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RE: The Survival Instinct - Does it Exist?
Hope you are open to constructive criticism. It was long, I read it all (although I must honestly admit I skim/scanned a bit, sorry :-) but I would be much more likely to read/respond (assuming that is what you want) if there were logical sections I could respond to individually.
I enjoyed the humor.
The DESIRE to survive can only apply to self-conscious beings, all else is pleasure attraction/pain(displeasure) avoidance.
Adaptability is the key - "life" is adaptation: Environment cold? conserve heat. Environment hot? shed heat. Dry? drink never. Wet? drink always. Etc.
Life IS adaptation (to present conditions). If it cannot/doesnot adapt to (EVER)changing conditions, it will not propagate.
Just my personal O :-)
I'm open to criticism yes! )
I understand everything you said. And yeah skimming in this case is only natural!
I tried to approach the issue by attacking it from many angles, and hopefully the reader will get what I'm saying by combining all these different ways of putting it (some analogy, some argument, some stories about dogs and moths). What you'd like is a more formal/structured/scientific argument, something you can get a grip on, something less slimy! That's understandable!
Your use of adaptation here is a bit like the survival instinct! The only thing that life (organisms) contain that can be likened to adaptation, is their imperfect copying mechanisms: DNA doesn't always copy itself absolutely faithfully. Because of this, certain (very few) mutations that result end up being better adapted to a changing environment, or even a stable one.
An organism never says "Environment cold? conserve heat." It can't change itself that way. If it's not well adapted, it will simply die. But if it's adapted well-enough - well-enough to procreate - it will produce copies of itself that may be better adapted (because of random mutations) to the environment.
Of course, by "life" you could have meant a whole series of organisms, a plurality, the whole rather than the parts. But that's too metaphorical an entity to assess whether we can equate it with adaptation!
Hell, even my comments are long! :P
Thanks for reading!
My use of life (as a general principle) as adaptation is the opposite of "survival instinct" (in the individual).
As you note, a (non-self-aware) organism is incapable of formulating such a goal - there is only pain avoidance and pleasure approach (pick your terms - EVERY organism has a means of apprehending and responding to its environment).
It is LIFE that adapts. The individual (organism, species, etc) is just . . . a tool and if one tool is not up to the job (of adapting to its EVER (usually slow) changing environment) another is "selected" (by that environment) until eventually (one might assume :-), the perfect adaptation engine is produced.
In the same manner the big bang eventually "produced" hydrogen (and the other elements, and then molecules, and then ...) - everything that can be tried/combined is tried until only that which works - given the true nature of the universe - falls out (survives to tell the tale).
It is hard to talk intelligently about such things without using terms that SEEM like anthropomorphizations :-) I am not sure the "big bang" is capable of "trying" to do anything but it is easier than saying "shit was all bent, feld, spindled, shaken, stirred, mutilated and pressed together until certain stuff stuck together better than other stuff" :-)
Exactly. And sometimes those anthropomorphizations, that we employ consciously and think there's no harm in that, lead us into errors of thinking. We can't stop using them, but we should always be on our guard against all metaphors and such.
Life can adapt to environmental changes in limited degrees. The Darwinian conception of evolution, in which genetic traits incrementally change or "progress" towards improved adaptation has been challenged 50 years ago by "Punctuated Equilibrium" of Eldrige and Gould. Darwin's theories were likely influenced by perceptual matrix of Western thoughts of Alchemy, Platonic duality, and Christianity to assume that change has directional purpose.
Life merely exists. To impute a purpose like survival to life behavior, as the OP writes, reveals more about the belief system of thle theorist, rather than objective reality.