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No one knows.
Life is
aware of itself the moment it
becomes life, that much is certain.
Consciousness, as
sensitivity to
stimuli, is undoubtedly aroused to some extent at even the lowest, most
undeveloped stages of life's occurrence.
It is
impossible to tie the
emergence of
consciousness to any particular point in life's history - to link it, for
instance, to the presence of a nervous
system.
The lowest animals have no
nervous systems, let
alone a cerebral cortex, and
yet no one dares deny that they are capable of responding to stimuli.
You can anesthetize life,
life itself, not just the special organs
capable of the response that
informs life, not just the
nerves.
You could temporarily
suspend the responses of every
speck of living matter, in both the
plant and animal kingdoms,
narcotize eggs and sperm with chloroform,
chloral hydrate, or
opium.
Self-consciousness is an inherent function
of the right combination of matter once
it is organized as life, and
if that function is enhanced
it appears to turn against the organism that strives to fathom and explain the
very phenomenon that produced it, a striving of life to
comprehend itself, as if nature
were rummaging to find itself in
itself.
What is life?
No one knows.
No one can pinpoint when life
first emerged from nature.
Nothing in the realm of life is
self-actuated, life seemed to have actuated itself.
If anything can
be said about life, then, it is this: life's structure is so highly developed
that nothing like it could occur in
the inanimate world.
The distance between an
amoeba - a pseudopod - and a
vertebrate is minor, insignificant in
comparison to that between the simplest form of life and
inorganic matter, which does not
even deserve to be called dead - because death is merely the logical negation
of life.
Between life and inanimate nature is
a yawning abyss.
What is life?
Life is warmth, the warmth produced by
instability attempting to preserve form,
a fever of matter that
accompanies the ceaseless dissolution and renewal of protein molecules,
themselves transient in
their complex and intricate construction.
Life is the
existence of what, in actuality, has
no inherent ability to exist, but only
balances with sweet,
painful precariousness on one point
of existence in the midst of this feverish, interwoven process of decay and
repair.
What is life?
Life is not
matter, it is not
spirit.
Life is something
in between the two, a phenomenon
borne by matter, like the rainbow above a waterfall, like
a flame.
But although it is
not material, life is sensual to the point of lust and revulsion, it is
matter shamelessly sensitive to stimuli
within and without - existence in its
lewd form.
Life is a secret, sensate stirring in
the chaste chill of space.
Life is furtive, lascivious, sordid -
nourishment sucked in and excreted,
an exhalation of carbon dioxide and
other foul impurities of a
mysterious origin.
Out of
overcompensation for its own
instability, yet governed by its own inherent laws of formation, a bloated
concoction of water, protein, salt, and fats - what we call flesh - ran riot,
unfolded; and took shape, achieving form, beauty, and yet all the while was
the quintessence of sensual
desire.
This form and this beauty
are not derived from the spirit, as in works of
poetry and
music,
nor derived from some neutral
material both consumed by spirit and innocently embodying it, as is the
case with the form and beauty of
the visual arts.
Rather, they are derived from and perfected by
substances awakened to sexual passion,
to reproduction, by decomposing and
composing organic matter itself, by
reeking flesh.
-from
The Magic Mountain, Thomas
Mann
"Over the
last 25 years a new understanding of life has emerged at
the forefront of science.
I want to illustrate this new understanding by asking the age-old
question -
what is life?
What's the
difference between a rock and a plant, animal, or microorganism?
To
understand the nature of life, it is not enough to understand DNA, proteins,
and the other molecular structures that are the building blocks of living
organisms, because these structures also exist in dead organisms, for example,
in a dead piece of wood or bone.
The difference between a living
organism and a dead organism lies in the basic process of life – in what
sages and poets throughout the ages have called the "breath of life."
In modern scientific language, this process of life is called "metabolism."
It is the
ceaseless flow of energy and matter through a network of biological reactions,
which enables a living organism to continually generate, repair, and perpetuate
itself.
In other words, metabolism involves the intake, digestion, and
transformation of
food.
Metabolism is the central characteristic of biological life.
But understanding metabolism is not enough to understand life.
When we study the structures, metabolic processes, and evolution of the
myriads of species on the planet, we notice that the outstanding characteristic
of our biosphere is that it has sustained life for billions of years.
How does the Earth do that?
How does nature sustain life?" -
Fritjof Capra
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This website defines a new philosophical
ideology to which its author adheres. The author feels that the falsification
of reality outside personal experience has forged a populace unable to discern
propaganda from reality and that this has been done purposefully by an
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school aptly named The Truth of the Way of the Lumière Infinie - a
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which each and every individual is encouraged to develop a personal relation
with the Creator and Sustainer through the pursuit of the knowledge of reality
in the hope of curing the spiritual corruption that has enveloped the human
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international corporate cartels desire to control the human race. The
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of America and is responsible for the collapse of morals, the elevation of
self-centered behavior and the destruction of global ecosystems. Civilization
is based on coöperation. Coöperation does not occur at the point of a
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American social mores and values have declined precipitously over
the last century as the corrupt international cartel has garnered more and more
power. This power rests in the ability to deceive the populace in general
through corporate media by pressing emotional buttons which have been
preprogrammed into the population through prior mass media psychological
operations. The results have been the destruction of the family and the
destruction of social structures that do not adhere to the corrupt
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directed toward solutions proposed by the corrupt international elite that
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