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What is
life?
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
around 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.
Although it is not
material, life is sensual to the point of lust and revulsion, it is
matter shamelessly sensitive to stimuli
- 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
international corporate cartel through their agents who wish to foist a corrupt
version of reality on the human race. Religious intolerance occurs when any
group refuses to tolerate religious practices, religious beliefs or persons due
to their religious ideology. This web site marks the founding of a mystery
school aptly named The Truth of the Way of the Lumière Infinie - a
rational gnostic mystery religion based on reason which requires no leap of
faith, accepts no tithes, has no supreme leader, no church buildings and in
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
spirit. The tenets of The Truth of the Way of the Lumière Infinie are
spelled out in detail on this web site by the author. Violent acts against
individuals due to their religious beliefs in America is considered a "hate
crime."
This web site in no way condones violence. To the contrary the
intent here is to reduce the violence that is already occurring due to the
international corporate cartels desire to control the human race. The
international corporate cartel already controls the world banking system,
corporate media worldwide, the global industrial military entertainment complex
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
international elites vision of a perfect world. Through distraction and
coercion the direction of thought of the bulk of the population has been
directed toward solutions proposed by the corrupt international elite that
further consolidates their power and which further their purposes.
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