The consequences of a thought proven to be 100% true

Philosophy
1

Let’s keep this convo free-flowing since it’s going to be mainly a thought exercise.

Let’s discuss for a moment that we somehow discovered a breakthrough in physics and we are able to prove beyond any reasonable doubt that the universe was created by something which doesn’t involve a creator.
It proves that we are here by chance, randomly.
We are simply “survival of the fittest”

You guys can talk about your hypothetical scenarios too on how the world might implode , mainly religions.

Here’s my beginning question, I might have others later.

Why should we care about the sick anymore? They’re just a bad config. From a survival point of view they’re just wasting our money and resources.

2

That is an excellent question!!!

It is absolutelu true that Natural Selection selects those who are individually able to survive, but it isn’t quite as simple as that.

First; In nature, many species a have a mutually beneficial symbiotic relationship with other species to the point where both depend on the other for survival. The honeybee is a perfect example. It depends on flowering plants for survival , but their pollination of flowering plants in turn feeds about 75 % of herbivores on earth. Pretty neat !
Second : Humans could not survive without their symbiotic bacterial microbiome. Bacteria keep us alive!
Third; There are several higher species that carry their wounded as long as they do not become a real detriment of group survival.

Nature produces sufficient resources to support an enormous variety of species, including some that are vulnerable but have found a small niche that keeps them alive.

The Silvery Salamander should have been extinct a long time ago, yet it survives.

3

Thank you.
I like your third answer and would like to know more. I have seen a documentary where my favorite guy David Attenborough was narrating, where a group of elephants were pondering on the skulls of another dead elephant, I have also seen a video of robin Williams talking to a gorrila who learned sign language and gorrila expressed sadness at the notion of death (I found that profound).

But these (including your first and second answer) explain healthy relationships. Between a bee and a flower or between bacteria and us.
I’m talking about a sick relationship where neither party has anything physical (or survival) to gain by helping an entity who because of bad luck has a bad config and is sick, crippled or in pain.
For example in animal documentaries we see that animals are fiercely protective of their newborn but because they’re healthy. But the moment they’re sick … they’re abandoned, like an injured lion cub or adult lion. They just leave him there.

I’d also like to know more about your salamander reasoning. What does the salamander have to do with sickness?

Thank you !

4

‘Paramedic’ Ants Are the First to Rescue and Heal Their Wounded Comrades

Matabele ants nurse each other back to health after battle with a surprisingly high success rate, a new study finds.

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/article/matabele-ants-rescue-heal-injured-soldiers

Here are some videos of animal empathy for injured or helpless young.

5

Oh yes I remember that gorilla and child case, it was all over the news. Very touching.
Thank you ,but as we just learned from our new discovery which tells us that we are cell-based life forms who are interested in survival … then what do we make of this gorilla showing inter-species care and emotion for this child?

Is the gorilla confused and misinterpreting what he’s seeing or is the gorilla capable of emotion?
If so, what would be the point of emotion from a survival perspective if “fight or flight” is our main engine?
What does the gorilla get out of this basically?
Maternal/Paternal instinct or something more ?
Suppose the gorilla is capable of emotion , then why would it be wrong if we kill this gorilla and eat it?
We are higher than him on the evolutionary ladder.
Maybe emotion is also a basic fight or flight instinct from an evolutionary perspective?
People with more emotion win?

Also after reading that ant article where it says that they’ve observed ants in this “programmed behavior” is this proof that emotion is a basic drive in cell-based organisms?
If yes, then would this be a free get out of jail card to impose our emotions on lesser cell based organisms such as animals or sick humans?

The ant example shows more basic evolutionary drive but the gorilla case is a bit similar to our case with the sick so I think these two are a bit different which kinda prove that higher intelligence and emotion Wins from an evolutionary perspective the higher it is.

Thoughts?

6

The ant based “empathic” behavior is not intellectually but chemically driven.
But instead of dismissing this rudimentary example of group survival mechanics it should be considered a chemical proto type behvior that later evolved into conscious empathic behaviors in high order mammals such as found in apes, elephants, dolphins, and in domesticated animals such as cats and dogs.

And Koko with her kitten she named “All Ball” because it was a manx and had no tail.

7

Koko melts my heart.
Koko had the “conversation” with Robin Williams.

Ok let’s leave this here for today and pick it up on our next spontaneous chemical based processes. :slight_smile:

1 Like
8

1, for purely practical reasons, we don’t know what a sick person might be able to contribute.

If we are talking end of life, i think we spend too much resorces on that. But that’s a big shift in thinking.

Just basic compassion, we’re driven to it. It’s not logical. We cant just switch off an emotion.

9

That’s an excellent question and I used to have a nice answer, along the lines of what others have said…we can’t help but help, etc. But after watching Travellers on TV I’m not so sure. That show really changed my thinking on doing anything and why we do. It’s all about consequences that we have no real clue about. It’s kind of the ol’ What if Hitler was never born thing. At first you’d say Yay, millions of people would not have died! Okay but what if one of those people who didn’t die ended up being far worse than Hitler and caused far more people to die? Or flip it around…you save this little baby from drowning, yay! But what if that baby grows up to be a mass murder? That kinda thing.

We just don’t know. So how can we possibly act?

10

[quote=“eli1, post:1, topic:9379”]
to prove beyond any reasonable doubt that the universe was created by something which doesn’t involve a creator.

Simple logic can take care of that.

It proves that we are here by chance, randomly.

Not necessarily, it is more like a probability rather than pure chance and it took trillions of tries and failures to come up with the incredible variety and abilities of the different species.

