Why do you think biological life has a tendency towards survival and reproduction?

It is difficult to answer this question. Survival instinct may be explained in terms of experience of LIFE or in case of animal and human life it may be due to perception and cognition. However, reproduction in primitive life whether sexual or asexual is hard to be argued scientifically. At this point, it is religion that can be referred to solve this questions. Almost all religion assign life a sacred place as gift of God. So, God taking into consideration need of humans created a sexual and sexual instinct in other forms of life so that humans could live comfortably on this planet or could meet their necessities.

Przemysław Damian Puszkiewicz

Mark Laflamme has made a valid point. In the "Ethica," Benedict de Spinoza said, "Everything that is, insofar as it is, is an endeavor to persist in being." In other words, mere being means continuing to be. In the case of living being, ceasing-to-be consists of dying. However, submicroscopic beings pose problems, as Elbay has suggested. Do organisms like amoebas which split forever ever die? Are virus really alive and do they die? Is living merely an arbitrary metaphor for "being"? When you say "biological life" you pose a problem, because biology is basically a descriptive science and not a causative one. So your question, to be properly answered, must lead to the articulation of deeper (metaphysical) questions.

Hi Daniel

I don't think that to answer this question we need to call any metaphysical or religious ideas becouse it doesn't solve problem but make even more problems. It's of course highly philosophical question so any answer won't change this fact. We dont know really immortal organism living on earth so only way to survive is reproduce and spread genes trough generations (Selfish genes not selfish organism).

How and why asexual and sexual reproduction exist you can read in various articles. Life tryies to avoid death becouse we don't wan't to die (if you die and you don't spread your genes so you don't exist). Also we need to mention that this things describe more or less accuratly living organisms so this is the only way why life is life. We dont describe stones as living maybe becouse they don't want and can't survive and reproduce (but they can exist a looooong time).

You can really find some answers for your questions in books like I wrote before: why life exist, why it reproduce (It's some kind of basic biological questions and all answers are too long to put it here).

And quick answer for Elbay biota exist becouse life exist not otherwise and balans and harmony in nature is illusion becouse the truth is, all organisms try to be better than others and to survive and to reproduce.

But answer that I can give you that is more or less accurate is "Becouse it can" and "it is the best way to do it".

We can also try to assume that maybe life doesn't exist and we just make notion and categorize animate and inanimate things. All is build by atoms (both animate and inanimate) and those atoms can build grains of sand on the beach or mountains or me and you or computer which i use right now to write my answer. Its deeply philosophical question that changes nothing but I'm also curious of any possibilities trying to answer this question and like all science this question is never going to be ended, but we must be carefull becouse it is just speculations of human mind. And like Mark Laflamme I don't think that this question can be fully answered.

Yijie Daniel Deng

Life is made possible by incorporating material, information and energy in a highly organic assemble.

Steven J C Gaulin

I think Richard Dawkins has handled this topic admirably. To restate his argument: Any organism that did not reproduce in the past has no descendants. Hence the tendency to reproduce (efficiently) is the attribute that has systematically accumulated over the generations. Survival (up to a point,at least) is a prerequisite for reproduction, but survival alone is no substitute for reproduction since, eventually everything will die. If it has no progeny at that point, it's type will be lost.

Ighere Jacob

To start with, i will like to acknowledge the various answers already given on this issue. One of the most resilient creatures on earth is that thing you called a living organism. All living things are equipped with one or another form of adaptive features. From the microscopic Paramecium which can move away from light,the small Conny that can master the rocky mountain, the Orchid that epiphytes on the giant tree, the Remora fish that commensals on the shark and to the Man that can master any climate and environment, the same story can be told. The tendency is to survive. To continue to live and exist seem to be the utmost drive. Reproduction is just one of the ways to actualize this drive. It is therefore not surprising that most of the organism's energy is deployed towards this existential goal.

Przemysław Damian Puszkiewicz

Attempt at persistence of an organism is understandable. Then, why to reproduce in the first place. This the is the riddle posed by this post.

Mohammad I think the best answer are selfish genes (R. Dawkins) this is the level what we should consider it on and then we can comeup with explanation.

Nicolaas Albertus van der Merwe

Allow me to attempt an answer. Life is alive because it is alive. If organisms did not have a tendency to persist, they wouldn't have a tendency to persist. That is to say, there would be no life. Compare it to something else... gravity for instance. If objects did not fall towards the center of the earth, they would not fall to the center of the earth. They fall because of gravity. Similarly, organisms persist because of evolution - it is the "force" that keeps organisms reproducing, and doing so more effectively, by weeding out those combinations of genes that result in reproductive rates that are lower than what is required to not be under selective pressure.

