Are we unique? Are we something utterly special in the universe, or are we an example of many, many civilizations that have been merged, many, many different life forms?

I don't get it, explain. Do you mean something merged us?

I doubt we're special. To think we're special in the universe is kinda arrogant. I bet theres a species thats really very similar to us out there somewhere.

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Originally posted by jack's missing mind:
I doubt we're special. To think we're special in the universe is kinda arrogant.

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That explains why life on Earth is becoming so mudane. And you are a shining example of why it is happening.



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You're in a laundry room, you're in a laundry room, the clue just came to you? Oh.

I'm just saying that humanity probably isn't one of a kind.

I doubt any life evolved like us in form or conciousness...Not to say its not better or more evolved, but chances are its way different.

i suspect it's rather similar, design wise anyways, appearance could be totally different.

amazing the things that you can't do if you don't have opposable thumbs.

Nothing important to creatures that dont evolve in an environment like Earth...Why cant they be intelligent viruses? Or tiny insect things that can combine their intelligence like ants can? Why cnt it be some kind of concious gas that exists in more than three dimensions? Or just a telepathic wave of concious energy? Im sure there are a million totally fucked up things the Universe can invent with different radiation pulses and atmospheres.

I'm not doubting that lifeforms like that exist. All I'm saying is that there are probably lots of sentient beings and species in the universe and there are probably at least one or two that are very similar to us.

Probably, my point was, its not like Star Wars.

Whatever you say, quoting another film.. it's each other that make the emptyness bearable. If it's just us, it's awfully empty. Either way, doesn't it say something about how rare and special we all are?

i doubt intelligent viruses, viruses aren't even classified as a life form.

dolphins and whales may be intelligent to a point.

but i don't see intelligence developing without the ability to create technology.

and if it was easy to create technology reptiles should be well ahead of the human race.

I think viruses are from space.

Why cant they be intelligent? What if they have weird chemicals like brain cells that can combine to form intelligence, so a colony can combine all their collective experience? Ant colonies do that with their sensors. A colony of ants can become as smart as a dog because their antennae act like brain cells.

aren't we talking intelligence beyond instinct?

intelligence is not only working together for a common good, it's also being DEFIANT for your own good.

when one ant says fuck that bitch, let her build her own shit and makes a sailboat out of matchsticks to sail across the puddle,

then i'll concede intelligence.

when a dog looks at his master and says get that stick your damn self, i'm sick of being humiliated to satisfy your amusement.

then i'll concede intelligence.

when a bird puts a roof on their nest with a fireplace so they don't have to move south,

then i'll concede intelligence.

until then there is nothing i've seen that says intelligence will develop while lacking certain physical characteristics.

man is the youngest species of life on this planet, yet we are the more advanced, which tells me intelligence is not necessarily linked to survival and not an evolutionary trait.

no other species required this to survive millenia, its hard to think that man alone out of the billions of life forms past and present would need it and develop it virtually overnight.

man is also the only species living a different existance than he did only 100 years ago,

reptiles have been living the way they have for millions.

and they haven't even grasped as simple a concept as the wheel in that amount of time.

Cancer works interestingly. There is one cell that acts like a queen that controls the rest or atleast stunts the other cancer cells. If you kill this queen other cells become queens themselves so instead of one queen you got like twenty and the cancer spreads like crazy.



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When the walls of perception are finally cleared, we will all see things as they truly are.

-William Blake

Why does intelligence have to resemble humans to be labelled as such? Why do animals have to have pride to be intelligent (referring to the dogs defiance to fetch example)
Doing good for yourself is just an extension of doing good for the species. Any animal that can solve problems with imagination is intelligent. Octopi dont have pride, but theyre damn smart.

you must have indepth conversations with octopuses on the consequence of their existance and on their ability to define it to come to that conclusion.

and if dogs were really all that smart would they really drink out of the toilet instead of their water dish which was filled with fresh water 5 minutes ago.

it must be the genius intellect coming through when they try and fuck my leg.

I believe it luck, no more, just a turn of the dice. I think the soul is a very hedonistic and self obsessed idea that Hey this can't be it, this can't be all the must be something that lives on, aka the Soul. I believe the only soul you have is the memory of you that other people carry with them, that is your immortality or at least it's mine.

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~Kameron
Carpe Aptenodytes! (Seize the Penguins!)

That's not immortality, because your family will eventually die off and in a hundred years your great great grandkids aren't going to remember you unless you do something really awesome. Even if you do something that just changes teh world forever, then after a few thousand years, you'll probably still be forgotten.

Kameron, what other people remember of you? There is about 1000000000 people that dont even know who you are, and less that care, its what you do with the time that you are coincouse that really matters. The physical triumphs for yourself, and the thoughts that have been processed through your mind. I m not too sure whats important apart from being content with your life and having no regrets.

Passing on your gentic code is a kind of immortality. You share the traits of all who came before you and you will pass them on to your children, so on and so on. Look in to the mirror and see all the dominant traits of all those who came before you.

Even if you don't believe in a god it is not beyond the realm of possibility that there is an existence beyond this one, religous or otherwise. No one knows for sure if there is an afterlife, it doesn't really matter. What does matter is what you do with this life. Be happy or atleast mildly amused.

As far as animals being intelligent.

"I've heard a great deal of excitement of dolphins learning a few words of English, but I have yet to hear of one human learning Dolphinese."

-Carl Sagan

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When the walls of perception are finally cleared, we will all see things as they truly are.

-William Blake

you will exist forever. there is no doubt of that.

it's whether you'll be conscious of that existance that is in question.

i think we will; and even if i am wrong what does it matter anywar.

and i don't believe in luck, just a set of events put forth at the beginning of time, that result in the event of something happening for or against ones favor.

waking up in the morning can be viewed as a matter of luck, with insurmountable possibilities that could've prevented not only your parents but way back to birth of your great great great grandfather's parents from meeting. and all the other intangibles that kept the line going right down to you.

getting four aces in poker is about the same odds for just one generation.

four aces in poker is luck, four aces throughout the entire night is rigged.

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jack's missing mind:
That's not immortality, because your family will eventually die off and in a hundred years your great great grandkids aren't going to remember you unless you do something really awesome. Even if you do something that just changes teh world forever, then after a few thousand years, you'll probably still be forgotten.

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Yes but I get to choose how I bring up my kids, I influence people I know, and those things chance everything my effects on these people spreading out like ripples on a pond, till everyone in the world has been effected by me if they know it of not, that is immortality.

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PcThUg2ooo
Kameron, what other people remember of you? There is about 1000000000 people that dont even know who you are, and less that care, its what you do with the time that you are coincouse that really matters. The physical triumphs for yourself, and the thoughts that have been processed through your mind. I m not too sure whats important apart from being content with your life and having no regrets.

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To be honest I think your over rating my importance I think there are many many many more people who will never hear of me but see the previous answer.

I had thought of the passing on your genes thing before but I'd discarded it because it lead to the inevitable conclusion that life is all about fucking, which although it's great and that and is the be all and end all there is more, not much but still it is more.

If you like the passing on your genes thing any more than I do then you have to assume that Christianity's insistence on monogamy is trying to reduce the size of your Soul, now that idea I like a lot.

It's all luck in my book.

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~Kameron
Carpe Aptenodytes! (Seize the Penguins!)