The Digitalis's flowers show the life of its flowers so well; from birth to death on one stick. And after dropping dead on the ground, it's stuff becomes part of the ground, that after a while becomes part of new plants and animals, again!

Live
What is the definition of life?


The human biological cycle
- the fusion of an egg with one sperm
- being born
- grow up
- have kids
- grow old
- die.
One can also have no kids or die earlier. At about 1/3 of a lifetime, the children are made, and by doing so the presence of life continues.

The power
The power for life on Earth is mainly from the sun, so; nuclear fusion.

We change
A human body changes a whole lot during its lifetime. I'm not like I was 12 years ago, and the differences between me now and the day I was born are incredible. It's amazing how the human body manage to maintain most of its shapes from day to day.

Longer lasting shapes
The energy in our universe has a changing effect on all shapes. The shape of our bodies changes a lot. Digital information with error correction and multiple backups have a very high chance on surviving the declay caused by the motions of energy. A living body is not equal to digital data, but I wonder if it is possible to design a living body that can maintain its shape constant for ever, without freezing. A body that can stay in optimal condition for ever. Our body can't do that, but we can pass on our DNA to a next generation. DNA is like digital information, but without error correction and without multiple back-ups.

We primitive
It's a shame that we grow old and die. What a waste. Our shapes simply decay by all the motions. That's the way it is. We have to spent most of our energy/time in simply staying alive as individuals and as a group/spiecies. To improve our lifetime possible to about the point of imortal, we'd have to redesign ourselves completely. We could then spend our energy on discovering the universe and the optimum shapes of life. But we aren't ready for that yet. We still fight each other, instead of working together well. Advanced aliens, are probably not interested in the primitive humans we are now.

Imortal Matter
From a matter point of view, we already are imortal, or very long lasting at least. The atoms we're made of don't come from nowhere, and when we die, our stuff doesn't go nowhere. It came from within this universe, it's in this universe, and it will stay here.

Imortal Structure
Relative to our matter, our structure don't last long. It's my structure that matter to me, not the atoms that carry my structure. Our shapes constantly change under the influence of the motions of energy. Living structures contain a great lot of repetitions, patterns, while the dead shapes are much more random of structure. Some of our structure lives on in the children: a mix of their parents DNA and what they learned from their parents. And also the memories of all of us: how we were, what we did, what we left behind. All the actions we do echoe on into the future, most weaken but some get amplevied.

Making a copy
Scanning a living body, sending this information with the speed of light to a distant space station, building a copy from atoms that are already there (what to do with the original body?!).

Logic motions
If the motions in this universe are simply a matter of cause and effect, I am the effect of many motions that happened before in this universe. Everything in this universe is more or less connected. Some say that non-logical things happen at sub-atomic scale. I find that hard to believe, I think we simply don't understand the logic yet. But who knows, if on that very small level things can happen without cause or effect, I am not just an effect.

Mysterious Emotions
Emotions are the drive of life. All decisions we make are based upon emotions. In our body there's emotion related electro/chemical activity going on, but to me that doesn't explain what emotions are. Any shape of matter is worthless without a emotional judgment. What exactly emotions are is a mystery to me. What about the emotions when dead? Will they be gone just like how structures decay into randomness, or will they move on like atoms do?

Death.
The end? Not completely. If someone dies, the matter stays, but the structure of the body is gone. Only part of the structure really matters. A mixture of DNA can pass on if children have been made. More important is what good the children learned from there parents. The emotions, I don't knowcan if they can survive death.