Matthew Low

Evolution by Natural Selection. If an organism didn't try to reproduce and avoid death, then they wouldn't be around for us to observe them.

@Nicolaas

"Life is alive because it is alive. If organisms did not have a tendency to persist, they wouldn't have a tendency to persist", Agreed but what is that "force" (process/ mechanism) of EVOLUTION that from the very beginning is operating in organism to make them survive? Please shed light on it. Because, effect without cause is unimportant- the corner stone of science.

Evolution supposes there must be a transition between 'non-life' towards 'life' at some moment in the past. Physics would claim that everything is build up from basic energy waves or 'invisible' particles that cluster together to form visible phenomena (objects, living beings). Perhaps first define what 'non-life' is to help to define what 'life' is. Some would claim that crystals also reproduce and survive....

It may be that I do not understand the question, but if life (humans included) didn't have the drive to survive and reproduce, we wouldn't be around to ask the question.

I am not sure I understand what you mean by live forever. While many species are very long lived (like trees), and there is always the potential to discover an immortal species; the closest thing we currently are aware of to immortal, are genes (or gene complexes) which have been conserved for a very long time. But even given that, nearly all life that we are aware of struggles to survive and reproduce. If life didn't do this, it would never have evolved from protolife, nor would we have developed to ask the question. Thus I'm not sure we will ever have a good answer for this question, as without these qualities life would not exist. If living things didn't try to survive and reproduce, they would not be living for long, nor would they produce offspring which continued the survival/reproductive quest!

Hello T.

Just to stimulate the discussion. Imagine everything in nature is dynamic? Does it imply that survival is reflected in permanent transitions of physical forms, but then what is the unit to measure survival?

Darasingh Shyoran

I dont think that the tendency to avoid death contribute to survival. In most conditions death of individuals is essential for the survival of the species. Death is necessary for life.

There are a few conditions when individuals literally quit reproduction just to ensure the survival of the species.

Marcel, I would recommend reading Spanish philosopher Xavier Zubiri´s "Dynamic Structure of Reality" (Urbana, Ill.: U. Illiinois Press, 2003). On Life, see p. 264, index entry. Zubiri finds that all reality has its own dynamic structure, and that life is the activity to persist. The unit to measure survival would be the dynamism of the living structure.

Hi Marcel, I cannot take credit: I was merely the English translator of Zubiri´s clear concepts of cosmic dynamism.

@ Darasingh,

Yes, death is necessary condition for life. Even certain human communities for example, Eskimos choose "death of individuals is essential for the survival of the species (younger generation)", When, their is shortage of food in an Igloo and weather is bad not suitable for fishing or to go outside the Igloo, in the darkness of night, an elderly member of the family come out of the Igloo and walks northward and in the process dies so that young ones could survive for a few more days or till weather becomes suitable for fishing.

I am confused in that what was constant or driving force which made single sell life initially to develop sex drive or other asexual ways of reproduction. Natural selection and survival of the best refers to the reproducing organism which could survive by having adapting plasticity in inhospitable environment. Naturally, nature will select those organism which are suited to a given environment or adapt (genetically) to that environment and those which could not had perished. But, it does make necessary conditions for unicellular amoeba to create intense emotion or urge to evolve sex drive.

Yes, "Physics would claim that everything is build up from basic energy waves or 'invisible' particles that cluster together to form visible phenomena (objects)" but do they have necessarily consciousness? this claim of some quantum physicists is also disputed and rejected by physicists themselves. At a higher level, from particle to atom to molecule.... to tissue and organism develop an urge that for survival of species (or due to selfish gene) it is necessary to procreate, but before that how living matter realised that reproduction must be. Evolution is a theory or at best a hypothesis (specially in the case of humans) not a force. It works according to laws of nature, some constants and some processes. I am asking specifically about those constants and processes which created reproduction systems in organism when they were conscious enough to have an emotional shock or urge.

