When i was walking around with my friend one day we came upon a little draining stream that was making its way through the parking lot. As we looked at it my friend said “it looks alive!”
then that struck me. What if life is but a mere illusion of what “looks alive”. Technically, our lives are an ongoing reaction from chemical and molecular level.
That bothered me because for one, my human nature shivers at the thought that i have no purpose and im just a random occurrence, just like this water flow below my feet. Am i about as alive as this water flowing at my feet? At first it seems that way. But no it isn’t.
Its just degrees of complexity separates what is truly alive and not alive. From universal abstract mathematical functions, comes physics. The rules of physics dictate chemical reactions. Chemical reactions dictates the function of biological processes. Biological processes dictate neurological operations, which in turn influence psychological traits and behaviors.
These traits and behaviors make a person, and that person in turn influences other persons and this creates society. Alive and breathing, dynamic and moving. But when derived six degrees, everything we know, who we are, and what we do can be represented abstractly in a mathematical function.
in other words, my example shows that in order for us to classify ourselves as alives, we draw a very vague line between what is alive and what isn’t alive.
Both the waterstream and ourselves are both dynamic, changing and moving in time. However, the water stream is limited to the second level of complexity from math, hence not “alive” by any human standards compared to ourselves an individual, located on the 5th level of complexity
Also, these degrees of complexity inherent in our nature breaks inherent laws for lower level complex objects. The water basically seeks out the easiest path of travel, while us humans, while we are compelled to do so, other things that influence us may make us pick a harder way to go about things.
So yeh, thats kinda what i thought when it came to that.
Oh and also this begs the question, how did we come from an abstract idea jump five levels in complexity and become the humans who are alive now? It doesn’t seem to follow the rule of entropy, as you see the universe operates on.
but yeh, i’ll stop here