# Why are we alive? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [May 24, 2012, 8:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-we-alive/622931 "2012-05-24T08:59:11Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 4\ **Page:** 11
**Author:** ![Try2B\_Comprehensive](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/try2b_comprehensive/32/65_2.png) [@Try2B\_Comprehensive](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Try2B_Comprehensive)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2012, 5:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-we-alive/622931/201 "2012-06-29T05:19:10Z")
> [@Revenant\_Threshold](#): > > What things are conscious? Right. Who says behavior is necessary for consciousness? A crystal might ‘evolve’ or be designed to be conscious without it ever actually performing any actions of any kind, for example. The consciousness would just remain, perhaps, undetectable. ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2012, 6:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-we-alive/622931/202 "2012-06-29T06:14:10Z")
Not impossible, I guess…but why? For it to evolve, it has to provide some survival bonus. Sitting and grooving on philosophical first principles is nifty, but how does it make the crystal more likely to reproduce (???) than if the crystal is inert? And, yeah, the same question could be charged against human consciousness: does our ability to think about thinking about thinking feed us or keep wolves from eating us? Some say that consciousness, like music, is merely an emergent property of the real survival trait of intelligence. So…okay, the crystal has an emergent property of consciousness…but if it emerges out of intelligence, then, as far as anyone knows, that intelligence is expressed in behavior. “Pure” consciousness could happen…but it doesn’t seem to work under the guidelines of evolution as we know it. (And, ultimately, if it did evolve…I think it would be so very different from our own consciousness as to require a different label entirely. Would we be able to communicate with it?) ---
**Author:** ![Try2B\_Comprehensive](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/try2b_comprehensive/32/65_2.png) [@Try2B\_Comprehensive](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Try2B_Comprehensive)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2012, 3:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-we-alive/622931/203 "2012-06-29T15:27:17Z")
Well, since we still haven’t defined consciousness we can’t say for sure if it is an emergent property of intelligence or not. Why behavior-less consciousness? Maybe highly advanced aliens would prefer it that way. After a billion years of evolution they get tired of the rat race and are ready to just sit there and enjoy the bliss of simply ‘being’, on and on and on without distraction. So they employ a technology that transforms their bodies into durable, conscious crystals over time. They remain aware but never have to bother doing anything because they just like it that way. Or researchers design a computer that is so advanced it achieves consciousness. They unplug all its peripherals so that students may ask philosophical questions about it- since it can’t reproduce, why bother? What is the meaning of its consciousness-as-product if cut off from any input or output? ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2012, 9:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-we-alive/622931/204 "2012-06-29T21:58:57Z")
Okay, I’ll buy “The Organians” as a possible line of progress to “pure consciousness.” They’ve evolved beyond the need for a survival-based energy budget, and spend their energy on playing 10-dimensional chess or pure abstract number theory. Conceivable. “Maybe.” No evidence, of course, that this has ever happened. **thepillar** has claimed that it’s an accomplished fact…and never managed to expand on that claim in any useful way. It’s the difference between saying “There might be something like the Bigfoot, still undiscovered in the wilderness of Oregon” and “There is a colony of Bigfoot…” I can, reluctantly, say, yeah, there might be. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-we-alive/622931.md?page=10)