Thread: More of WTF is Life Anyways

When I first joined this forum I was asked a question by a since departed member as to whether I thought life has always existed, was present at the Big Bang or may even had something to do with the Universe beginnings. Tough question for newbie to handle so I remember it still.

However I don’t recollect my answer entirely, made under considerable real or imagined duress, but I answered in the affirmative. I think I might have said that whatever happened in the beginning included life, or at least life may have been encoded into the building of the universe. Sounds like I’m saying stuff was happening before the BB or life is some sort of entity or mysterious force but no way of knowing. As far as I know the universe exists in a NYC bus depot locker, a Petri dish/test tube in some immense lab, as part of an existing life form too large to imagine or like the galaxy from MIB and dangling from a pet cat’s neck. There are countless scenarios that may also fit. I think it encouraged me to start a thread on whether we could actually discern something that’s immensely larger than the universe but that only got the usual sexual innuendo comments.

Must be better answers than that of a rank beginner who knew precious little* yet ventured into the unknown a long time ago.

*Forum has taught me many things scientific. I don’t get all of it but me and my questions are tolerated….thanks

Well I'm glad you've stuck around this long Zin.

Are life and consciousness synonymous? (What might be the distinction?)

I feel that consciousness may be an incredibly sophisticated function of parts of the "universe" interacting with other parts.

A neural network of a kind.

Another question that presents itself is "Is/was/will be the 'universe ' everywhere or can it be in one place?"

Questions are fun to ask but all answers are always stop-gaps,it is looking like.

How do we explain consciousness?

Many theories put forward but none without their problems.

Anthropic principle: Any life form that develops consciousness could become an atom of a conscious universe.
Memes: The brain is sculpted by replicating ideas which develop a life of their own.
Neurons: All down to electrical pulses.
Quantum: The reult of the brain developing into a quantum computer by the process of evolution.

Speaking of consciousness….

Have I died in another universe? If so has my consciousness been moved to another me living in a parallel universe? Lately, the world seems different to me. Don’t want to sound like a nut job and believe this stuff actually happens but there must be an explanation. It’s like waking up from a dream and trying to figure out how it relates to events of your day. All of what I’m experiencing is occurring right after I went through Covid in March. What am I finding different?

Post covid my blood pressure skyrocketed and my atrial fibrillation returned. I’ve had these conditions for 30 years and my medication always took care of these things. It’s as if the pills I take have suddenly been neutralized. My doc had me record my BP for couple weeks and it was up around 140/95 for that period. However that didn’t seem to alarm doc but when I paid a visit to her office my BP reading there was in the 190/100 range. She said that’s usually the metric for hospitalization but that didn’t happen. I have white coat syndrome but never like that. Normal to me is 120/80, at least thats what I remember. She put me on a beta blocker and I recorded once again. After a few days she phoned me to see how it was going which I thought kind of strange( when do doctors call you? ) but by then I was recording 115/75. When I told her the reading she immediately took me off the blocker, saying it was too low….what???. She also wants to increase my dosages when I renew prescriptions. Did I enter a parallel universe where my current medicine is too weak. Told me to enjoy the summer and I’ll see a cardiologist in the fall. I guess I’m not really too bad then, idk. Whole thing seems bizarre and some behavior seems out of character for my doctor but I figure there ‘s always new developments in medicine so maybe everything is all right.

Another oddity is happening at the golf course where I’m a member. I joined 2 years ago and for most if not all of that time I hardly knew a soul and not many knew me. This year practically everyone knows who I am. They call me by my first name and some even use my nickname. From the greens keeper to the beer cart gal, they know who I am. I see familiar faces to whom I’ve never been introduced but know me. In some cases I’d swear there are those who I was sure worked for the club but are actually regular members.

Finally my wife seems to have a different personality all of a sudden. She’s very political and if I don’t agree with her then I’m in trouble. This all seems new to me. Her memory of our past together appears slightly different than mine. I listen to her talk to friends of our experiences and everything she says seems just a bit off from what I recollect. I don’t say anything because I’m thinking that covid recovery is taking longer or the virus has affected my memory, idk. Weird.