In a way we are contrasting two potential systems: one with individuals who die and another where the individuals do not. While the question of why life dies is a very valid one, we know from observation that most life does die. Moreover, the removal of the previous generation is very important to the health of the next generation, as without this, competition for resources would become extreme. As to why this occurred, ie why animals die at all, is in my opinion a result of energetic trade offs and competition. At the end of the day, genetic material which constitutes a larger proportion of the gene pool is more successful. It does not matter if the DNA (or any other heritable medium) spreads through the pool via reproduction or if a population of immortal individuals simply occupy the majority of the gene pool by virtue of never dying. However, if we contrast 2 genes, the gene which duplicates itself during reproduction will have 2 copies of itself in the pool; while the gene who does not reproduce will not. Over time the non-reproducing immortal gene will be swamped out, and likely die via competition. If the immortal individual does reproduce, it may for a time compete with the individual who reproduces and dies. However, eventually the immortal reproducing individual will have a population density such that they all starve to death (I am NOT suggesting group selection here, just that eventually any such population would go extinct). So perhaps immortality is not an evolutionary stable strategy, and any such systems are doomed to go extinct? I also imagine there are energetic trade offs between long life and reproductive ability (R versus K selected animals). I would imagine the energetic needs of immortality would likely greatly reduce reproductive output. Perhaps to the point where immortality is just not a viable option?

As to why we have a sex drive, I believe that is simply an evolved urge to get us to pass our genes on. Much like the annual rut in ungulates. More specific components of human behavior, like our sex drive, emotion, empathy, is likely a product of our evolutionary history as a social ape, whose survival is in part dependent upon understanding the motives of other apes.

I hope this makes sense.... this is a very interesting question and has definitely tied my brain in knots and got me thinking! Thank you for asking it!

Sure, "As to why we have a sex drive, I believe that is simply an evolved urge to get us to pass our genes on. Much like the annual rut in ungulates. More specific components of human behavior, like our sex drive, emotion, empathy, is likely a product of our evolutionary history as a social ape, whose survival is in part dependent upon understanding the motives of other apes." Discussion is not about apes or ape-like humans or any other evolved life. Question is at its place. How, sex drive or asexual reproduction mechanism developed in the beginning of life. Had amoebas or first organisms evolved from a right combination of matter was conscious enough to urge to get their genes to pass?

So you are not asking why some animals reproduce sexually versus asexually, but instead are asking why we reproduce at all? I may not understand your question. I was only using human and other specific examples to try and explain why I think an individual who reproduced would eventually make up a larger proportion of the gene pool than an individual who did not reproduce! :)

Alex Ignatov

Ludwig Boltzmann (1875): The general struggle for existence of animate beings is ... a struggle for [negative] entropy, which becomes available through the transition of energy from the hot sun to the cold earth. Lovelock: " an entropy reduction... must be a general characteristic of life". Life has tendency to reproduce because it has appeared with Universe and will end with Universe only.

Alex, these sophisticated explanations of Boltzmann and Lovelock sound teleological to me: entropy is the cause, animal existence is the effect. The Universe is the cause, the reproductive tendency is the effect. Perhaps I am reading you wrong, though.

Giuseppe Laquidara

Maybe, because our cardinality [I mean the ours, of living entities] grows and tends to grow.

If our cardinality had been decreasing and had always tended to decrease, by a certain point onwards we would have stopped, remaining stationary for ever.

If we were still all remaining stationary by a certain point onwards in time and forever, we would have been all identical, all equal to same.

And if we had been always all the same, we would have been the Singularity, at the beginning.

Thus, maybe once started a spread with its cardinality growing and tending to grow, it is - let's say, for all - more difficult going back all to the other way, than not.

Justyna Kierat

...because if it wouldn't reproduce and survive, it would quickly disappear from the Earth's surface. What reproduces and survives, has an advantage that it lasts longer. So basically everything what we see around "prefers life" because if it were not, it wouldn't be here.

I think that the difficulty I am having in answering this question arises from the some-what arbitrary definition of life. The definition of life includes the passing on of heritable traits, and reproduction. I feel that if this is the definition of life we are using, then this question becomes circular.

Travis, many of the answers present here are begging the question of life. That´s the problem with teleology ("Something was put here on earth because that´s what earth is here for"). It´s not a criticism, precisely... it´s the way we´re conditioned to thinking about life.

Alex Ignatov

I think the problem is in the question itself - "biological life has a tendency towards survival and reproduction". We see only such form of life that has survived for nearly 4 billon years. or more. All other forms, thus, did have such feature for rather short time. The term reproduction - does it mean generation change? But for our genome, generation change is just a change of well-worn protein shell for new one. Reproduction of information in DNA is related to accumulation of changes - recording new information about particular conditions of life. But, it not understandabl,e why bacteria have longest life history and limited changes in genes and genomes, when eukaryots show unbelievable genome plasty and huge information capacity.

