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Staredit Network -> Serious Discussion -> First person life
Report, edit, etc...Posted by PwnPirate on 2005-05-10 at 18:51:43
This will most likely make sense to none of you but I have been dieing to ask this question since I was 5 years old. I figured I might take a chance because most of you are intelligent and might be able to understand this messy scramble.

The question is...

How is life in first person? Life is only shown as your life and no one else's, how is this possible if everyone else is living life also? Why is it that your life is shown and that you are normal like everyone else? You would have to be special to see life through yourself . Since you are equal to everyone else then you would see everyone's life. You can only feel touch taste smell cry etc. from your point of view, you are locked inside one person. Everyone else is a person too. This is very hard to explain but that's all I will try, hopefully some of you can understand it.
Report, edit, etc...Posted by MapUnprotector on 2005-05-10 at 20:22:53
I think I sort of understand you. It's like you can't know what other people are thinking seeing or feeling, you only know things through your perspective. Take colors for example. We can both agree the background of this is the color green, but what if I see green as a different color than someone else. We both interpret our surroundings differently. Maybe our views of the world are completely different.

Life is only in first person, because you are only one person... You are one living organism, with senses such as sight, smell, taste, touch, hearing which allow you to interpret the world around you through your brain. To see things through other peoples perspective you would have to somehow be able to "connect" with them.
Report, edit, etc...Posted by Loser_Musician on 2005-05-10 at 22:02:26
I totally understand. *Takes another hit from wesley pipes* So like....uhhhhh...ummmmm....uhhhhhhh................man, where's the cheetos?
Report, edit, etc...Posted by warhammer40000 on 2005-05-10 at 22:04:22
So true, so true. Agreed. Yet devilesk says everything for me again! disgust.gif
Report, edit, etc...Posted by re_casper on 2005-05-12 at 00:38:09
life is only in 1st person cuz we are in the third dimension..... if that dont make sense dont study dimensions (j/k) well.... Life is life... life only has one way..... and we get choices... you can see stuff from a third point view.... but kinda dumb cuz you gotta be like 24.5/7 on one single person which is dumb but... ya... ur mind will determine that.... Like in yu gi oh... lol Yugi and Yami lol.... if you get wot i mean taht it
Report, edit, etc...Posted by Rantent on 2005-05-12 at 00:54:26
I don't see how thats a question. So I will try to answer it as best I can. We can only see what we can see because it is only us veiwing it.
What might be of use to you is these two quotes from the Vedanta. (It's a famous hindu scripture, translated)
QUOTE
"When the eye returns to the space, that is the person in the eye: the eye is for seeing. He who knows 'let me smell this!' he is the Self; the nose is for smelling. He who knows 'let me speak!' he is the Self; the tongue is for speaking. He who knows 'let me hear!' he is the Self; the ear is for hearing." [VIII.12.4]
AHe who knows 'let me think!' he is the Self; the mind is his Divine Eye. He indeed sees all these pleasures through the Divine Eye, the mind, and rejoices" [VIII.12.5.]
It sort of addresses the question as to what is self.
It's only a peek into their philosophy though.
Report, edit, etc...Posted by Loser_Musician on 2005-05-12 at 21:03:08
My self is my self.
I think, therefore I am.
Cheetos are good.

These are all true.
Report, edit, etc...Posted by O)FaRTy1billion on 2005-05-13 at 00:19:33
QUOTE(devilesk @ May 10 2005, 05:22 PM)
I think I sort of understand you. It's like you can't know what other people are thinking seeing or feeling, you only know things through your perspective. Take colors for example. We can both agree the background of this is the color green, but what if I see green as a different color than someone else. We both interpret our surroundings differently. Maybe our views of the world are completely different.

Life is only in first person, because you are only one person... You are one living organism, with senses such as sight, smell, taste, touch, hearing which allow you to interpret the world around you through your brain. To see things through other peoples perspective you would have to somehow be able to "connect" with them.


Omfg... you are repeating thoughts I had when I was little®
(not saying that in a bad way, just saying I have thought the same things)

I was sitting there in a doctors office when I was like 10, or younger, Thinking "What if someone saw the colors different, like my blue was there red?"
Wow... I have thought this all over thrrough the years and I find someone saying my exact thoughts...

Lol I posted this as soon as I read that...

ADDITION:
Rantent, what you were saying
QUOTE
"When the eye returns to the space, that is the person in the eye: the eye is for seeing. He who knows 'let me smell this!' he is the Self; the nose is for smelling. He who knows 'let me speak!' he is the Self; the tongue is for speaking. He who knows 'let me hear!' he is the Self; the ear is for hearing." [VIII.12.4]
AHe who knows 'let me think!' he is the Self; the mind is his Divine Eye. He indeed sees all these pleasures through the Divine Eye, the mind, and rejoices" [VIII.12.5.]

