Why does every organism want to survive,have offsprings,...

what is the point of our survival why are we so desperate to survive,to have offspring’s. Why is every organism driven by this instinct to survive and reproduce?

 

This idea popped out during my heavy marijuana trip: We are the universe and life evolved so that the universe can understand it's self through us.Through our consciousness the universe is looking and exploring itself and same goes for every living consciousness organism in the universe life only evolved because the universe want to understand itself through us.

 

I make it a point not to survive desperately, and to let things unfold as they will. I don't think reproduction and survival really are the basic instincts that drive us the most. I think people are driven more by their sense of beauty and meaning. People generally see life as worth living and proliferating. It isn't just because they're scared to die or anything like that.

 

I don't. =]

 

Seems self evident. Is a desire a compulsion?

 

actually, i don't think the average bacilus, or whatever the right word for, really gives a fuck. who is this "we" the op speaks of? i think maybe does he have a mouse in his pocket?

we're all different. we don't ALL anything. not even all sapient humans of planet earth, let alone every organism.

being alive is more useful to the individual then not being. i believe that is a somewhat more generally reliable statement, and i really think that pretty much answers itself. its not driven. its not instinct. its "what the hell good is not being alive", to anything that notices that it is?

 

How is that determined not having not being alive to compare to? I think it more likely that life is motion and things in motion tend to want to stay in motion, inertia, and the instinct for self preservation extension is a biological analogue to that physical force. This does not require any analytic of ones own situation. Life can be miserable and yet retain it's compulsion to be.

 

If we as a whole don't have offspring it feels our survival was for nothing. I think animals (including us) at first instance ONLY try to survive to ensure the next generation. If there is no offspring there we as a species would stop to exist. Why do we exist is a related question. It seems a lot of animals mainly exist to procreate. This doesn't mean that is there only purpose in the bigger scheme of things. After all other animals might depend on them as a food source

 

that's nonsense. i exist for the enjoyment of existing because to not do so would be pointless. as for offspring, there's too damd many humans on this planet already.

now if there were a shortage of us, if we were too small of genepool, like the cheetah for instance, that would be a different matter. but we're not. we have just exactly the opposite problem.

obviously by too many i don't mean standing room only, we're no where near close to that, but the reality is we could not survive getting anywhere near close to that.

the carrying capacity of what makes our existence possible is not without limits, and we are pushing those limits. so really, the price of continuing to bread like rabbits, is our own extinction as a species.

massive prodgeny is a survival mechanism for prey species. not predators and not omnivours like ourselves.

prodgeny has nothing to do with it, the point of being alive is that there is no point to being dead.

the gratafication of being alive is to make THINGS, to create, and to explore.
it is the exploring we share in common with all chordate life forms.
copulation is undoubtedly nearly as universal as a source of pleasure,
but it is far from the central focus of existence for sapient life forms.

sapience IS creativity.
if you're not interested in that, you are no different then any other creature.
you have nothing to offer that is uniaquely sapient.

 

Question OP: Do you want to die?
Also: Do you mind if your children to die prematurely?

 

That is pretty profound for a 16 year old.

 

I agree but it isn't nonsense. I was talking about animals and our instincts and answering the question of the OP. What i said IS why so many organisms want to have offspring.

 

why "so many" makes sense, and i'm not calling THAT nonsense. its the op and the tread title that is nonsense for making such an unsupportably broad assumption. "every" organism?

and certainly not every person. nor every individual member of any species, whither one considers the members of that species to be persons or not.

in a great many species, it is only a very small selection of one or the other genders, that even get the chance to mate at all.

that is just one of the MANY factors that call into question the "every" aspect, of ANY thing.

(i know we all make over broad generalizations from time to time, i don't claim complete innocence of this myself. sometimes we are forced to in order to not have to use so many words, or such technical and unfamiliar ones that most people loose interest in hearing the thought out. but SOME over-generalizations are just too glaring to let slide, especially when they are being used to make points, which are thus themselves, FAR from valid)

 

Viruses and microorganisms probably dont have a hardcore "drive" or "desire" for survival. They just do what they do... And if these living things are to survive, it just logically follows that they must try somehow. And if you believe in evolution, then it logically follows that as they become more complex, the desire starts to form. All the instincts like sex, hunger, pain, all work together to create the perfect survival mechanism that gives us the urges and shit we need to get shit done.
Because we feel all shitty and cold when its cold outside, it pressures us to find warmth somehow, and from that basic need, intellegence is formed. Its much like slime mold taking the shortest path thru a maze to find food, living flesh(brain tissue in particular) needs to find the best path to get certain things so that basic needs are met.
If your a single cell simple organism you likely dont have these highly advanced drives or desires because you lack a nervous system and stuff.

 

Not all organisms have a drive to survive and reproduce. Some humans commit suicide. Others prefer financial solvency to having kids. But the ones who off themselves before reproducing, and those who don't reproduce at all take themselves out of the gene pool. Those who value life and kids survive and pass their survival genes onto the next generation, etc. So the life affirmers grow more and more numerous.

 

Another thing we forgot to communicate about: the anti-christ. Is he generally suicidal or with an unsurpassable will to survive?

 

Exactamundo. It's simple math really.

 

the reason things want to live, is because being dead is not very useful to them.

the reason they have kids is because nature either makes sex fun, or just a thing that is part of life, like eating and sleeping. depending on the species and the methods involved.

 

nah, asmodean pretty much nailed it.

the thread title could be changed to say every species, and then it would be accurate. i think that is what he meant.

every species has an instinct to reproduce. or else it wouldn't be here.


you said that nature made sex fun - exactly. so that species would want to reproduce and carry on the species.

i think that for the humans that don't care about reproducing...they can see the problem of overpopulation, or they choose not to do it for personal reasons or something....which is only possible through birth control or abstinence, which is going against our nature.