Logical Purpose for death?

reply to post by D1ss1dent

very good quistion
imo death is an illusion created to make us feel we are alive

Death. It is The End, our only friend. Saves us from all this pile of junk & sorrow created for us by our fellow man, deadly radiation from a gorgeous and perpetual - from our point of view - fusion bomb grinning at us each day, madness, obsessions and fear inspired by that weird boulder hanging over our heads each night, chemtrails, acid rain and japanese stuff giving everyone a cute green glowing, evil bugs and viruses infused by Bayer & Co, dead bits of aliens safely packed in plastic by Monsanto, bills and HM's Inland Revenue, IRS or whatever and fearmongers never getting tired of telling us we are dead anyway. And so on. And music. I'll miss my classic rock music. Not much else. Maybe my kids. To them, I am just a walking wallet, so... Ah yes, my wife. On second thoughts... nah. I'll stick with my idea of death being just ... becoming dead

reply to post by Ralphy


I've no comments on physical death & whether or not consciousness continues upon & after physical death. That's just an area of personal belief that I don't openly discuss. But the questions of death apparently interests you, so I thought I'd post a link that provides philosophical lectures on this topic at Yale.

academicearth.org...

Take it easy.

The purpose of death
...levels, stages, steps, rungs...

Life & death are like a ladder. The point at which your feet are poised on the rung, is the point at which you consider your next step (death).
The movement from one rung to the next, is Life.

Re - Incarnation, is not just an airy-fairy idea.

The erroneous concept that there is something in our DNA which 'makes' our cells die, is one of the reasons our bodies cells break down.
DNA, to all intents and purposes, is a blueprint, a base set of instructions, which, are followed by the individual at subtle and gross levels of the physical and mental structure of that individual.
The instructions can, and are, by-passed, mangled and replaced...least of all (but perhaps more importantly of all) by our own individual choices...
I.e. Food choices, environmental choices, thinking processes, etc...

Recently a crayfish has been found to contain an enzyme, which, in effect produces a 'self-repair' instruction on its cells. It has been speculated that the crayfish would live forever, but for the fact that, it is fished and eaten!

The same, 'self-repair' instruction exists in the human animal. Think...spontaneous remission, think...placebo effect, think...miracle cures...

Every year, you acquire a 'new' body. Every cell in your body has been replaced by a 'new' replica cell...with the instructions imprinted from its last...incarnation.
If you have 'instructed' it, by living an unhealthy lifestyle, living close to damaging electromagnetic signals, believed you were dying etc...this instruction is passed on, and, the 'prophecy' then becomes self-fulfilling...you get ill, and die...

Reincarnation is based on choice. In the greater scheme, you always choose (although you may not remember) to be reborn. You always choose the kind of circumstances which will be more conducive to your individual 'lesson/s' (although you may not remember this).
How many people remember being born?

The purpose of death is like the 'summer break', when you get to reassess your path and how it is going in an atmosphere of non-pressure (non-life). A locale where you see all behind you, and all possibility before you, and get to plan your next step, on the ladder of life and death.
Cheers Akushla

A simple thing really, the answer. Things that are imperfect must evolve. Things that must evolve must die. To make individuals immortal (or some approximation thereof) would clog the evolutionary pipes, that is to say, non-adapting individuals of a species constitutes a non-evolving species. To die opens up the possibility of change rather than extinction.

--Non

reply to post by Ralphy


So you're looking for a logical reason for death huh, well here goes.........

Death is Evolutionarily beneficial. You see, any living thing on this planet needs sustenance to continue on based on the fact that these nutrients and minerals play a large role in metabolic pathways. Even if a living being could not die it would need nutrients and minerals to continue on, unless of course it can produce its own, but, even in this case the lifeform would still need to collect the building blocks of its sustenance.

So, here's where it comes together. IF a species individual could repair itself and its metabolic processes indefinitely then it would need a great deal of food/nutrient/mineral to perform these repairs. Now, apply this concept to a population of the immortal species.......

When this concept is applied to a population the species population would grow exponentially. This enormous growth would eventually cause the population to require exponentially larger quantities of food. So, eventually the population would eat itself out of a sustainable environment causing mass starvation, then the bodies would become infested with deadly/harmful bacteria and fungi which would wipe out the rest of the population.

I firmly believe that an immortal species could (and possibly has) evolve, however, it would quickly overuse its available resource causing rapid species extinction.

So, in conclusion, the necessity of death is Evolutionarily beneficial because a species whose population didn't die of aging or disease would extinct itself due to starvation caused by unsustainable growth and resource use, but, a species whose population was capable of death would continue on because it would not develop unsustainable growth as rapidly as the immortal species.

I think that is fairly easy to follow, is it not?