That is confusing, yet it explains it all...
?
Report, edit, etc...Posted by MapUnprotector on 2005-05-13 at 15:17:07
A few weeks ago we had a discussion about something like this in science class. Well it was mostly about how do we really know what color and all is. We all interpret it with our brain and each of us could perceive things differently.
Report, edit, etc...Posted by O)FaRTy1billion on 2005-05-13 at 15:49:40
If you had a baby that was learning colors and stuff, and you somehow made it so no one would tell him what the colors were, you could teach them like green is orange, but how would they know the difference?
All your view is just what you have been taught.
Report, edit, etc...Posted by MapUnprotector on 2005-05-13 at 17:44:59
Not really, they would just have the wrong word to associate whatever they are seeing with.
Report, edit, etc...Posted by Rantent on 2005-05-13 at 20:46:36
Everything is associative, they are all known simply because they relate to one another.
This applies even to thinking itself. It has been thought that when people remember something it is from simply the relationship of many neurons, each of which would do nothing on its own to cause this remembrance. Bigger brians are not more intelligent, wrinklier brains are because their neurons make more connections with other neurons.
QUOTE
Cheetos are good.
Untrue. Doritos are good. tongue.gif
Report, edit, etc...Posted by MapUnprotector on 2005-05-13 at 23:28:22
Cheetos and doritos both suck, all junkfood.

Btw Rantent, your post isn't against mine right? It doesn't seem like it from what I understand.
Report, edit, etc...Posted by Rhiom on 2005-05-14 at 05:21:08
his post is not agaisnt you... he's just saying that when, you said well they would learn the word wroung, he was commenting that the word is our perception and that learning the word wroung would be the same as seeing a different color because it's all relative...
also, i dont live in the 1st person...
Report, edit, etc...Posted by Wilhelm on 2005-05-14 at 06:52:40
Strawberries > Doritos > Cheetos. A confusing bit related to this, if a tiny bit was different from you, wouldn't that be someone else? How are you yourself and not someone else? Think about it.
Report, edit, etc...Posted by Staredit.Net Essence on 2005-05-14 at 18:30:41
Fifty years ago on May 15, 1953, a University of Chicago graduate student, Stanley Miller, published a landmark two-page paper in Science magazine. He considered if amino acids could be made from what was known about the early Earth's atmosphere. Could the building blocks of life be cooked up?

earth_snow-ice
"... some warm little pond, with all sorts of ammonia and phosphoric salts, light, heat, electricity etc...", Charles Darwin, on the origins of life in tidal pools
Credit:Smithsonian

Miller began his paper:

"The idea that the organic compounds that serve as the basis of life were formed when the earth had an atmosphere of methane, ammonia, water and hydrogen instead of carbon dioxide, nitrogen, oxygen and water was suggested by Oparin and has been given emphasis by Urey and Bernal. In order to test this hypothesis..."


When Miller first presented his experimental findings to a large seminar, it is reported that at one point, Enrico Fermi politely asked if it was known whether this kind of process could have actually taken place on the primitive Earth. Harold Urey, Stanley's research advisor, immediately replied, saying 'If God did not do it this way, then he missed a good bet'. The seminar ended amid the laughter and, as the attendees filed out, some congratulated Stanley on his results.

Although Miller had submitted his paper in mid-December 1952, one reviewer did not believe the results and delayed its publication until May 15th. Later Carl Sagan would do many experiments varying the chemical percentages, but described the Miller-Urey experiments as "the single most significant step in convincing many scientists that life is likely to be abundant in the cosmos."
Early Earth: Flash in a Flask
Even today, only a few definitive things are known about what the Earth might have been like four billion years ago. It is thought that the early sun radiated only 70 percent of its modern power. No free oxygen could be found in Earth's atmosphere. The rocky wasteland lacked life. Absent were viruses, bacteria, plants and animals. Even the temperature itself is uncertain, since three schools of thought today maintain that the Earth could have been alternatively frozen, temperate or steamy.

Charles Darwin imagined life springing from a temperate world, with small ponds or runoff channels. Compared to diluted chemistry in a vast ocean, repeated evaporation and refilling have possible advantages, to find just the right concentrations somewhere so that biochemistry could begin. Glaciers, volcanoes, geysers and cometary debris potentially resupplied this primordial pond with both energy and more complex organic compounds. That is a scenario requiring relatively temperate starting conditions, and more extreme possibilities are also in the mix.