Did Covid kill me in another universe? I guess I could also be ok and all those around me died in an apocalyptic event on a parallel world. ..lol

I don’t follow Deepak Chopra, study the probability of a universal quantum consciousness nor do I pay any attention to Biocentricity so I have to believe there is a rational explanation for recent experiences. I mean if my brain can create a dream from daily occurrence then who’s to say if it hasn’t written over my memory of life’s experiences as well.

When I was 5 I decided for myself (a la Bowie possibly) that I had come from some other planet seeing as how my perceptions were fairly distinct from my environment (helped that this environment was the unmundane dunes of Egypt)
Previous to that my psychological inner environment predisposed me to taking hikes from the house and being found at a miles distance or so.
My take on your altered inner landscape is that this may show how malleable it can be (that Jim Carrey film The Truman Show is really very good) and how we adjust it to our expectations as we go along for the ride.

Maybe your control mechanisms have loosened up a bit to explain all that?

Have no idea how you could monitor any of that (or even if it would be sensible)
They say that one way of making your life seem longer is to do your daily activities a little different each day (don't follow unthinking routines or use the same hand to open the same door etc etc)

I think your experience could be a nice basis for a movie ,though if a bit of artistic license was allowed (you would have to work out a good twist at the end no doubt)

Originally Posted by geordief

When I was 5 I decided for myself (a la Bowie possibly) that I had come from some other planet seeing as how my perceptions were fairly distinct from my environment (helped that this environment was the unmundane dunes of Egypt)
Previous to that my psychological inner environment predisposed me to taking hikes from the house and being found at a miles distance or so.
My take on your altered inner landscape is that this may show how malleable it can be (that Jim Carrey film The Truman Show is really very good) and how we adjust it to our expectations as we go along for the ride.

Maybe your control mechanisms have loosened up a bit to explain all that?

Have no idea how you could monitor any of that (or even if it would be sensible)
They say that one way of making your life seem longer is to do your daily activities a little different each day (don't follow unthinking routines or use the same hand to open the same door etc etc)

I think your experience could be a nice basis for a movie ,though if a bit of artistic license was allowed (you would have to work out a good twist at the end no doubt)

I don’t know about a movie but these things that I’m noticing appear to be real. However some things don’t add up upon closer inspection. In the first case dealing with hypertension and A Fib, why are my pills/prescription medicines exactly the same in a parallel world if my symptoms are worse than the world I just exited? How do I know if at the golf course there is someone going out of their way to let everyone know who I am or the club has a new policy re encouraging staff to know the members better . Can’t forget that my first two years there was during covid when various methods of isolating/distancing oneself were the norm. My wife’s new occupation with politics from what I can surmise may have something to do with fretting about the world we are leaving behind for our grandkids. Kids are only young but she worries about their future a lot now.

Personally I don’t want to commit to a belief in another me living in a parallel universe and that my consciousness takes up residence in another mind after I die. Might have to think again about those people with multiple personalities or even those requiring exorcism. I will say that at this moment, life/consciousness is very much a mystery still. I won’t leave out the possibility of parallel worlds but I’m skeptical as usual.

Ah,yes. Skepticism is a fine approach.
I have always found that the most important skepticism to have to hand was skepticism in my own personal convictions (but that's just me )

Que sera sera as the refrain goes.

Originally Posted by geordief

Ah,yes. Skepticism is a fine approach.
I have always found that the most important skepticism to have to hand was skepticism in my own personal convictions (but that's just me .

Always that chance of being wrong about things you’re sure of. People appear to enjoy proving sceptics wrong or removing doubt and for me that’s a good thing. It’s basically what a sceptic is asking you to do.

Biocentric universe….. does that mean believing life created everything? Not life forms but life as some sort of property, force or entity. I suppose consciousness belongs in the same boat. Life…..consciousness….one and the same?

Originally Posted by zinjanthropos

Originally Posted by geordief

Ah,yes. Skepticism is a fine approach.
I have always found that the most important skepticism to have to hand was skepticism in my own personal convictions (but that's just me .

