No Life, No Death, No Service
Here's a topic most of you probably don't ever think about: do life and death exist? Before you start laughing and writing of the inherent idiocies of such a question, seriously consider it. Is there a necessity to life and death as we know it? Have we become wrapped up in a false dichotomy that we all now take to be automatically correct? Reality is full of false dichotomies, and since we all take life and death for granted, shouldn't we give some thought to this idea?
Consider these premises: 1) there can be no death without life; 2) there can be no life without death; 3) given 1 and 2, if P therefore Q and Q therefore P, then the two premises logically follow to meaningless statements: if life then life and if death then death. Now by themselves, the fact that the two premises can lead to ridiculously useless conclusions (via a logical hypothetical syllogism) does not necesarily make them completely wrong. There are other things to consider though.
It is generally assumed that if something follows from something else, the something else precedes the something in terms of existence. Basically, if the egg came after and from the chicken, then the chicken preceded the egg. In this case, given premises 1 and 2, death cannot exist without life preceding it, and life cannot exist without death preceding it. This logical conundrum can be taken to mean many different things, things which could be talked about at length for quite a long time. Currently, I will only endeavor to cover the most important implications and potential refutations that people would make.
If life and death both must precede each other in order for the to exist, then it would seem like the conceptions concerning life and death are flawed in some way. Because something that precedes another thing necessarily comes before the second thing, it is absolutely and logically impossible (at least in a world of linear logic and thinking) for two things to simultaneously precede each other. The chicken and the egg cannot both come before each other; one of them has to come first. If life and death both precede each other, then there is a serious problem with these age old conceptions.
Probably the first and serious attack that anyone would make on this whole line of thought would be to challenge the correctness of premise 2 (there can be no life without death). The reasons for disavowing this are almost intuitive to human nature. First, it seems to natural to believe that life came before death and that life can exist without death as a necessary condition. It is at least conceivable that life could be created with an intrinsic immortality, and thus death as we conceive of it would never be part of the equation. However, it also seems that in this situation, death is still a possibility, just one that has been averted due to immortality from the get go. It is also not clear how anything would evolve much past the first few cells if the first few cells never died. Basically, this first attack is as potent as it is indefensible. Still, depending on what basic theories and conceptions you have about reality, the argument made by the opponents of my view seem to be more or less intuitively correct. It is hard to stomach the idea that life cannot exist without death (because this seems to be such a negative view, especially given our culture's general fear and disdain of death, coupled with the finality given to death as a state of being).
There is something to be said though for life needing death. Death being a concept, it can have limitless definitions (like many things in our language). Definitions have a tendency to be subjective, and this is no exception. However, let's use a general definition (supplied by dictionary.com). Death is, "The act of dying; termination of life." What is life then? Life in the obvious sense seems to be the quality of not being dead; in a more scientific sense, it is characterized by some assembly of molecule's having a metabolism and other processes that aren't necessarily directly caused by outside causes (a cell's metabolism may be influenced by outside causes, but they don't seem to always directly be caused by outside causes). If life is just not being dead, then that doesn't give much substance to life, especially if death's existence is predicated on the existence of life. Generally speaking, two things cannot create each other; one usually must supersist the other. Though it might be conceivable that two things could simultaneously give rise to the existence of each other, I can think of no feasible example. This is not definitive, but it is a challenge to opponents of this article.
I guess the basic point I'm trying to get across here is that perhaps life and death are not absolute metaphysical entities like we perceive them to be. Life seems to give a special status to one of the defining features of earth, but there seems to be nothing necessarily special about life from a unbiased standpoint (nothing living could take a truly unbiased standpoint about living things). Things seem to be in a constant state of change, and perhaps the distinction of life and death is somewhat archaic. After all, much in reality seems to be cyclical, and pinning down the boundless cosmic processes that are in continual action in reality seems to indicate a jejune and immature thought process. As human beings we are special to earth, but in a big universe, we are not objectively unique.
Just try to think about things and not take everything in reality as intuitive. Life and death could be the truth, but there is not anything necessary about them. They have dominated human perceptions (or at least western perspectives) for centuries, but that does not make them true. Think about things, and you may see life and death can still be true for you, but you might understand why they're not true for others. Try to understand things subjectively instead of objectively, and remember there are an infinite number of sides for every potential view or idea. With all of this said, I conclude this long entry, and bid thee good night (aren't I an ass?).