If the early Earth was a cauldron of volcanic activity, then seepage of acidic gases and heating might have circulated vital compounds to the surface. These vents may have been underwater, and precursors to biochemistry like acetic acid may have become reactive in combination with carbon monoxide. Alternatively, if the early Earth lacked any greenhouse of blanketing carbon dioxide, life could still have begun in a ball of ice. When combined with water, even a thin atmosphere of organics (formaldehyde, cyanide and ammonia) can create some building blocks of life (such as the amino acid, glycine). Thawing this 'snowball Earth' could then be triggered by a chance collision with large comets or meteors.

early_earth
Terrestrial options for early climate. Early earth, snowball, cauldron or temperate?Credit: NASA

To test whether a primordial pond or ocean could seed the stuff of life, some experiments were needed. Miller laid out an experimental plan. He filled a flask with methane (natural gas), hydrogen and ammonia. Another flask below provided a miniature pond of water, as the model for an early ocean. Discharging flashes of voltage to simulate lightning provided just the necessary spark for new chemistry to begin. When he left the pot to cook overnight, the odds seemed stacked against coming in the next morning to discover the simulated ocean had turned reddish-yellow. But he was surprised: given a simulated ocean, atmosphere and lightning, then a hydrogen-rich mix of methane and ammonia could be transformed to amino soup.

Stanley Miller with his Nobel Laureate supervisor, Harold Urey, demonstrated that 13 of the 21 amino acids necessary for life could be made in a glass flask. Placing water in this atmosphere, sparking a lightning discharge into simple organic molecules like ammonia surprised everyone by producing some of biology's essential building blocks. Indeed the formation of life had begun to take on a distinctly molecular character, as Charles Darwin had foreseen as his classical warm pond of organic soup: ("... some warm little pond, with all sorts of ammonia and phosphoric salts, light, heat, electricity etc..." ).

Miller found that at least 10 percent of the carbon was converted into a small number of organic compounds and about two percent went into amino acids. Hydrogen, cyanide, and aldehydes were also produced. Glycine was the most abundant amino acid produced.

Flash forward fifty years and many high schools chemistry labs routinely repeat Miller's classic result. Lasers are often substituted for high voltage discharges as an energy source, and this dramatically speeds up the signature yellowing of the primordial oceans.

But as the Earth's early chemistry has become better understood, a catch has arisen. Ironically, while complex biochemistry can spring from simpler building blocks, one missing element--the simplest hydrogen--may have been in short supply four billion years ago. Without it, the reactions don't trigger the right organic chemistry. If the Earth more likely was rich in nitrogen and carbon dioxide-- rather than hydrogen, methane and ammonia--, then any amount of sparking delivers a mere drop of organic byproducts. The primordial soup is too dilute.

Stanley_Miller.
University of Chicago graduate student, Stanley Miller, 1953.Credit: U. Chicago

Workarounds to get enough concentrated chemistry for self-assembly to arise have reverted to evaporation (such as tidal pools) or a large seeding event from a colliding comet. Both these could quicken the biochemistry enough for life.
Interview with Professor Stanley Miller
To commemorate the fiftieth anniversary for whom most consider the father of primordial chemistry, Professor Stanley Miller, of the University of California, San Diego, the Astrobiology Magazine had the opportunity to get his perspective today.


Astrobiology Magazine (AB): This is the fiftieth anniversary of your original University of Chicago work. Do you have any retrospective thoughts on what was going through your mind at the moment you starting flipping the electrode switch, and how successfully the experiment would carry forward as a classic at that time?

Professor Stanley Miller (SM): I would say curiosity was probably the primary impetus. Upon observing the results for the first time, my focus was devoted more to the "how and why" than the ramifications.

The actual long-term significance of the experiment has been an evolution in and of itself. I believed the results of the experiment would provide valuable insights into the origin of life, but at that time I hadn't really devoted much thought as to the extent of its influence.

The scientific community's immediate response, as well as that of the public media, was a very big surprise.

AB: What is your current opinion on the need for a primitive reducing atmosphere for pre-biotic life to take hold 3.5 to 3.8 billion years ago?

SM: I have not found an alternative to disprove the need for a primitive reducing atmosphere.

AB: Do you believe that material transported on meteors or comets is insufficient to seed life, if such amino acids were successfully transported intact to the surface of the Earth?

SM: Meteorite and other exogenous contributions become very important only if the earth had a neutral atmosphere. However, if the only sources of organic compounds under such conditions were the very small number of compounds produced with a CO2 rich atmosphere and delivered from outside, the amount may be too low for the origin of life.

