Why life does not really exist

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robertk
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Re: Why life does not really exist

Post by robertk »

Thanks sarathw
That quote seems incorrect.
Jivitindriya only arises wirh the groups of Rupas [edit, by robert]produced by kamma .

The matter making up plants are tejo produced and never by kamma: there is no jivitindriya at all associated with plants
SarathW
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Re: Why life does not really exist

Post by SarathW »

It says:
There is a certain kind of Råpa-Jãvitindriya in plant
life.
“As the lamp consumes oil, the path realises Nibbana”
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robertk
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Re: Why life does not really exist

Post by robertk »

SarathW wrote:It says:
There is a certain kind of Råpa-Jãvitindriya in plant
life.
yes, as I said, it is wrong.
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Dhammanando
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Re: Why life does not really exist

Post by Dhammanando »

SarathW wrote:It says:
There is a certain kind of Råpa-Jãvitindriya in plant life.
That plants and the earth have kāya-indriya is mentioned in the Vinaya, but as a view of the Nigaṇṭhas and Acelakas, not the Buddha.
  • ______________________________________

    Now at that time the monks of Alavi, making repairs, dug the ground and had it dug. People looked down upon, criticised, spread it about, saying: “How can these samanas, sons of the Sakyans, dig the ground and have it dug? These samanas, sons of the Sakyans, are harming life that is one-facultied (ekindriyaṃ jīvaṃ).”

    ______________________________________

    Now at that time the monks of Alavi, making repairs, were cutting down trees and having them cut down [...] People looked down upon, criticised, spread it about, saying: “How can these samanas, sons of the Sakyans, cut down trees and have them cut down? These samanas, sons of the Sakyans, are harming life that is one-facultied (ekindriyaṃ jīvaṃ).”

    ______________________________________

    Commentary:

    “Ekindriyan” ti kāyindriyeneva ekindriyaṃ, nigaṇṭhānaṃ acelakānaṃ mataṃ.

    “One-facultied” means having just the body-faculty as their one faculty, as supposed by Jains and naked ascetics.

    ______________________________________
Yena yena hi maññanti,
tato taṃ hoti aññathā.


In whatever way they conceive it,
It turns out otherwise.
(Sn. 588)
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Sam Vara
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Re: Why life does not really exist

Post by Sam Vara »

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Mkoll
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Re: Why life does not really exist

Post by Mkoll »

chownah wrote:
Mkoll wrote:
chownah wrote:In physics it is said that the overall condition of existence is that there is a continual decrease in the orderedness of the stuff the universe is made of..........life seems to be a process which violates that decrease......life seems to be continually taking materials with little orderliness and imposing order.
chownah
Correct me if I'm wrong.

When more order is created somewhere, there is more disorder created elsewhere. So life doesn't violate the law of entropy. The energy of the universe is constant but its entropy is increasing.
I don't know if you are wrong......entropy is something I've not studied much........do you know of a good link that talks about life vis a vis entropy?
chownah
I'm afraid not. I'm only repeating what my chemistry teacher taught :tongue:

I did a quick search for "entropy and life" and wikipedia was the first hit. I skimmed the article and it seems that what we're talking about is "negative entropy" proposed by Schrodinger.
Later, building on this premise, in the famous 1944 book What is Life?, Nobel-laureate physicist Erwin Schrödinger theorizes that life, contrary to the general tendency dictated by the Second law of thermodynamics, decreases or maintains its entropy by feeding on negative entropy. In his note to Chapter 6 of What is Life?, however, Schrödinger remarks on his usage of the term negative entropy:

"Let me say first, that if I had been catering for them [physicists] alone I should have let the discussion turn on free energy instead. It is the more familiar notion in this context. But this highly technical term seemed linguistically too near to energy for making the average reader alive to the contrast between the two things."

