Love & Women

[ciaoamica]

Someone PLEASE tell me what this word "LOVE" means. I have searched and searched for love with no luck. Please enlighten me with the wisdom of the masses.

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Do not worry about tomorrow for tomorrow has enough troubles of it's own.
Worry about today and you may live life to the fullest!

[sgtfuzzbubble011]

Love is your relationship with Winamp.

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Give me NyQuil and no one gets hurt!

[ciaoamica]

OK, there's one, but lets go a little deeper here. Everyone knows about the love that we all share for winamp. That's not a secret. Here's your chance to express yourself without the remorse or guilt that you may find from someone else.

[rm']

To alter the words of George Burns, "Love is a horrible bitch goddess"

A woman is like a rollercoaster. Your dying to ride it, but when your in for the long haul, your screaming to get out.

[This message has been edited by Radioactive Man (edited September 03, 2000).]

[ReDVsion]

If you thought you could define love in words, your definition would be wrong. You'll feel it when you know it.

[rm']

And it always ends up feeling horible, so there, I defined it.

[sgtfuzzbubble011]

And, ummm..... Nevermind. Yeah, what you said.

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Give me NyQuil and no one gets hurt!

[Mulefire]

Love is a way of trying to rationalize the chaotic underpinnings of our great lie, society. Without love there would just be sex for sex's sake. Survival of the species. In our mistaken claims of superiority over our fellow denziens of this domain we try to lift ourselves above the act of copulation and translate it into something meaningful.

We have created our great book of laws based upon a supreme act of egotism. We strive for love, we know not what it really is only what we imagine it to be. We think we find it when for once in our miserable short lives we find something that makes us happy. So love is happiness, or is it relief?

If love is such an overwhelming spiritual ideal then to know it I guess you have to understand spirituality. In our mass egotism we give oursleves the spirit. We are pure and clean in our spirits, not "dirty" as other creatures. Our spirit is our salvation, it contains our goals and ideals. It is our redemption from the base corruption that we barely manage to conceal in everyday life. To try to give our spirit sustanance we invent this thing called love and through some subconicous validation routine we randomly generate it based on some bizzare chemical / neurological criteria. Love therfore does not exist. It is an amalogmation of various other states of mind and other less "real" emotions. Love can be thought of as a catch all word that we band about with crazy abandon. Think of it as similar to the word "Snow", there is no such thing as "Snow" but rather there are a miriad of things that describe various states of a physical effect. The eskimos know this. We like to oversimplify things, thus the word "Snow" and "Love".

The act of falling in love is a strange one. In most cases what we think of as love is nothing more than lust. We tell oursleves that we love that person because we like them, like being with them, like making them happy etc. In reality we are being unconciously selfish and providing for our own needs, be they procreation or perhaps something as simply as company. Why is one person better than another? I use WinAmp becuase it fills certain needs I have. I might choose one person over another becuase they better fill my needs. I might not even be aware of what those needs are but I act upon them. Is that love? or just selfish instinctive survival mechanisms at work?

Okay have I alienated enough people yet? no.. okay.. well I'm not even going to go into the whole Love for God thing... you are spared!! Yay!

To sum up, if you love someone you are really using them. If you are loved and love back you are in a mutually compatible partnership. If you love someone and they don't love you, you are no better off now that you know what is up. Sorry...

Mule.
(who encourages rational debate! NOT mindless flames!)
(Oh and who is happily married and in "Love" )
(and who has a tendancy to waffle...sorry guys...)
(just think what you could have been doing other than reading this!)
(falling in "Love" for one!)
(hate mail to the usual)

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The surest sign there is intellegent life in the Universe is that they havn't come to visit us yet - Calvin & Hobbes

[Winsane]

I don't think I agree with quite all of it, but nice rant, Mule.

[Mulefire]

Heh... discourse discourse.... See I'm just a trouble maker really... so what don't you agree with...? come on out with it, you're just a hopeless romantic at heart! I must say I got a fair thwap from the the wife after she read that one...ouch...oh well guess I deserved it

Mule.
(I should say with all this mentioning of a wife and stuff that we got married when I was 19, her 18. I'm now 24...so 5 years is pretty good (after a month together!) So what does that say about love

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The surest sign there is intellegent life in the Universe is that they havn't come to visit us yet - Calvin & Hobbes

[Jayn]

Mule, I guess I am a hopeless romantic at heart...Yay! to your wife...I'd have probably thwapped ya' too!

