this post was submitted on 05 Apr 2025
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Asklemmy
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Just being "alive." We become alive, some sort of "spark of life" pulses through us, and at some point, that "spark" leaves us, and we are nothing more than a rock. What is that "spark?"
Everything is either animate of inanimate, so how did things become animate? At some point, something had to get that "spark," and become alive, then spread that life around. How did/does that happen?
Is this "spark" unique to Earth, or is is possible to exist elsewhere? Did some nearly impossible combination of factors all happen to line up and cause "life" to emerge, like a room full of monkeys randomly typing Hamlet, or do those factors exist in other places?
Of course, many people would assign a religious explanation to that "spark," our Soul or whatever, but that's just making up a silly story to explain something we don't understand.
Thanks for the last sentence, I feared it might build up to this ๐
I'd say in this old question "are we bodies or do we have bodies?" It's the prior. Deduct your ability to question your existence and...you just do. A tardigrade does have that spark of life too. But what is it? Nothing special I'd argue. Us speculating about this is just the epitome of that spark. A gift, a curse (looking at how our species acts, I'd say the latter)...but just something that happened and multiplicated successfully.