What does a rock desire? What is it thinking? A standard answer to this would be to say "nothing". That it is simply a physical manifestation of the laws governing our environment. However, a rock is, in fact, the end result of incredibly complicated interactions, the very ability to sit still becomes incredible when one looks at quark physics. And yet it is so- that small underlying probabilities on a low level lead to stable realities on upper levels. In this manner rocks are identical to humans- that it is a manifestation of an underlying yearning, that SOMETHING WANTED SOMETHING. To declare anything else requires an arbitrary line, wherein at one point something is alive and thinking but at an arbitrarily similar point it isn't. Like trying to draw lines with RNA on one side and viruses on the other. The very definitions of thought and life only work as properties, similar to heat or velocity. An absolute zero life reality would have to have zero information content.
That said, humans are obviously more alive than rocks are. So are algae and spaghetti. The question then arises as to what delineates higher levels of life from lower levels of life. A standard snap reply would be "intellect". A somewhat more advanced reply would be "morality". Since we are currently just playing games with the English language (which, like math, is not actually the basis of the universe around us, no matter how much we wish it were.) both answers are correct, as is any other answer. However, amongst those correct answers there is one that I would point out as a very interesting angle from which to view the world- "desire". While quarks have hardly any desires and just run around as they please, electrons insist on finding protons. DNA wishes to reproduce, which is far beyond simple magnetism, whilst fungi wish to grow. The definition is fully scalable and works for any interaction. What makes a human more alive than a cow? The fact that the human wants to build houses, share experiences and make inventions, while the cow just wants eat grass and lay down facing power lines. If the cattle just had the desire to improve their environment they could be human. This works for IQ as well- in that a stupid thug merely wants his next fix, whereas if he wanted to carefully annotate the exact actions of a slowly titrated chemical he would in fact BE a brilliant scientist. Note China, who had gunpowder, all the IQ they could ask for, but just didn't WANT to shoot anybody. It was lack of lifeforce, not calculation capacity that held them back. While it might be argued that the Chinese really DID want to shoot people but just didn't think of it, this argument doesn't work, once we realize that monkeys and mocking birds want to imitate the actions of those around them, but do not have any higher desires. The desire to replicate the actions of others is not equivalent to a desire to take independent action.
IE- to be a higher life form, all that is necessary is to desire the correct things. However, by applying previous knowledge of the definitions leading here, desires are not customizable (IE a thug really can't just want to goto college and memorize the periodic table.) and have a physical basis. The more interesting implications don't revolve around how to reach a level of life but in what a higher level of life IS. We note already the line of desire from a quark to a human, but it is important to note the trends inherent in these goals- That a quark, desiring to be in its correct triplet has an infinitely easier objective than any human objective- IE a more obtainable objective. Whilst our objectives are complicated and hard to achieve, a quark can just teleport to its objective. Rocks have a far higher chance of sitting still than DNA does of replicating, and a cow is more likely to eat the grass in front of it than the chance that a human will put a house on that grass. IE, the goals of higher lifeforms are perpetually less realistic than those of lower lifeforms. In fact, they are not only more difficult, but due to growing pattern overlaps, the goals of higher lifeforms steadily become mutually exclusive. Whilst the rocks can live in perfect harmony, humans must always be in conflict, whether through war, or through various advertisements drawing customers away from one product and to another.
If we move on to yet higher lifeforms, we find angels and demons, beings aspiring to ultimate power. (Demons through force-ably integrating all reality with their objective, and angels through convincing all reality to integrate. Either way the end result is the same.) So what happens if one such being achieves its objective and becomes omnipotent? It must then become a god. For that is the driving force of evolution, that once a lifeform has achieved its desire in fullness, the next frame MUST include a higher lifeform. This is because, the universe is information. It is a slide-show OF information. In order to change slides, the information contained MUST change. The next slide IS the difference in information. There are of course two other possibilities, ones that always exist- A- the projector is turned off, and the slide-show ends and B- a new slidereel is loaded, and the show is fundamentally changed.
However, our show is evolution, and our next slide will always contain a higher lifeform. So then, what does a god desire? What does the demon who has slain all opposition now want? What does the angel who has rallied all desire to one point want? The answer relates to the same thing that every form of life has always attempted- to replicate. A god however, being omnipotent, cannot simply create another god. Why? Because, being omnipotent, everything within the universe is simply an extension of himself. Creating an exact copy of himself would merely cause him to become more massive. To create a new god, it becomes necessary to reproduce not only the form, but the core nature that IS a god, IE the quality of understanding that the god has obtained- but this understanding must be formed entirely independently of the god's original experience, lest reproduction falter, and the infant be rendered simply an additional limb. It is therefore a god's duty, nay, nature, to create a new universe. Any lesser desire, and the supposed god is instead just a extremely powerful demon. What lies beyond godhood then? Is evolution an indefinite progression?