Always that chance of being wrong about things you’re sure of. People appear to enjoy proving sceptics wrong or removing doubt and for me that’s a good thing. It’s basically what a sceptic is asking you to do.

Biocentric universe….. does that mean believing life created everything? Not life forms but life as some sort of property, force or entity. I suppose consciousness belongs in the same boat. Life…..consciousness….one and the same?

Not sure if that was exactly the same question I asked elsewhere a few days ago.

Is "being conscious" the same thing as "condciousness"?

Here is the link.(I don't bother with dimreepr, he kind of gets stuck to your shoe)
https://www.scienceforums.net/topic/...s_1209507_menu

I think current thinking may be that life/consciousness emerges from an unconscious universe but I don't know if that can be shown to happen (I doubt it very much -I suspect all fundamental philosophical questions will always remain out of the domain of scientific enquiry )

I wonder if there is a basic elementary consciousness level for living things. IOW a point where consciousness/awareness seeps into the living thing. Is a skin cell in my little toe aware of its existence? Do I need to stub the toe on a table leg in order for the cell to realize it’s very existence is in trouble? Does the cell even know anything at all?

Yet I’m aware of my little toe’s existence. Are the skin cells of my little toe aware of the brain? Is there a need for my toe cells to be aware there is a command/repair centre (central nervous system/brain)?

I wonder if it just comes down to survival instinct or the threat of death in order for the simplest of organisms to be conscious of their existence. Does one actually kill something if the victim is not aware of its own existence? Does staying alive require the most elementary level of consciousness? I would think all living things have that basic primal awareness or they wouldn’t be alive, would they?

Originally Posted by zinjanthropos

I wonder if there is a basic elementary consciousness level for living things. IOW a point where consciousness/awareness seeps into the living thing. Is a skin cell in my little toe aware of its existence? Do I need to stub the toe on a table leg in order for the cell to realize it’s very existence is in trouble? Does the cell even know anything at all?

Yet I’m aware of my little toe’s existence. Are the skin cells of my little toe aware of the brain? Is there a need for my toe cells to be aware there is a command/repair centre (central nervous system/brain)?

I wonder if it just comes down to survival instinct or the threat of death in order for the simplest of organisms to be conscious of their existence. Does one actually kill something if it’s not aware of its own existence? Does staying alive require the most elementary level of consciousness? I would think all living things have that basic primal awareness or they wouldn’t be alive, would they?

Good questions.I am not the most analytical person and I struggle to address them though,even if I have wondered along the same lines down the years.

Apparently there is a department of philosophy with Panpsychism on the door (a joke) and very clever people inside have probably thought about this as well.

But,I doubt very ,very much that we will ever isolate anything that we can point to and say "oh look viewers, look closely and you will see consciousness forming in this previously inanimate object"

Just too hard or just conceptually impossible?

Originally Posted by geordief

But,I doubt very ,very much that we will ever isolate anything that we can point to and say "oh look viewers, look closely and you will see consciousness forming in this previously inanimate object"

Just too hard or just conceptually impossible?

Good point but I think that is a place to start. How far down the evolutionary scale can we go to find a organism not aware or behaving unawares at minimum, of its own mortality? Was there ever a creature that in some way was not equipped to cheat death or prolong its existence? Maybe the first organism, but what happened next? Did the first organism have to consume nutrients that weren’t alive? Maybe until one started cannibalizing the others. In either case, survival meant instinctively eating.

Did the giant blueprint for the universe, real or imagined, include life or was it at least equipped to have it inevitably appear? I don’t think there’s any doubt that life had to happen if it went down either way. The only way I can see it not happening is if life itself had a role in the creation, was already present so to speak. It might also mean there was a time before the BB. Not saying life is divine however but perhaps we should revere it more than anything else.

My artistic side for what it’s worth…..Wrote this on another forum when the topic was whether all of what we consider existence, including life, is just a dream.