Consider these premises: 1) there can be no death without life; 2) there can be no life without death; 3) given 1 and 2, if P therefore Q and Q therefore P, then the two premises logically follow to meaningless statements: if life then life and if death then death. Now by themselves, the fact that the two premises can lead to ridiculously useless conclusions (via a logical hypothetical syllogism) does not necesarily make them completely wrong. There are other things to consider though.
It is generally assumed that if something follows from something else, the something else precedes the something in terms of existence. Basically, if the egg came after and from the chicken, then the chicken preceded the egg. In this case, given premises 1 and 2, death cannot exist without life preceding it, and life cannot exist without death preceding it. This logical conundrum can be taken to mean many different things, things which could be talked about at length for quite a long time. Currently, I will only endeavor to cover the most important implications and potential refutations that people would make.
If life and death both must precede each other in order for the to exist, then it would seem like the conceptions concerning life and death are flawed in some way. Because something that precedes another thing necessarily comes before the second thing, it is absolutely and logically impossible (at least in a world of linear logic and thinking) for two things to simultaneously precede each other. The chicken and the egg cannot both come before each other; one of them has to come first. If life and death both precede each other, then there is a serious problem with these age old conceptions.
Probably the first and serious attack that anyone would make on this whole line of thought would be to challenge the correctness of premise 2 (there can be no life without death). The reasons for disavowing this are almost intuitive to human nature. First, it seems to natural to believe that life came before death and that life can exist without death as a necessary condition. It is at least conceivable that life could be created with an intrinsic immortality, and thus death as we conceive of it would never be part of the equation. However, it also seems that in this situation, death is still a possibility, just one that has been averted due to immortality from the get go. It is also not clear how anything would evolve much past the first few cells if the first few cells never died. Basically, this first attack is as potent as it is indefensible. Still, depending on what basic theories and conceptions you have about reality, the argument made by the opponents of my view seem to be more or less intuitively correct. It is hard to stomach the idea that life cannot exist without death (because this seems to be such a negative view, especially given our culture's general fear and disdain of death, coupled with the finality given to death as a state of being).
There is something to be said though for life needing death. Death being a concept, it can have limitless definitions (like many things in our language). Definitions have a tendency to be subjective, and this is no exception. However, let's use a general definition (supplied by dictionary.com). Death is, "The act of dying; termination of life." What is life then? Life in the obvious sense seems to be the quality of not being dead; in a more scientific sense, it is characterized by some assembly of molecule's having a metabolism and other processes that aren't necessarily directly caused by outside causes (a cell's metabolism may be influenced by outside causes, but they don't seem to always directly be caused by outside causes). If life is just not being dead, then that doesn't give much substance to life, especially if death's existence is predicated on the existence of life. Generally speaking, two things cannot create each other; one usually must supersist the other. Though it might be conceivable that two things could simultaneously give rise to the existence of each other, I can think of no feasible example. This is not definitive, but it is a challenge to opponents of this article.
I guess the basic point I'm trying to get across here is that perhaps life and death are not absolute metaphysical entities like we perceive them to be. Life seems to give a special status to one of the defining features of earth, but there seems to be nothing necessarily special about life from a unbiased standpoint (nothing living could take a truly unbiased standpoint about living things). Things seem to be in a constant state of change, and perhaps the distinction of life and death is somewhat archaic. After all, much in reality seems to be cyclical, and pinning down the boundless cosmic processes that are in continual action in reality seems to indicate a jejune and immature thought process. As human beings we are special to earth, but in a big universe, we are not objectively unique.
Just try to think about things and not take everything in reality as intuitive. Life and death could be the truth, but there is not anything necessary about them. They have dominated human perceptions (or at least western perspectives) for centuries, but that does not make them true. Think about things, and you may see life and death can still be true for you, but you might understand why they're not true for others. Try to understand things subjectively instead of objectively, and remember there are an infinite number of sides for every potential view or idea. With all of this said, I conclude this long entry, and bid thee good night (aren't I an ass?).
posted by Andrew McKenna at 2:07 PM
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