But the human species is due to a very rare beneficial mutation that awarded us with an extraordinary brain. This mutation was the chance fusion of 2 hominid chromosomes into a twice as large single chromosome.
IMO it was at this point that homo sapiens made its entrance. This fact can be verified by the chromosome count. All great apes have 24 pr chromosomes whereas humans are the only hominid with 23 pr chromosomes…

Human Chromosome 2 is a fusion of two ancestral chromosomes
Alec MacAndrew

Introduction

All great apes apart from man have 24 pairs of chromosomes. There is therefore a hypothesis that the common ancestor of all great apes had 24 pairs of chromosomes and that the fusion of two of the ancestor’s chromosomes created chromosome 2 in humans. The evidence for this hypothesis is very strong.

Human - ape chtromosome 2 banding

Let us re-iterate what we find on human chromosome 2. Its centromere is at the same place as the chimpanzee chromosome 2p as determined by sequence similarity. Even more telling is the fact that on the 2q arm of the human chromosome 2 is the unmistakable remains of the original chromosome centromere of the common ancestor of human and chimp 2q chromosome, at the same position as the chimp 2q centromere (this structure in humans no longer acts as a centromere for chromosome 2.

Conclusion

The evidence that human chromosome 2 is a fusion of two of the common ancestor’s chromosomes is overwhelming.
Chromosome fusion

We are simply “survival of the fittest”

Not really, nature gave us a gift that transcends fitness. It lies in our “intelligence” that makes physical fitness of secondary importance.

The thing is that there are species and individuals that transcend individual survival ability. Elephants carry their wounded. Even ants have para-medics.

‘Paramedic’ Ants Are the First to Rescue and Heal Their Wounded Comrades

Matabele ants nurse each other back to health after battle with a surprisingly high success rate, a new study finds.

This discovery marks the first time non-human animals have been observed systematically nursing their wounded back to health. Frank and his colleagues describe this behavior in a paper published today in Proceedings of the Royal Society B.
These Ants Are the First Animal to Heal Wounded Comrades

Would you have let Steven Hawkings die because his body was not functional?

11

I’m trying to follow the logic here. Seems like not knowing is a reason to act. Hedge our bets.

12

People don’t live that way anymore survival of the fittest if we did no one would be in prison because they are the primal man its what got us to today we wiped out all the other species it doesn’t mean we were the smartest we were just the most violent species. A neanderthal had a bigger brain we were just more fierce then them. A time will come again when the rule will come into effect.

13

It is already in effect. We are in the middle of the Anthropocene extinction epoch.

Holocene extinction
“Sixth Extinction” redirects here.

The Holocene extinction, otherwise referred to as the sixth mass extinction or Anthropocene extinction,[3][4] is an ongoing extinction event of species during the present Holocene epoch (with the more recent time sometimes called Anthropocene) as a result of human activity.[5][6][7][8]

The included extinctions span numerous families of bacteria, fungi, plants[9][10][11] and animals, including mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, fish and invertebrates. With widespread degradation of highly biodiverse habitats such as coral reefs and rainforests, as well as other areas, the vast majority of these extinctions are thought to be undocumented, as the species are undiscovered at the time of their extinction, or no one has yet discovered their extinction.

The current rate of extinction of species is estimated at 100 to 1,000 times higher than natural background extinction rates.[15]

more…

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I agree with you on that I read a lot of info on it I just feel fortunate to have lived peacefully never had to go to war and always had more than enough . I 'm older now so I feel lost in this new world its not mine anymore people seem agitated by everything maybe it comes with a larger population and will just get worse as ideas clash.

2 Likes
15

It is a result of the “exponential function”.
I have posted this before but if you are not familiar with this, do take the time to watch this lecture by Prof Emeritus Albert Bartlett. It’ll change your perspective on many things.

16

Not knowing the consequences is the point. That baby you save might grow up to cure cancer or to be a mass killer - you have no idea. So how do you choose to act?

17

You always choose compassion and survival. You hope that leads to more of the same. You save the people even when you are running out of food. Id rather we all die together than live knowing I killed to survive

18

More than likely that baby would grow up to be a criminal. But we are not talking about babies!!!
We are talking about fetuses and in the entire history of living organisms, it is the parents who decide on the responsibility of having offspring…

1 Like
19

First, if it hasn’t been born yet, it is a fetus, not a baby. Secondly, it’s none of my business. The decisions concerning the fetus and the woman carrying the fetus is between her and the doctor. Conversation is over, especially after the woman decides if she will continue to carry the developing fetus or not and the doctor proceeds to treat her as per her choice.

1 Like
20

Ouch, take it easy, that was an example, no need to go all knee-jerk liberal on me (and believe me I’m far more liberal than you I suspect). We’re not talking about the whole abortion issue here. I’m talking about how one makes a decision for just about anything when you don’t know the consequences. Lausten’s response is off too when he says You always choose compassion. Why? Warning - example coming - see that young boy drowning? You show compassion as lausten suggests, and save the poor boy. He grows up to be the next Hitler, all because you showed compassion. Way to be.
Okay see the problem? Unless you know the future, even being guided by the principle “Always show compassion” might be totally misguided. So how do you decide?

And in case you’re feeling a knee-jerk coming on, the opposite is a quandry too - what if you follow the opposite principle from laustens and always act out of hate? You let the boy drown and laugh it off, not knowing that he was destined to cure the cancer that would someday kill your own child? (something like that, you get the point). So it works both ways.