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Jayn
http://members.xoom.com/WSDskins

[Winsane]

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Mulefire:
If love is such an overwhelming spiritual ideal then to know it I guess you have to understand spirituality.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>
Nah, I don't think love has that much to do with spirituality. Are you saying that atheists can't fall in love, or can't understand love as well as a spiritual person?
<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>In most cases what we think of as love is nothing more than lust.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>
Perhaps little more than lust, but I wouldn't (in most cases) say nothing.
<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>We tell oursleves that we love that person because we like them, like being with them, like making them happy etc. In reality we are being unconciously selfish and providing for our own needs, be they procreation or perhaps something as simply as company. Why is one person better than another? I use WinAmp becuase it fills certain needs I have. I might choose one person over another becuase they better fill my needs. I might not even be aware of what those needs are but I act upon them. Is that love? or just selfish instinctive survival mechanisms at work?<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>
Here's a point that's come up over and over again in my discussions with people: Are humans motivated only by selfishness? I think that the vast majority of people are, but I also think that it is possible to override this. It would be very difficult to prove this (brain surgery would be required), but I suspect that if I somehow became unable to receive any kind of benefit (no favors in return, no satisfaction of conscience, etc.), that my cerebral cortex could still manage to override the selfishness of the rest of my brain and continue to make me attempt to help others. I would still be able to cognitively reason out the ethics of doing whatever, and would be aware that others have emotions even if I could no longer feel any empathy for them, and so I would still decide to do what I can (albeit less enthusiastically) to help them and would act on that conviction.

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Okay have I alienated enough people yet? no.. okay.. well I'm not even going to go into the whole Love for God thing... you are spared!! Yay!<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>
What about Love for God?

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>(and who has a tendancy to waffle...sorry guys...)<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>
Well, you'll fit right in on these forums. Waffles 'R' Us.

I also 'disagreed' with the pessimism of your posts. I used to revel in cynicism, but now tend to dwell more somewhere between realism and optimism. And while there was much fun to be had as a cynic, I do believe that I'm better off overall where I'm at now.

Also, I've never thought of myself as being anything near a "hopeless romantic."
Oh, and I too love discourse. Philosophy was the best danged course I ever took during my public school career. I've missed the dialogs in that class ever since.


/me thwapps Mulefire's wife for thwapping Mulefire.
/me thwapps Jayn for wanting to thwapp Mulefire.
/me thwapps Mulefire just for fun.
/me thwapps self for thwapping them.
/me thwapps self for thwapping self.

[This message has been edited by Winsane (edited September 04, 2000).]

[endless17]

simple - love is a series of chemical interactions in your body.

also explains why your mouth tingles when you smell chocolate at 4am with huge fits of hangovers of last night looming in your head.

love is what you make of it. to each their own.

i personally love chocolate.
and my girlfriend.
even though she's away at school.
it's ok though, i have other girls i can see

now tell me if that's your version of love.

[sgtfuzzbubble011]

People have been trying to define love for a long time, and I don't think that the mystery will be solved any time soon. As you can see, I am a pessimist. You know the old saying: Optomists are always happy, pessimists are always right. I believe that it is up to each and every one of us to define love as we see fit. Love isn't something that can easily be understood by looking it up in your household Webster's dictionary. If one person says that love is caring about someone, then that is love. If another person says that love is strong emotional ties to someone, then that is also love. It can be as complex as loving your husband or wife for years upon years, or as simple as playing catch with Rex. Each person views love differently.

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Give me NyQuil and no one gets hurt!

