Help What is the source of a living beings drive to live and reproduce? What causes it?

[Surai]

All my life I haven't answered the question of why? What causes life the very cells that make up our body strive so hard to live and reproduce. What is the source of this drive that animals and living beings have that causes them to search for partners for food and kill, anything to live and reproduce. I know its not supposed to make sense to a human but I find it odd. It seems like the very problem is this life energy or how else to describe it. Where did it come from? Our consciousness allows us to rebel against it and when we do It is then we are a mind that sits in a foreign body that will try to keep living no matter what.

 

[Hollowman]

Idk but it's a fucked up thing, wish my parents would've used birth control.

 

[Forever Sleep]

As far as I understand, it's all bound up with the process of evolution. We can call those two traits- to live and reproduce, instinct. Over a timespan of billions of years, where creatures are running through their life cycles and chance is making very small changes in their DNA. Some changes take, some don't. The creatures who seem to do better are changing via adapting to their environment.

One of the fundamental things the creature needs to be able to do is live long enough to reproduce. And obviously, the creatures that got landed genes that made them want to survive and shag everything in sight had a lot more chance of passing those genes on.

For some animals- that's still apparently enough. Female octopus stop eating after laying eggs and die before they hatch. Other creatures presumably 'found' that sticking around to look after their children gave their children a better chance to survive and reproduce themselves.

What I certainly find interesting in humans is that we don't generally seem to lose the instinct to survive. Even some 80 year olds who couldn't possibly bear children (although, I guess men still can.) Are likely done parenting them, still have the instinct to carry on. I guess though, we are related to animals that live in social groups. So- the grandparents do still help in raising children- their genes effectively. Why childless people still have this instinct though, I'm not sure. Maybe because we still have the biological ability to have children.

I think it's very interesting that we can overide this instinct though- like you say, with our conscious, reasoning mind. I'm not sure many other animals can. That certainly puzzles me because, is it within our evolutionary best interests? Maybe it is though. Terrible to say but, some of us are also not wanting to reproduce because we don't think our genes and even our defects made us well suited to this world. Maybe antinatilism and ideation do fit in to evolution because they 'weed out' those who at least don't feel- maybe aren't suited to thrive in this world.

 

[L'absent]

Life, as we know it, can be seen as an accident of entropy, a random event that emerged under favorable conditions in the universe. There is no God or intrinsic purpose behind this existence; simply, the conditions were right for life to develop. The drive for reproduction and survival is nothing more than an automatism created in this context. Living beings cling to life and try to perpetuate themselves, but all this is destined to vanish. Entropy will get the better of us, and eventually everything will be destroyed. Questions about the why of life and reproduction may seem meaningful, but in reality there is no real meaning behind these actions. They are just evolutionary mechanisms that serve no greater purpose, but are the result of a universe that gave rise to this temporary phenomenon. It is a difficult reality to accept, but recognizing it allows us to face life with a greater awareness of its transience.

 

[Namelesa]

For reproducing: Sex. Its genuinely probably a big part of why animals keep reproducing as its a natural desire in a lot of animals and feels good so it gives them an incentive to reproduce.

 

[pthnrdnojvsc]

Does a single cell amoeba know that it's alive and wants to live?

No it's a machine

What other animals know they are alive and that they and all will die anyway? all don't understand this most fundamental truth of life that every living animal and human will die

Does a 3 year old human understand that all will die anyway? I think almost all do not

Do most adult humans act like like they
Fully understand they and every one will die? An adult human is capable of this understanding but how many fully do?

As for me this animal i can see there is no reason to want to live in this hell for another second. I don't have any drive nor desire to live nor reproduce. I know I will die and that all humans alive now will be dead in 150 years. In 150 years it will be as if none of us ever existed. Nothing matters. What will matter in 200 years ,10000 years? A trillion years? Nothing
The only things that matter to me is me avoiding extreme pain and suffering and my suicide asap

Humans certainly don't have a drive to reproduce otherwise birthrates would not be declining rapidly

 

[Chinaski]

As for me this animal i can see there is no reason to want to live in this hell for another second.

A blessing of the human condition, being as we are at the top of the food chain, is the ability to cognitise what is necessary in order literally end their own lives. We have the ability to reflect and consider, which animals do not. This is why animals are euthanised and you must get on with it. If you wish to equate humanity with ameoba that's fine but at some point you must acknowledge the benefit of human cognition, an animal can live for years in undetected pain whereas suicide enthusiasts canjustget the fuck on with killing themselves if they want to