This is what is argued to differentiate life from other forms of matter organization. In this direction, although life's dynamics may be argued to go against the tendency of second law, which states that the entropy of an isolated system tends to increase, it does not in any way conflict or invalidate this law, because the principle that entropy can only increase or remain constant applies only to a closed system which is adiabatically isolated, meaning no heat can enter or leave. Whenever a system can exchange either heat or matter with its environment, an entropy decrease of that system is entirely compatible with the second law. The problem of organization in living systems increasing despite the second law is known as the Schrödinger paradox.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entropy_and_life

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negative_entropy

:anjali:
Namo tassa bhagavato arahato samma sambuddhassa
Namo tassa bhagavato arahato samma sambuddhassa
Namo tassa bhagavato arahato samma sambuddhassa
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Jason
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Re: Why life does not really exist

Post by Jason »

Reminds me of an interesting idea about what life is from Thomas Mann's The Magic Mountain found in an exchange between Hans Castorp and Director Behrens in a discourse on physiology, which is that life is "primarily the oxidation of cell protein," i.e., that life is dying in the sense that both life and decomposition/corruption are forms of oxidation, a kind of 'burning off' (262). As valid as any other, I guess.
"Sabbe dhamma nalam abhinivesaya" (AN 7.58).

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Mkoll
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Re: Why life does not really exist

Post by Mkoll »

One way or another everything in the universe is being bombarded by destructive cosmic rays and electromagnetic radiation from space objects and stars. Naturally, stars are required for life as we know it to exist. So even as they preserve and provide the energy for life to exist they are destroying life.

Natural irony.

:anjali:
Namo tassa bhagavato arahato samma sambuddhassa
Namo tassa bhagavato arahato samma sambuddhassa
Namo tassa bhagavato arahato samma sambuddhassa
Buckwheat
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Re: Why life does not really exist

Post by Buckwheat »

chownah wrote:In physics it is said that the overall condition of existence is that there is a continual decrease in the orderedness of the stuff the universe is made of..........life seems to be a process which violates that decrease......life seems to be continually taking materials with little orderliness and imposing order.
chownah
Life does not violate entropy because we are not closed systems. Plants generate a lot of entopy when absorbing energy from the sun to create order (photosynthesis), and it goes on up the food chain. Another way of saying that is that plants diffuse a lot of energy just to absorb a little bit.
Sotthī hontu nirantaraṃ - May you forever be well.
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Re: Why life does not really exist

Post by Spiny Norman »

Buckwheat wrote: Life does not violate entropy because we are not closed systems.
Does entropy actually apply to life - I' not sure?
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chownah
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Re: Why life does not really exist

Post by chownah »

Entropy extends to life to the extent that life is made up of material substance.......that is to say that the concept of entropy is applied to all physical matter whether living or not.

While it is true that a living thing is not a closed system, if we consider the universe as a closed system the question becomes whether living things can actually avoid the entropic trend toward disorder. Based on the Wikipedia article referenced above it seems that there are different opinions on this.
chownah
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Kare
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Re: Why life does not really exist

Post by Kare »

Spiny Norman wrote:
Buckwheat wrote: Life does not violate entropy because we are not closed systems.
Does entropy actually apply to life - I' not sure?
Entropy is central to life. See the first four chapters of Alex Rosenberg, The Atheist's Guide to Reality for a lucid explanation/description.
Mettāya,
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SarathW
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Re: Why life does not really exist

Post by SarathW »

robertk wrote:
SarathW wrote:It says:
There is a certain kind of Råpa-Jãvitindriya in plant
life.
yes, as I said, it is wrong.
Hi Robert
I respect your opinion.
I spoke to the monk from my local temple and he share the same understanding as you do.
However we have to keep our mind open in this subject.
Do you think that plant has life (Jiva)?
Do you think that Venerable Narda can make such a grave mistake?
:)
“As the lamp consumes oil, the path realises Nibbana”
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cooran
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Re: Why life does not really exist

Post by cooran »

Hello SarathW,

Did you read this post by Ven. Dhammanando?
http://www.dhammawheel.com/viewtopic.ph ... 04#p270332

With metta,
Chris
---The trouble is that you think you have time---
---Worry is the Interest, paid in advance, on a debt you may never owe---
---It's not what happens to you in life that is important ~ it's what you do with it ---
SarathW
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Re: Why life does not really exist

Post by SarathW »

Hi Cooran
Thanks, I have read that as well.
:)
“As the lamp consumes oil, the path realises Nibbana”
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