Quote:
Originally Posted by Freebase Dali
^ Humans don't strive anywhere nearly as hard as other animals do to survive. We're just sitting on top the food chain, so it's inevitable that we'll spread and continue. But we're not without an instinct for survival, just like everything else. I don't think that's a human trait at all... We just have an emotional and intellectual context to ours. If anything, that's the only separation between our will to survive and any other species.
The other stuff you said raises an interesting question in my mind... In one hand, there is the belief that we [all life] are pretty much an accident... a result of perfect conditions (which is what I subscribe to) and in the other there is the belief that our conditions are too finely tuned to have been an accident. The question I have is are we really looking at this from the correct perspective?
Down here on earth is a pretty biased place to be making assumptions about the scope of what's probable. Considering the countless numbers of other planets out in the universe that we can only estimate, it would be unreasonable for life to not have sprung up somewhere. For all we know, there could be another planet out there with the exact same conditions. There SHOULD be, if chance has anything to do with it.
So what makes us so special?
I think what makes us [humans] special is we're intelligent enough to know that we're unique on our planet, but too emotional and egotistical to accept that it has nothing to do with us.
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I don't think I gave humans any more credit than any other species. I was talking about life in general...humans being one outcome. And the view that things are way too finely tuned to be a coincidence isn't quite what I meant. I believe we are happy accidents as well...what I am saying is life cycles through a lot of possibilities for survival until something works. The chances of finding that correct possibility (because of the incredibly specific nature of our genomes) is very low...which is why I feel as if there is a bigger, "driving force" (not necessarily god...I don't like my beliefs to get that specific) behind everything.
I don't feel as if we are special at all. We are just experiencers of the universe. I also believe in life on other planets. With the current scientific view, the chances of life having successfully evolved on those planets is low. I'm saying the "driving force" applies there as well. If we take that into account, any place that has the potential for life will have life for this reason.