What is it to be alive?

What is it like to be alive? A creature of thought on another planet existing in another kind of reality might ask this. The definition of life is what then? What would we answer if we were asked the question. The current definition is that “organisms maintain homeostasis, are composed of cells, undergo metabolism, can grow, adapt to their environment, respond to stimuli, and reproduce.” When these functions cease to operate we know and are grimly aware that we and all life then dies.

 

The self-sustaining processes that guide us living beings in existence are very unusual and mysterious to consider. Do any of these more sophisticated processes effecting humanity matter? We human beings might wonder in our short lived walk through the world if we are engineered for self-sustainment for a larger reason? Why do we want to live on? Isn't it puzzling that we have so much going on in our cultures? We produce such ambitious and interesting creative efforts. We are continually searching and our searches yield big answers. IS it a cruel naivety that shapes our communities of humanity? Is it mere cruelty of nature to have such empty illusions of optimism and hope. When we grapple with the death of our dearest friend and family member and long to find him/her again in the greener pastures of hope what is it really? When we look through the historical lens of an earlier devised system on Earth that guides a faith are we grasping at straws or do these things matter beyond our decomposition.

 

The other various forms of life that exist are plants, animals, fungi, protists, archaea, and bacteria.Is everything in the universe made out of matter? I know life itself is a much more complex form of that matter. Human life itself is a very curious anomaly of this matter indeed. Why does that matter come together just so giving birth to us unusual creatures? Is there a reason beyond random biology for life? Can that possibility of an afterlife really be adequately and reasonably dismissed?

 

Why does life come from non-life and tantalize us thinking creatures the way it does? Life causes us to get caught up in a fever of upward and outward and inward reflection. We aim our sights at truth, at nature, at a being rumored to exist as a God. Through that God we try to strategize our survival communicating then to that God as a transcending idea. Our very own continuation and survival is up against the unknown here as we act.

 

History is full of attempts to define what is meant by existence. Do we living organisms possess a life force caused originally by a vital spark that we’ve not yet began to understand? Is it possible the totality of Earth itself is alive?

 

The way life began on Earth is yet unknown I hear. There are hypotheses that have been formulated about that question. The earliest known life forms are said to be microfossils of bacteria. “In July 2016, scientists reported identifying a set of 355 genes believed to be present in the last universal common ancestor of all living organisms.” To survive in ecosystems this life, that is made up partially of us people, has to adapt to a range of conditions.

 

The philosopher Aristotle was the first person to classify the organisms of life. Eventually after Aristotle new groups and categories of life were then discovered. Cells themselves are now considered the smallest units and building blocks of life.

Extraterrestrial life also remains a possibility as humanity ponders our existences.