AB: Since many astrobiologists are currently examining hydrothermal vents, in search of extremophiles, does the prebiotic chemistry actually get decomposed rather than enhanced by the presence of such ocean venting?

SM: Locating extremophiles is not relevant to the synthesis of organic compounds necessary for life, as the conditions of such ocean venting decomposes rather than enhances prebiotic chemistry.

AB: It has been reported that you had your first results within a matter of weeks, while Urey thought the original electrode experiments might exceed the limits of a 3-year degree program. Was the initial success due to the hint of using a reducing atmosphere or were there other parts of the rapid progress that surprised you?

SM: A reducing atmosphere was definitely the key, resulting first in the water turning red overnight, and after time continuing to change colors as synthesis of organic compounds proceeded. I never had any doubts about the outcome, but I was surprised at the efficiency of the synthesis.

primordial soup
Miller's classic experimental setup, with a simulated ocean, lightning and broth of hydrogen, methane, ammonia and water.

AB: Have you followed the methanogen research at all? It seems that the use of methane as a precursor was very important to the original experiments, and presumably the progress in methanogens provide some prospecting hints for astrobiologists.

SM: Methanogens appear to be a very ancient form of life, but their biology tell us nothing about the origin of the first biological system. I am sure once they evolved they begun contributing to the methane budget of the Archean atmosphere, however my concerns regarding the reducing atmosphere refer to the period before the origin of methanogenes themselves.

AB: Since this is also the fiftieth anniversary of the Watson-Crick publication, how would you characterize the 13 of 20 amino acids that can be synthesized prebiotically with the complexity of living cells manufacturing proteins from DNA? Is there a bridge that time has clarified there?

SM: Different researchers have different opinions about what is a prebiotic synthesis, but I do not think that there is yet a good prebiotic synthesis of arginine, lysine, and histidine, and of other biochemical compounds.

It is possible of course, that not all them were available in the primitive soup, and that some were synthesized by cells once they evolved. This would require the appearance of biosynthetic pathways, and the more complex they are, the more clear it becomes that they could have not appeared until the genome was sufficiently complex to encode for the proper catalysts.

John OrĂ³ showed that one could synthesize adenine, one of the nucleobases, with remarkable ease. Of course, we do not know how synthesis of proteins originated, but it is possible that once a catalytic apparatus was in place, some of the more complex amino acids like histidine resulted not from prebiotic synthesis, but from ancient metabolic pathways.
What's Next
There are other hurdles in the progression from simple molecules to complex life that are large research topics. Producing amino acids and nucleotides , and getting them to polymerize into proteins and nucleic acids (typically, RNA), are parts of a vast and ongoing 'origins' discussion. But RNA is a relatively fragile component (compared to DNA, or other biomolecules), and thus again its first appearance remains subject to the particular local conditions of the early Earth. To stabilize or catalyze the first biomolecules, clay crystals and vesicle reactions may have helped. No one has been able to synthesize RNA without the help of protein catalysts or nucleic acid templates.

Most scientists now believe that microbes can survive interplanetary journeys ensconced in meteors produced by asteroid impacts on planetary bodies containing life, and this observation has changed a number of the statistical assumptions about where and when biomolecules might first be seeded. Swedish chemist Svante Arrhenius first proposed the notion of interplanetary transport in 1903. However, for life to appear elsewhere, by some similar carbon-based pathway, and then arrive later on Earth means some similar primordial soup needed to be sparked someplace else--perhaps in a reducing atmosphere as Miller first showed fifty years ago.


ADDITION:
I think that life, well has always been here, to be more specific not life, matter.
For matter cannot be created nor destroyed, its basically been proven. so in that case then we did not just start out from somewhere, all the materials where here in space everywhere just there. after an unimaginable amount of time, it finally got it put together right to make life then began a cycle then here we are today.

also think about that concept also in a different way, no how everyone can be creative
creativity is kindof a random asortment of thinking so whatever weird thing that we could think up aliens whatever, it has probably happened or will happen.

for matter will always be here, but the energy of the matter doesnt, energy is basically the work that matter does, or capacity of it. at the end of where energy goes that it gets wasted is HEAT ;energy is converted all the way to the last thing which is heat.

even when matter is converted to heat, it may look as though matter has been destroyed, nope its still there just in a different form, so like i said earlier if matter cannot be created or destroyed, then when all of matter gets converted to heat, then something will happen i gaurentee it. something that we don't know about or something like the big bang will happen and then it will restart again.

the point is its a neverending cycle, where something ends, mabye in our minds it ends but in fact it still exists

actually in fact ending and begining is just are imagination there was no end or begin ing to anything for example:


we say our life began as a baby then it will end as we die.
Well now began and end in that sentence is just saying, note: when we (began) we didnt really begin it was just converted matter into us, when we (ended), nothing ended the energy of the matter just deplieted so it converted and changed form