[Winsane]

'Tis another easy question to answer:

love (lùv) noun
1.A deep, tender, ineffable feeling of affection and solicitude toward a person, such as that arising from kinship, recognition of attractive qualities, or a sense of underlying oneness.
2.A feeling of intense desire and attraction toward a person with whom one is disposed to make a pair; the emotion of sex and romance.
3.a. Sexual passion. b. Sexual intercourse. c. A love affair.
4.An intense emotional attachment, as for a pet or treasured object.
5.A person who is the object of deep or intense affection or attraction; beloved. Often used as a term of endearment.
6.An expression of one's affection: Send him my love.
7.a. A strong predilection or enthusiasm: a love of language. b. The object of such an enthusiasm: The outdoors is her greatest love.
8. Love. Mythology. Eros or Cupid.
9.Often Love . Theology. Charity.
10. Love. Christian Science. God.
11.Sports. A zero score in tennis.

verb
loved, loving, loves verb, transitive
1.To have a deep, tender, ineffable feeling of affection and solicitude toward (a person): We love our parents. I love my friends.
2.To have a feeling of intense desire and attraction toward (a person).
3.To have an intense emotional attachment to: loves his house.
4.a. To embrace or caress. b. To have sexual intercourse with.
5.To like or desire enthusiastically: loves swimming.
6.Theology. To have charity for.
7.To thrive on; need: The cactus loves hot, dry air.

verb, intransitive
To experience deep affection or intense desire for another.

[Middle English, from Old English lufu.]

Synonyms: love, affection, devotion, fondness, infatuation. These nouns denote feelings of warm personal attachment or strong attraction to another person. Love suggests a more intense feeling than that associated with the other words of this group: married for love.

Excerpted from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Third Edition © 1996 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Electronic version licensed from INSO Corporation; further reproduction and distribution in accordance with the Copyright Law of the United States. All rights reserved.

[sgtfuzzbubble011]

Hmmm..... American Heritage either.

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Give me NyQuil and no one gets hurt!

[Winsane]

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by sgtfuzzbubble99:
Love isn't something that can easily be understood by looking it up in your household Webster's dictionary.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>
Damnit!, you just had to get that in right before I quoted from a dictionary.

[sgtfuzzbubble011]

Yep.

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Give me NyQuil and no one gets hurt!

[PhotoFx]

You know, this is the most interesting thread I've seen in a long while. Since love is undefinable, but seems to come down to an attraction (what is that, by the way, in a personal sense) to someone else. Can you love more than one person at once (in the classical definition, of course), can you love someone with out wanting to have sex with them? can you truly love your friends of the opposite sex (or same for the gays) for who they are?

This isn't getting any of us anywhere, but man is it fun. I personally believe that there is something that allows us to trancend simple selfishness (though god knows few ever do) for real love. And that is where I would define it. Something that trancends selfishness. Something where even if you didn't get anything (ANYTHING at all) in return, you would still try to help, to support, to whatever, but it wouldn't require anything in return. I think I covered the same subject four or five times, so I'm done now. I'll end by quoting Trevor Goodchild.

"What are humans but a random arrangement of amino acids? what's the value in THAT?"

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PhotoFx -[=]- Lord Of My Domain.
--"Visual forms are not inherent in themselves, but are granted by the act of seeing..." -Trevor Goodchild

[ReDVsion]

Has anyone on this forum actually gotten a feeling from love or is it simply a thought to you?

[Winsane]

In the romantic sense of the word? If so, I'm afraid I've never really fallen in love. If you mean in a more general sense of the word (i.e. love for family members, mentors, best friends, etc.), then I'd say it's a combination of thought and emotion, magnified by each other, but with more emphasis on the thought. I suspect that the same would go for romantic love, but in that case with equal or greater emphasis on the emotion.

[Winsane]

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by PhotoFx:
I'll end by quoting Trevor Goodchild.

"What are humans but a random arrangement of amino acids? what's the value in THAT?"<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>
He forgot about fatty acids, nucleic acids, carbohydrates, vitamins and minerals, and the extremely complex (not purely random) arrangements of and interactions between them.

[This message has been edited by Winsane (edited September 04, 2000).]

[ReDVsion]

somethin' tells me ciaoamica actually knows the definition of love, she just want's to get everybody else's ideas.

Here's my take: Love is a feeling, most of you are simply taking love as an advanced thought, and mostly a lie. Has everyone been happy at some point or another on this forum? Sad? I'm sure. Did you have to think about whether you were happy/sad? Of course not. You KNEW it. Love is like that, except stronger. I can actually feel it physically. It's something you don't have to be told. And if you have any doubts, you're probably not in love at all. I could go into more detail, but it would be pointless. Words do not describe it. That's why we always try to define love in analogies and such. I for one believe that most people are completely confused on the true feeling of love and take a certain thought for it.
sgtfuzzbubble: You cannot LOVE winamp.
RM: Love IS a horrible bitch goddess. It's also the most wonderful thing in the world.