That said, humans are obviously more alive than rocks are. So are algae and spaghetti. The question then arises as to what delineates higher levels of life from lower levels of life. A standard snap reply would be "intellect". A somewhat more advanced reply would be "morality". Since we are currently just playing games with the English language (which, like math, is not actually the basis of the universe around us, no matter how much we wish it were.) both answers are correct, as is any other answer. However, amongst those correct answers there is one that I would point out as a very interesting angle from which to view the world- "desire". While quarks have hardly any desires and just run around as they please, electrons insist on finding protons. DNA wishes to reproduce, which is far beyond simple magnetism, whilst fungi wish to grow. The definition is fully scalable and works for any interaction. What makes a human more alive than a cow? The fact that the human wants to build houses, share experiences and make inventions, while the cow just wants eat grass and lay down facing power lines. If the cattle just had the desire to improve their environment they could be human. This works for IQ as well- in that a stupid thug merely wants his next fix, whereas if he wanted to carefully annotate the exact actions of a slowly titrated chemical he would in fact BE a brilliant scientist. Note China, who had gunpowder, all the IQ they could ask for, but just didn't WANT to shoot anybody. It was lack of lifeforce, not calculation capacity that held them back. While it might be argued that the Chinese really DID want to shoot people but just didn't think of it, this argument doesn't work, once we realize that monkeys and mocking birds want to imitate the actions of those around them, but do not have any higher desires. The desire to replicate the actions of others is not equivalent to a desire to take independent action.
IE- to be a higher life form, all that is necessary is to desire the correct things. However, by applying previous knowledge of the definitions leading here, desires are not customizable (IE a thug really can't just want to goto college and memorize the periodic table.) and have a physical basis. The more interesting implications don't revolve around how to reach a level of life but in what a higher level of life IS. We note already the line of desire from a quark to a human, but it is important to note the trends inherent in these goals- That a quark, desiring to be in its correct triplet has an infinitely easier objective than any human objective- IE a more obtainable objective. Whilst our objectives are complicated and hard to achieve, a quark can just teleport to its objective. Rocks have a far higher chance of sitting still than DNA does of replicating, and a cow is more likely to eat the grass in front of it than the chance that a human will put a house on that grass. IE, the goals of higher lifeforms are perpetually less realistic than those of lower lifeforms. In fact, they are not only more difficult, but due to growing pattern overlaps, the goals of higher lifeforms steadily become mutually exclusive. Whilst the rocks can live in perfect harmony, humans must always be in conflict, whether through war, or through various advertisements drawing customers away from one product and to another.
If we move on to yet higher lifeforms, we find angels and demons, beings aspiring to ultimate power. (Demons through force-ably integrating all reality with their objective, and angels through convincing all reality to integrate. Either way the end result is the same.) So what happens if one such being achieves its objective and becomes omnipotent? It must then become a god. For that is the driving force of evolution, that once a lifeform has achieved its desire in fullness, the next frame MUST include a higher lifeform. This is because, the universe is information. It is a slide-show OF information. In order to change slides, the information contained MUST change. The next slide IS the difference in information. There are of course two other possibilities, ones that always exist- A- the projector is turned off, and the slide-show ends and B- a new slidereel is loaded, and the show is fundamentally changed.
However, our show is evolution, and our next slide will always contain a higher lifeform. So then, what does a god desire? What does the demon who has slain all opposition now want? What does the angel who has rallied all desire to one point want? The answer relates to the same thing that every form of life has always attempted- to replicate. A god however, being omnipotent, cannot simply create another god. Why? Because, being omnipotent, everything within the universe is simply an extension of himself. Creating an exact copy of himself would merely cause him to become more massive. To create a new god, it becomes necessary to reproduce not only the form, but the core nature that IS a god, IE the quality of understanding that the god has obtained- but this understanding must be formed entirely independently of the god's original experience, lest reproduction falter, and the infant be rendered simply an additional limb. It is therefore a god's duty, nay, nature, to create a new universe. Any lesser desire, and the supposed god is instead just a extremely powerful demon. What lies beyond godhood then? Is evolution an indefinite progression?