NOTHING ENDED OR BEGAN THOSE ARE JUST BAD WORDS

words that should not be aplied to the world space in the way it is in like the belief in god, he began everything right, im not gonna get into this discussion, for theere are lots of variables you have to consider in god, to just consider it not to be real

so im not saying god isnt real, i just dont believe in god, in that my brain is leaning more towards fact and my theory


Report, edit, etc...Posted by MapUnprotector on 2005-05-14 at 18:40:59
You should quote that whole thing, and not put it in regular text. Also, you just copied that whole thing from what other people said in the other topic. GJ, stop spamming spam.gif
Report, edit, etc...Posted by Rhiom on 2005-05-14 at 19:42:50
and that had to do with what we were talking about how???
Report, edit, etc...Posted by Loser_Musician on 2005-05-15 at 11:23:18
QUOTE(Theoretical Human @ May 14 2005, 05:52 AM)
Strawberries > Doritos > Cheetos. A confusing bit related to this, if a tiny bit was different from you, wouldn't that be someone else? How are you yourself and not someone else? Think about it.
[right][snapback]208038[/snapback][/right]


Simple, when people see me, they go, "Hey, what's up Leif!........you censored.gif ing asshole." Unless you want to say that i'm just an alien controling my body from a diff area of the universe. Which would be badass if you ask me. I'm an alien, that's so sweet.
Report, edit, etc...Posted by Staredit.Net Essence on 2005-05-15 at 17:24:51
i think i get what u mean ur saying.... that you can only see your self, you will never GET any one unless you become the other person...
Report, edit, etc...Posted by PwnPirate on 2005-05-16 at 21:54:57
The only one who slightly got it was devilesk, I will try to explain more. If we are born, and we are living our whole lives through only our eyes, that could mean that everything is fake. Not jumping to conclusions like the Matrix or anything.... wink.gif
We live a whole 60-80 years just seeing from our eyes, but there are so many people out there. I feel like life is limited by unnoticable rules, take color for example, we cannnot imagine a different color, other than the ones we can see... It should be possible to be able to imagine a different color.
Report, edit, etc...Posted by warhammer40000 on 2005-05-16 at 22:01:27
QUOTE(Rhiom @ May 14 2005, 07:42 PM)
and that had to do with what we were talking about how???
[right][snapback]208385[/snapback][/right]


Errm, hes done something like that 20 times. But they got deletd. Just ignore him.


ADDITION:
I see jet blast. Ive thought that many times.
Report, edit, etc...Posted by MapUnprotector on 2005-05-16 at 22:11:05
QUOTE(Jet_Blast54 @ May 16 2005, 09:54 PM)
The only one who slightly got it was devilesk, I will try to explain more. If we are born, and we are living our whole lives through only our eyes, that could mean that everything is fake. Not jumping to conclusions like the Matrix or anything....  wink.gif
We live a whole 60-80 years just seeing from our eyes, but there are so many people out there. I feel like life is limited by unnoticable rules, take color for example, we cannnot imagine a different color, other than the ones we can see... It should be possible to be able to imagine a different color.
[right][snapback]209908[/snapback][/right]


I think ANYTHING we think about is limited to what we have already experienced. Even if you make up some kind of 100 eyed purple alien, it's just a combination os many differen't things you have already experienced and just piece together your own way. I don't think anyone can imagine something that is beyond our sense of smell, taste, touch, sight, or hearing.
Report, edit, etc...Posted by Rhiom on 2005-05-17 at 18:15:31
what if the person has multiple personality disorder, might they be seeing from different points of view and thus have better insit onto life?
Report, edit, etc...Posted by MapUnprotector on 2005-05-17 at 23:40:43
Well doesn't everyone do something like that at times? Like in different moods such as when we are angry, sad, or happy don't you tend to view things differently? Or like you are in an argument and you suddenly understand the other person's point of view. I think it would just be their thinking in each situation that would be different, not what they are actually seeing, unless their mind is making them see what they want them to see. But then that is just their brain interpreting the data from their sense differently. I don't know if that would give them better insight onto life though... because what do you mean by more insight onto life?

QUOTE
If we are born, and we are living our whole lives through only our eyes, that could mean that everything is fake


One more thing I just thought of, if everything is fake then how do you know what is real? How could you think that something is fake or real if you don't have something definite to compare it to? It depends on what your definition of "real" is and most of the time when you say something is fake or real you make your assumptions based on what you observe. You live life their your eyes so you should assume that everything around you is "real".
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