The following may piss some people off. Sorry.

You do NOT love god. That is complete bullshit. To say you love god is to be confused on the meaning of the word. To say you love everyone involves the same problem. I understand I will likely get flamed for these ideas, but i simply feel very strongly about this issue. Most of my life currently circles around it.

PhotoFX: 1. It is possible to love more than one person, yes. It is also possible to love one more than the other. 2. Love and sex can be two very different things. Although I believe sex can also be a display of love. This one's too hard for me to really answer. 3. I personally believe that noone loves their friends. Not the way you feel it. You may care about them, cry if you lose a friend, but I don't think you really love them.

The ultimate display of love is letting someone you love leave for someone else in the knowledge that they will be happier that way.

[Winsane]

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by ReDVsion:
sgtfuzzbubble: You cannot LOVE winamp.

You do NOT love god. That is complete bullshit. To say you love god is to be confused on the meaning of the word. To say you love everyone involves the same problem. I understand I will likely get flamed for these ideas, but i simply feel very strongly about this issue. Most of my life currently circles around it.

3. I personally believe that noone loves their friends. Not the way you feel it. You may care about them, cry if you lose a friend, but I don't think you really love them.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>
Not gonna flame ya. Just gonna point out that there is more than just one definition of love, and that when people are referring to loving Winamp, or their friends, or any deities, or whatever, they are probably just using a different, but equally valid, definition of the word. The English language does allow more than one definition per word.

[rm']

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by ReDVsion:

RM: Love IS a horrible bitch goddess. It's also the most wonderful thing in the world.

<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

How true

[rm']

I guess you could say we're all masochistic freaks when it comes to love

[ElChevelle]

Love, huh?!?

Licking
One
Vagina
Eternally

[ReDVsion]

Ya got that right! Yes, there is more than one definition of the word love, I was simply referring to the ultimate sense of the word, which some people will use incorrectly. I understand loving winamp & loving music, etc. in the sense that you REALLY like it. What really pisses me off is when people say they love everybody/god. I just can't see it. Even if it means you really really like everybody, it's still crap. Only "god" can do that, and I can't love something I can't see, in any sense.

[ReDVsion]

Well, I was agreeing w/ RM, but that works. What tha hell do ya call those things, anyway?

[ReDVsion]

I was referring to the thing where you take a word and make a word out of each letter to form a description of the main word, of course.

[Winsane]

acrostic

[Mulefire]

Heh this HAS been an interesting thread...yay!

Now is flat contradiction to my previous post here is a new deifination

Spirituality is not a religious thing in my books. Sorry if that went down the wrong way. Spirituality is the creation of a new self outside the physical mundane levels of our normal existance, i.e. a repositry for all things that are good and pure about ourselves or which we strive for. It just so happens that many people associate religion with this level of Human awareness and so the two become blurred.

Love is a concept that belongs with spirituality in this sence hence my references earlier. Love is part of this New Human thing. If sex and lust is physical love then true love resides in the non-physical, i.e. spiritual realm (remember not religious! okay??)

So is Love a base part of the Human psyche as that which creates the Spirit in the first place, or is it a later addition added by manual intervention at some point in our evolution? This is where it gets interesting! In evolution the only traits that are passed on are those that help survival in some form, i.e. larger brains, tool building abilities.. etc. (yes and we still have some left overs! Evolution arguments in another thread!) Now is love something that increases our survival chances? Another debatable point. I believe that what it comes down to is what constitutes survival? Have we reached a level of evolution where the survival of the physical form is now slowly fading into the background as survival of the spirit starts to take precedence. I'm not even going to go into the cliche discorporate entities just here but it would seem that we now really do have some new survival goals outside of the merely animal.

With this in mind, is love our new spiritual version of the defualt physical lust based on desirable attributes for future off spring. Some here have argued that love is something that is beyond the normal, a force of something outside of everyday occurances. If this is correct then are we transcending the boundaries of what makes us human and onto something more... So is love just a taste of something far greater? Are we just on the cusp of some great and vast spirituality... Is love our first fumbling brushes with this great mythic power that has been through so many incarnations as to be almost trite nowadays - God? Now before you all switch off, I am an aethiest through and through, so this is not a sermon okay? I am merely pondering on some interesting possibilities. The human evolution could be ready for some great change, the entry into a form of spirit far above what we know now. Remember our spirits as we know them now are still tied to our physical forms and mainly try to right the wrongs generated by this incarnation.