P.S. unsustainability is the reason war is necessary, TPTB do understand this concept so together they actively and secretly deploy population control techniques such as war, disease, civil unrest, and natural disasters.

Originally posted by TrypToNonymous
A simple thing really, the answer. Things that are imperfect must evolve. Things that must evolve must die. To make individuals immortal (or some approximation thereof) would clog the evolutionary pipes, that is to say, non-adapting individuals of a species constitutes a non-evolving species. To die opens up the possibility of change rather than extinction.

--Non

edit on 7/14/2011 by TrypToNonymous because: Faa Kwaatsa Waada

Evolution is a byproduct, not a cause for necessity, of death.

I have to wonder if our beliefs of life after death are only to help cope with the idea that we may just cease to exist when we die. Who is anyone to say we live after death? and how would anyone truly know? Some say we have a soul but everything we know is physical, it took our 5 physical senses to learn and become who we think we are. We become a by product of our life experiences from childhood from which we mostly had no control over.

I guess i'm saying that it is important to know who or what we are to get a good answer to the theory behind death.

Originally posted by DarkSarcasm
Evolution is a byproduct, not a cause for necessity, of death.

edit on 15-7-2011 by DarkSarcasm because: (no reason given)

Incorrect. Your causation is reversed. Death is a necessity for it to proceed. Death is selected for by evolution.

Long-lived individuals tend to have lower fecundity, from redwood trees to tortoises. Individuals with high fecundity and short lifetimes, like bacteria and mice, tend to evolve more rapidly. Also, resources are limited and could not support an ever growing, effectively immortal population of individuals. A natural expiration of the individual helps the species survive collectively, adapt more effectively and maintain balance with surroundings.

Perhaps all this so obivous that it's easily overlooked.

Death...

If you want a logical reason for death than it is easy; your body gives up for some reason and you drop down dead. Maybe you got hit by a car, killed by a disease or maybe your cells simply devided so many times that the telemeres all became to bad to create proper new cells. Whatever the reason, death is the end of your lives cycle.

Many people find death frightning, in fact I believe many more than most here are willing to believe. It is not just the old man murmoring that he does not want to leave or the young man in the car accident that feels his life leave him. It is the religious zealot that claims he will come to heaven or the Buddist that thinks he will reincarnate as a butterfly or some higher being. Those people too, are afraid of death for otherwise they would not willingly believe in such unfounded thoughts.

Yes, death is freightning, the unknown end of darkness that awaits even the most stout of all humans. The knowledge that pope and beggar, king and servant will ultimatly wield to this faceless butcher of dreaded darkness. Or isn't?

Are we really afraid for death, or merely for how and when we die? Is there really something to fear from the nameless dark? Are we afraid that when we die some evil will stroke upon us, slap us in the face, confront us with are past mistakes? Really, is it necessary to point to a sinner and shout at him that he is one? is it not already the sinners punishment that he is a sinner, willing and knowingly? Is it not the demons in once own head that make life unbearable and death a nameless fear because of the unbearability of our own guilty lives?

No, people do not fear death, they can't since there is nothing known about death. They fear the very world they have created to be death, a world in which they need to somehow repend for their own mischief and wrongdoings. But they won't pay when they are dead, for in death we all are equal to no ends. In death we are all dead. We pay in life for our mischief, by knowing we are wrong, and it eats away our sanity like a rat eating away the lifeline that is it's own. For our guilt will destroy us and we are guilty because we inheritly know it of our selves.

Now then, you might think, how guilty is this sinner that is writing these words? How can he say such blasphemous words? I can tell because at the bottom of my soul I am a monster. A twisted individual who has become grotesque; a black creature embedded at the bottom of its own hellish mind. And as I lash with spiked tentacles and gnashing mouths filled with teeth my gaint eyeballs encrusted in the black mass can see how I tear my mind world apart. And as my world falls upon me and debris of it hits my of eyelid devoid eyes I can only think; let it crumble. I fear not the unknown or whatever ill faited death might bring me there.

I own my own death no matter how bitter it might be. And I will not be fearfull of it. I have nothing to repend for that I haven't already payed for in full. Nay! Death is my get-free-out-of-any-mess-I-build ticket. When the debris of my world has stapled up so high that my eyes can't see anymore, that my mounths can't eat it up anymore and that my tentacles can't crumble anything more, then I can always expect death to liberate me from my follish foolishness. Death is not to be feared, life is to be feared. When you think of ill fated places and demons in the hereafter, know that you are paying in your moral conscienceness for the stupidity you are doing in life. Hell is not a place in the hereafter, it is the guilt you inheretly feel in your mind when you are alive. Death is nothing more than a free escape.

Yes, death can be forced upon you, but forced or not it is always the end of your worldy problems and of your worldly sins.