Living in a Cosmic Dream


I pause, I ask, I ponder
Whether life is as it seems
Am I really living
Within a cosmic dream


Often start to wonder
About all of what I’ve seen
Those things I am aware of
Within a cosmic dream


Is the universe asleep
With thought unveiling scene
Creating a reality
Within a cosmic dream


Does it know that I exist?
Am I really what it seems?
Is there any truth at all
Within a cosmic dream


Am I truly nothingness
Or information stream
The product of a mind at rest
Within a cosmic dream


My being and significance
On a scale as yet unseen
Dwarfed beyond comparison
Within a cosmic dream


Humbled by imagination
But not sure what it means
To even think I play a role
Within a cosmic dream


May the dreamer’s thoughts be lucid
For what knowledge is redeemed
In exchange for purpose
Within a cosmic dream

Well I think it is a temptation to over rate our individual importance in the overall (or any) scheme of things and that is probably where the idea of a dream comes(sneaks?) in .That delusion is a facet of the ongoing image we create of our surroundings and our place in it.

We don't have to have this delusion but our survival instinct keeps presenting it as a comfortable point of reference as we go through the day.
I think people like to try and escape this necessity by attaching their identity to external realities and this can be pleasurable but do they understand that this is what they are doing?
Do they have an inner voice that reminds them that they exist as an independent entity as well as the attachments they have built around themselves or do they get lost in the moment ?

You sound to me like you are only wondering as to whether our living experience could be based in some kind of an "external " dream.

I don't think so.

Just because we only experience the world "second hand" in a sense does not make it any less real ,just a bit "will o' the wisp"ish

But if you want to simply say that our external reality "dreams us up" and that our own part in resulting lives experience is tiny ,then maybe.

But that tiny part may be still very consequential (and "real" on it's own terms) ,if very hard to put a finger on.

. You sound to me like you are only wondering as to whether our living experience could be based in some kind of an "external " dream.

Not really, just trying to cover all the bases. Cosmic dreaming is for a universe that’s alive and asleep I would guess.

Jumping around here but if we create life in a lab do we bring into play the idea that our lives and every life in the universe could be the result of something similar?

Originally Posted by zinjanthropos

. You sound to me like you are only wondering as to whether our living experience could be based in some kind of an "external " dream.

Not really, just trying to cover all the bases. Cosmic dreaming is for a universe that’s alive and asleep I would guess.

Jumping around here but if we create life in a lab do we bring into play the idea that our lives and every life in the universe could be the result of something similar?

Do we actually "create life" though.
Would we just be duplicating the life we see around us ,just using a different mechanism?

Recreating life.

Just semantics?

What difference would it make if life on Earth had been created in a lab somewhere else?(it is already posited that it may have originated in Mars and blown across to Earth

Originally Posted by geordief

Originally Posted by zinjanthropos

. You sound to me like you are only wondering as to whether our living experience could be based in some kind of an "external " dream.

Not really, just trying to cover all the bases. Cosmic dreaming is for a universe that’s alive and asleep I would guess.

Jumping around here but if we create life in a lab do we bring into play the idea that our lives and every life in the universe could be the result of something similar?

Do we actually "create life" though.
Would we just be duplicating the life we see around us ,just using a different mechanism?

Recreating life.

Just semantics?

What difference would it make if life on Earth had been created in a lab somewhere else?(it is already posited that it may have originated in Mars and blown across to Earth

Semantics, yep.

I should have said life forms. Trying to treat life like some property of the universe, a necessary ingredient for producing a form. Biggest mystery in the cosmos IMO. Is life, not the form it takes, something tangible? Does it exist in some vast quantity somewhere or is it very scarce? Did some life leak into our universe, are we awash in it? Does every particle contain some? Or is there a trick to animating the inanimate?

I don't know.At first examination it might appear that life forms occur as a result of complex reactions among otherwise inanimate objects.
These reactions become self sustaining and we are one of those life forms.

Life forms are just unbelievably complicated and because we are one of them and take an interest in all this it is unbelievably fascinating.

I don't know if there could be other ways in which inanimate objects interact that might be even more complicated and interesting than life .

Would we be shut out of understanding them because we are "just living"?