If you are still with me we have a couple of points now, 1. that our spirit is not a religious thing but a state of mind associated with higher desires. 2. that this is a relativily new evolutionary tract. 3. that we recognize a more advanced version of our spirit and misinterpret it as God. 4. that we are growing towards this as we develop more survival traits based on the spirit. and finally 5. that love as we know it is just a part of this and something only beginning to touch on what is about to happen.

Heh, there you go, nake of that what you will. I'm going to go away and see if I cannot reconcile my two pet thories now...

Mule.

P.S. I know some people feel very stongly about religious matters and I did not set out to offend or anything. Take it as it is, an interesting idea.

P.P.S. Man...posting here always gets me in the mood for writing a big paper... Not enough space here to flesh out the various points but I hope you get the drift!



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The surest sign there is intellegent life in the Universe is that they havn't come to visit us yet - Calvin & Hobbes

[Winsane]

Yet another intelligent, ethical atheist.

-Just because "higher" emotions and states of mind are more complex than the lower ones, doesn't mean that they aren't also based on the physical and electrochemical makeup and processes of the brain.

-Love keeps couples together while raising kids, hence the kids have a better upbringing, hence the kids have a better chance of survival. So yes, I would say love is an evolutionary adaptation.

-I think modern medicine has kinda screwed up the evolution of humans lately. The genetic makeup required for survival doesn't need to be as strong and healthy as it used to be. We can now keep people with genetic maladaptations alive to reproduce and spread those maladaptive genes on to more people. And while people may find others with more advanced higher level traits (like capacity for love or "spirit") more attractive, there are still plenty of people without such traits for almost everyone to find a mate. So natural selection is barely still in effect for our species. Furthermore, I expect those with less intelligence and less self-control have a tendency to reproduce more, thus resulting in an almost counter-evolutionary trend. And chances are that their slightly reduced life expectancy wouldn't make up for much of that. I don't have any suggestions for what to do about all this, other than improve our educational system; I just felt like complaining about it. (And no, I'm not a Nazi or a eugenicist.)
Feel free to argue with this.
(Hmm. I get the sense that I left out some important points. Oh, well, I'll add them if I remember them.)

[ciaoamica]

Yes, I have found my version of love. I believe that everyone has their own version of love, as each and everyone of you have just proven. Love to me is being able to sit with your significant other, not saying a word, but feeling like you just had the best conversation of your life. This portion of love I didn't discover until recently. My greatest love is for my children; which until you have one or more, which is the case for me, you can never fully understand exactly what I mean. No amount of words could compare to those feelings.

I must applogize and confess at the same time. I am relatively new to posting and when I first started reading some of the post I got the impression that the majority of people here were young and immature, (Sorry if that offended anyone!)but as I read all the postings I realized that I was wrong. The majority may be young but as this thread has just proven no one is immature.

For all those that haven't found YOUR version of love yet, I offer these few words. Don't give up trying to discover yours for when you least expect it, it sneak up behind you and tap you on the shoulder. Yes I am speaking from personal experience.

[rm']

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Winsane:
Yet another intelligent, ethical atheist.
\

-I think modern medicine has kinda screwed up the evolution of humans lately. The genetic makeup required for survival doesn't need to be as strong and healthy as it used to be. We can now keep people with genetic maladaptations alive to reproduce and spread those maladaptive genes on to more people. And while people may find others with more advanced higher level traits (like capacity for love or "spirit") more attractive, there are still plenty of people without such traits for almost everyone to find a mate. So natural selection is barely still in effect for our species. Furthermore, I expect those with less intelligence and less self-control have a tendency to reproduce more, thus resulting in an almost counter-evolutionary trend. And chances are that their slightly reduced life expectancy wouldn't make up for much of that. I don't have any suggestions for what to do about all this, other than improve our educational system; I just felt like complaining about it. (And no, I'm not a Nazi or a eugenicist.)
Feel free to argue with this.
(Hmm. I get the sense that I left out some important points. Oh, well, I'll add them if I remember them.)<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>


Since Ciaoamica closed this thread beautifully, I think I should change the topic. Who the hell honestly thinks evolution can possibly correct? Don't get me wrong, I'm not a creationist (that's just plain illogical), but I'm more of a fence sitter. How could all the possibilities match up correctly to get the excellent specimen of thought, emotion and strength randomly?

