell?
Original post by The person
Has anyone had a dream where you actually felt it was real? I mean, a dream where everything felt like reality, almost like virtual reality?


like lucid??
Reply 26
Original post by Asuna Yuuki
We're definitely not dead ~ that requires having been alive.

I'd say the real question is whether we're alive, or whether being alive really exists :moon:


godamn. In our perception i guess being alive does exist.
We're in a superposition of both states until we look at each other and collapse the wavefunction.

But in regards to the initial post, maybe viruses are kind of like little, organic (bloody annoying) robots? I mean, robots aren't living, AI or no AI.
Original post by Banana208
like lucid??


What's that?
Reply 29
Original post by Namita Gurung
Scientific wise - it's the mrs gren checklist. Viruses aren't considered living since they can't reproduce without the help of a host cell. Therefore, in a scientific perspective, we are living. But this is very clear cut.

Philosophical wise, one can consider oneself to not be living. This is a bit deep but there was a philosopher (forgotten his name :colondollar:), who suggested that we could possibly be dead right now. Perhaps we are born into death? Is death now the beginning of something? Who knows if the things we are experiencing at this moment is actually something our 'mass collected consciousness' have produced.

However Descartes provided a simple 'evidence' that we are living - "I think therefore I am" - pretty sure most of you here know the details about his statement so I won't go into detail on it.

There was someone else who provided the possibility that we are all attached to a computer. It is the computers that has created the environment now that we think we are living in.

Note that the philosophical arguments can touch upon religion matters. E.g. Buddhism claims that we are neither dead nor alive. We were never born so how can we 'die'? 'Birth' meaning enlightenment I suppose.

Other religions could say that our birth happens when we die.

etc etc etc

Spoiler



so how do we define what death truly is based around philosophy?
Reply 30
Original post by leafcannon
We're in a superposition of both states until we look at each other and collapse the wavefunction.

But in regards to the initial post, maybe viruses are kind of like little, organic (bloody annoying) robots? I mean, robots aren't living, AI or no AI.


Hold up, i am confused by your first sentence. What does that mean?
Original post by The person
Has anyone had a dream where you actually felt it was real? I mean, a dream where everything felt like reality, almost like virtual reality?

Definitely. Sometimes my dreams can be so real that I feel like I've done certain things when I haven't at all in real life. Doesn't help that my dreams are usually things that can easily happen on a day-to-day basis.

What if this all is our dream? Could link back to the brains in a jar (computer) theory...

Original post by The person
But isn't the Earth OUR host cell?


Idk fam idk
Viruses are said to be nonliving since they use host cells to reproduce - with the host cell being e.g. my t-cell. Complication with the Earth being our host cell is that it's too vague. A cell is a more specific term than calling the Earth our 'cell'

Deep question :yy:
Original post by The person
What's that?

"Paul Tholey, a German theorist, proposed seven different conditions of clarity that a dream must fulfill in order to be defined as a lucid dream:

1.

Awareness of the dream state (orientation)

2.

Awareness of the capacity to make decisions

3.

Awareness of memory functions

4.

Awareness of self

5.

Awareness of the dream environment

6.

Awareness of the meaning of the dream

7.

Awareness of concentration and focus (the subjective clarity of that state)."


Basically you are dreaming but you are conciously aware of whatever is going on inside it
Reply 33
Original post by The person
What's that?



A lucid dream is any dream during which the dreamer is aware that they are dreaming.
Original post by tailred
so how do we define what death truly is based around philosophy?


Frankly, there is no clear cut definition of death since there are too many disagreements on what 'death' consists of. Could it be a gateway to something or when we simply cease to exist. This has problems though since what if being 'alive' does not really exist. What then? Does this mean that this concept called death is not really real?

Tbh there is no ending in philosophy. The many branches of a single term is completely mind-boggling. Defining death, in my opinion, is a reductionist approach. The intricacy of the beliefs surrounding death and what it really is will be too constrictive.
Original post by tailred
Hold up, i am confused by your first sentence. What does that mean?


It's a scientific paradox: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schr%C3%B6dinger%27s_cat

Anyways, I only typed that as I saw "alive or dead" in the thread's title. You can ignore that.
Original post by tailred
The meaning of human life, biologically is to pass on genetic information, to reproduce. One can argue that we do this to remain alive/ this is the closet we get to immortality or this is for the survival of the entire human race. That's not the point of this post however.

Point is, that Viruses also reproduce/ pass on their DNA/ RNA yet they are not considered alive. So dead things can also reproduce?

Also, i have heard of theories suggesting that mitochondria, an organelle of bacteria were once living organisms that evolved into a state of death, moving into the modern bacterial cell that we know today, just so it could pass on it's own DNA/ RNA, hence reproducing itself.

Is there much distinction between life and death if any?


Not being alive doesn't necessarily mean you're dead. Inanimate objects are neither dead nor alive.
Original post by Ordo
A lucid dream is any dream during which the dreamer is aware that they are dreaming.


I didn't feel like I was dreaming, I felt that I was just living another day of life. Everything felt too real. It's like before I went to bed it was Monday, then my dream was like a Tuesday, then when I woke up it was a Wednesday. Like I lived 2 days in one.
Reply 38
Original post by leafcannon
It's a scientific paradox: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schr%C3%B6dinger%27s_cat

Anyways, I only typed that as I saw "alive or dead" in the thread's title. You can ignore that.


Oh ok.
Reply 39
Original post by The person
Has anyone had a dream where you actually felt it was real? I mean, a dream where everything felt like reality, almost like virtual reality?


Yep.

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