A simple explanation for the randomness of quantum mechanics would be that photons are alive.&nbsp;<br><br>You could argue that they possess free will, but are totally devoid of intelligence.&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;<br><br>So if you put the free will of a photon together with the intelligence of a computer (or a biological information processing machine such as a brain), then you end up with a creature that has both free will and intelligence.&nbsp;<br><br>For this reason, I think some part of what the human brain does must involve quantum computing.&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;And a quantum data can't be copied.&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; Heisenberg uncertainty principle prohibits you ever taking a perfect measurement of a quanta (can't copy it if you can't measure it.)&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; So that would mean each human being truly is as unique as we think we are.&nbsp;<br><br><br>

Originally Posted by zinjanthropos

Speaking of consciousness….

Have I died in another universe? If so has my consciousness been moved to another me living in a parallel universe? Lately, the world seems different to me. Don’t want to sound like a nut job and believe this stuff actually happens but there must be an explanation. It’s like waking up from a dream and trying to figure out how it relates to events of your day. All of what I’m experiencing is occurring right after I went through Covid in March. What am I finding different?

Post covid my blood pressure skyrocketed and my atrial fibrillation returned. I’ve had these conditions for 30 years and my medication always took care of these things. It’s as if the pills I take have suddenly been neutralized. My doc had me record my BP for couple weeks and it was up around 140/95 for that period. However that didn’t seem to alarm doc but when I paid a visit to her office my BP reading there was in the 190/100 range. She said that’s usually the metric for hospitalization but that didn’t happen. I have white coat syndrome but never like that. Normal to me is 120/80, at least thats what I remember. She put me on a beta blocker and I recorded once again. After a few days she phoned me to see how it was going which I thought kind of strange( when do doctors call you? ) but by then I was recording 115/75. When I told her the reading she immediately took me off the blocker, saying it was too low….what???. She also wants to increase my dosages when I renew prescriptions. Did I enter a parallel universe where my current medicine is too weak. Told me to enjoy the summer and I’ll see a cardiologist in the fall. I guess I’m not really too bad then, idk. Whole thing seems bizarre and some behavior seems out of character for my doctor but I figure there ‘s always new developments in medicine so maybe everything is all right.

Another oddity is happening at the golf course where I’m a member. I joined 2 years ago and for most if not all of that time I hardly knew a soul and not many knew me. This year practically everyone knows who I am. They call me by my first name and some even use my nickname. From the greens keeper to the beer cart gal, they know who I am. I see familiar faces to whom I’ve never been introduced but know me. In some cases I’d swear there are those who I was sure worked for the club but are actually regular members.

Finally my wife seems to have a different personality all of a sudden. She’s very political and if I don’t agree with her then I’m in trouble. This all seems new to me. Her memory of our past together appears slightly different than mine. I listen to her talk to friends of our experiences and everything she says seems just a bit off from what I recollect. I don’t say anything because I’m thinking that covid recovery is taking longer or the virus has affected my memory, idk. Weird.

Did Covid kill me in another universe? I guess I could also be ok and all those around me died in an apocalyptic event on a parallel world. ..lol

I don’t follow Deepak Chopra, study the probability of a universal quantum consciousness nor do I pay any attention to Biocentricity so I have to believe there is a rational explanation for recent experiences. I mean if my brain can create a dream from daily occurrence then who’s to say if it hasn’t written over my memory of life’s experiences as well.

I've been wondering about that stuff myself for a while.

Years ago I was driving a semi truck in the snow, and almost lost control. And I just felt this deep feeling of sadness. It was a close call, and I had recovered control. But I couldn't shake the feeling that someone, somewhere, hadn't. I guess I'm glad I live in the dimension were things worked out.



Another explanation, though, other than dying in another universe is that maybe two dimensions are simply converging. That universe's different history lead them to the same point as our universe is at now, and so now there is no need for there to be two of them. Minor details just stay different.

I think it's called the "Mandela Effect" because it was identified in people who remember Nelson Mandela having died in the 90's, but he didn't. Or sometimes it's associated with the spelling of Berenstien Bears, which some people remember being spelled differently.

I figure the total number of universes that exist should be a conserved quantity. So when new universes emerge because of a split, some existing universes have to converge together to make room. The least different concede the space to the most different. And it might not be whole universes. It could just be small parts converging.