To use an excellent analogy of Michael Chricton, the cances of the 20 amino acids to join up in their 1mill+ combination to form one protein to combine just to make one cell is like unleashing a tornado in a junkyard and expecting to get a complete, working 747 jet.

The amount of possible combinations from 20 acids are countless. Now imagine the thousands of individual kinds of proteins we have! How is it possible that all these proteins happened to combine through some quirk of fate to create a cell? And how long would it take for that cell to succesfully mutate into a complex multicellular organism? Billions of years. There are more wrong possibilities than there are correct. And how many more years would it take for that multicellular organism to mutate a spine? A kidney? a brain? You can't have one without the other, so obviously, all these organs develop in a short time span. Now try and tell me evolution in the darwinian sense is possible.

And do you really think we are the highest form of man? Why would the smartest creature only evolve into one species. Dolphins are almost as smart as us (they are already evolving organized language), yet there are numerous dolphin species. What's so special about us that enabled us to survive while the rest of the Homo genus died of?

I think there has to be some higher power at work. Fate and circumstance can't be the only thing at work to shape our form and function. Cells must be self-organizing, or some external force must be working on us, or the immense complexity we see can not be possible.


Logically using darwin's principles, things should go from complex to simple, not the other way round, as Darwin suggests. Why? Simple organisms are just plain hardier. They have a higher capacity for survival. Just look at all the dead simple bacteria that can survive radiation blasts, intense heat, even the lack of oxygen! Yet, Darwin contradicts himself by saying we evolved from simpler creatures. His logic just does not make sense, and his facts don't add up.

If survival is the deciding factor in evolution, why doesn't the most dominant species on earth look like the hardiest multicellular one; teh cockroach?

[Winsane]

Do you think we're really that dominant over the cockroach and bacteria?

Anyway, I just want to touch on the point about the chances of life starting. I figure that there are many possible ways that something could have been formed with self-reproductive ability. Chances would actually be quite high that sooner or later, somewhere in the vast universe, one of those many possibilities would come to be. It just happened to be one based on cells, DNA, RNA, and amino acids. (Did I explain that well enough?)

[rm']

Yes and no.


Correction: RNA and DNA never work in conjunction.


Why are we more dominant than cockroaches? How many human pest controllers can you find in the phone book? Bacteria are another story, however. Yet, there are so many varied species of bacteria. Why didn't the same thing happen with us? And why haven't we taken there form? Are bacteria just evolved forms of humans? How does Darwin fit into this? He doesn't, and that's just my point.


It's easy to argue that intellegence is the single most negative, survival-threatening trait that an organism can possess. Just look at the creation of the Neutron bomb, or the risky behaviour dolphins undertake all for the sake of curiosity.

[This message has been edited by Radioactive Man (edited September 05, 2000).]

[sgtfuzzbubble011]

There are many kinds of bacteria. There isn't just one species, but they are all in the same genus. Humans are in the same genus as other primates. Why is it any different. Some bacteria are more successful than others. Humans (for the most part) are more successful than other primates. Dolphins are very intellegent. So are primates, just in a different way. I don't know. I'm just rambling here. I do, however, believe in evolution. Religion is not my thing.

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Give me NyQuil and no one gets hurt!

[ReDVsion]

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by ciaoamica:
when I first started reading some of the post I got the impression that the majority of people here were young and immature, (Sorry if that offended anyone!)but as I read all the postings I realized that I was wrong. The majority may be young but as this thread has just proven no one is immature.
<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Hell yes there are forums with immature people. You've just been lucky to find one that has people who can hold a serious conversation (with a few immaturities sprinkled in to spice things up). Check the sonique forums and see how they respond to this kind of post (it will probably go something like this: FUK U DUMASK WINAMT USR! SO**** RULZ!). Dumb aliens...

Sorry, I shouldn't have bitched about sonique on this post, but it's just so damn easy. please ignore.

I'll eventually (probably) post replies to those big long messages soon, but right now i'm drinking wine and I'm pissed, and i feel like jumping out my window, so it's not a good time. Right now my only comment would be fuck love, which would of course get me flamed and eventually my POV would change, anyway.

[rm']

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by sgtfuzzbubble99:
There are many kinds of bacteria. There isn't just one species, but they are all in the same genus. Humans are in the same genus as other primates. Why is it any different. Some bacteria are more successful than others. Humans (for the most part) are more successful than other primates. Dolphins are very intellegent. So are primates, just in a different way. I don't know. I'm just rambling here. I do, however, believe in evolution. Religion is not my thing.

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Not all religions disagree with evolution, and all principles of evolution do not disagree with religion; therefore, that's an unfair statement. Like I said before, creationism in the Christian, bible-belt sense of the word is just plain wrong, but so is modern Darwinian evolution.

Humans are of the Homo genus; chimps are of the Pans genus. It is different.

Ok, maybe I finally understood your argument, Winsane. Let's start a little thought experiment.

Imagine a universe with only one hospitable planet. In this planet, there are only 4 amino acids. Simple, right? Now suppose the correct conditions existed for these four acids to coalesce to form a protein, X. However, you would also require proteins A-L as well (13 more). Let's suppose it took 1 year for protein X to form.

Through chaos theory, and the laws of probability, each random incidence is a seperate, and individual act. Therefore, the length of time for each individual protein to form should be seperate. For simplicities sake, let's only deal in chunks of 6 months. By some quirk of fate, proteins A through G form within 6 months protein X. Now you have fully half the possible proteins in an 18 month time period. It takes two further six month peiods for protein H to form, and six months for proteins I to K. You have 11 proteins in 2 years. the remaining proteins take another year. 3 years for 16 proteins. That sounds reasonable, right.

You know have the correct conditions for life to form. But your still missing DNA! You require 4 bases. Lets' assume that it takes 5 years for these acids to form, since they are much more complex then proteins. The oxyribose spine is already floating around in our primordial sea, so that's not a problem.

The problem is for all these individual components to form together to form a cohesive unit; a cell. The DNA must have formed by some magical means to code exactly to form working copy of genetic data. How exactly, can you tell me, does survival fit into this equation? Does some strands DNA of survive better than others? No, they don't, because as long as the bases are paired up correctly, all DNA should bond as well as all others. This phase will take much longer than the rest, say, 1000 years. The DNA is not subject to outside forces except radiation and chemical reactions; however, DNA has no natural defense against this, thus, survival is not an issue.

Now suppose, by some fluke, a working chain of DNA managed to somehow form. This may only be one strain among millions however! What are the chances that this strain will match up with the exact amount of ATP that it requires? It can't make any protein without ATP, and the proteins make all the ATP! Now you have quite a paradox.

But for the sake of this experiment, let's say it does. The DNA managed to form it's own ATP factory; a rudimentary chloroplast. Our little DNA strand is now turning the sun's energy into food. But it has no protection. It needs to make a cell membrane. What do you think the chances are that the original strand of DNA that coded for protein synthesis also coded for the creation of cellular membrane?

As you can see, this kind of logic can be applied to every single physiological structure that our bodies possess. Every single unique chemical reaction that we undergo (millions) must be dictated by that original DNA strand (or variants thereof).

But you said that the chances of any one of these individual events occuring would be increased with the increase of the number of hospitible planets (which, for all we know, could be infinite). But, coming back to chaos theory, and probability laws,each and every possible outcome of an event (coin toss, mutation of an arm into a leg) is independant of previous outcomes.

If any thing, the addition planets will only decrease the probabilities of life occuring while still obeying the laws of probabilities. In our experiment above, the correct amino acids managed to coalesce in the proper sequence. Suppose there were 20 amino acids. What if acid A formed on Pluto, yet acid Y formed on Earth? This adds extra time to the equation, because Earth must form acid Y, which could add millions of years (remember, the times I gave above were condensed).

The same problem may arise when the DNA needs a certain protein, but unfortunately, it was created on Jupiter!

See, the way Darwin proposed evolution, it may have taken billions of years just to make a simple organism with only 4 amino acids.