I don’t mind down voting. However, those who have down voted must be aware of the problem, related scientific literature and give a valid reason after going through authoritative researches and informed and experts’ opinions in the field. To disagree is better but to disagree without reason or on the basis of belief with religiosity is worst and unwarranted in the scientific discourse. For them here are some excerpts and reference strengthening my position:

In his well-known book, Graham Bell described the dilemma in the following manner:

“Sex is the queen of problems in evolutionary biology. Perhaps no other natural phenomenon has aroused so much interest; certainly none has sowed as much confusion. The insights of Darwin and Mendel, which have illuminated so many mysteries, have so far failed to shed more than a dim and wavering light on the central mystery of sexuality, emphasizing its obscurity by its very isolation” [Bell, Graham, The Masterpiece of Nature: The Evolution and Genetics of Sexuality, University of California Press, Berkeley, CA, p. 19, 1982].

The same year that Bell released his book, well-known evolutionist and philosopher, Philip Kitcher noted: “Despite some ingenious suggestions by orthodox Darwinians, there is no convincing Darwinian history for the emergence of sexual reproduction.”

And,

Evolutionists have freely admitted that the origin of gender and sexual reproduction still remains one of the most difficult problems in biology (Maynard Smith, The Evolution of Sex, 1986, p. 35). In his 2001 book, The Cooperative Gene, evolutionist Mark Ridley wrote (under the chapter title of “The Ultimate Existential Absurdity”):

‘Evolutionary biologists are much teased for their obsession with why sex exists. People like to ask, in an amused way, “isn’t it obvious?” Joking apart, it is far from obvious.... Sex is a puzzle that has not yet been solved; no one knows why it exists.

Crow, J.F., The Importance of Recombination, The Evolution of Sex: An Examination of Current Ideas, ed. Michod and Levin, Sinauer Associates, Sunderland, MA, p. 35, 1988.

Eldredgen Niles and Joel, Phylogenetic Patterns and the Evolutionary Process: Method and Theory in Comparative Biology, Columbia University Press, New York, p.102, 1980

Mohammed, I would not downvote a question if its presumptions were not the author´s fault, but so widespread, that we would have to undergo a whole cultural change to reverse it. But you use your discretion, as you surely will.

Some of the authors you justifiably cite seem to me to exaggerate the significance of sex ("queen of problems"). Sex is, after all, a mere vegetative function. Human beings share sexuality in common with onions and lilies and all flowering plants. I wonder whether evolutionary biologists, on studying sex, start with the vegetable kingdom. Much of what we say about sex is a social construct. To understand the "queenliness" of the problem of sex, we may as well be studying sociology instead of biology. What do you think?

Sex is not reproduction. It is either a phenotypic/genetically-based state or a behaviour that contribute to what people call reproduction.

What is the exact definition of 'reproduction'? To 'remake/copy/replicate what already exists'? In that case 'exact' reproduction does not exist given the physical dynamics of nature. Each newly produced individual is unique in physical expression and is therefore not reproducible....

What is the exact definition of 'survival'? To maintain what already exists? In that case, (exact) survival does not exist given the continuous physical dynamics of nature. Each biological unit is unique in physical expression at each spatiotemporal moment..

Hatem Maraqah

It is a good question.I dont think that the tendency to avoid death contribute to survival. In most conditions death of individuals is essential for the survival of the species. Death is necessary for life.

Wow, Marcel! Admirable comment! Exactness is the attribute of fine Cartesian minds, but not of nature (do not ask me for an exact definition of nature, please!). What you say is so true.

Yijie Daniel Deng

This question seems like a circular argument at first glance. I was asking about what essentially makes physical life capable of reproduction or survival. If it is true a circular argument, can we jump out from this and get a solution to explain this phenomenon of life?? or it is the limit of our rationality, either to answer or ask this question? Anyway, discussions many above are very interesting and inspiring.

Thanks Nelson. It think it must follow the same reasoning as the Spanish person you cited a couple of comments ago..., no?

Cheers

Daniel, I would suggest the term "teleonomy" or apparent purposelessness or goal-directedness of evolution. We jump out of circularity with this expression and we can talk of chance as a factor in evolution. Organisms assay new experiments in reproduction without any willful purpose. The strongest experimental new organisms survive. Life would be a sport of creativity of multiple possibilities, some of which go forward and others not.

Marcel, I am always citing Spanish persons... I don´t know which you mean. But no one is as exact as Descartes.

Perhaps there is need to go through my response once again where appear "sexual reproduction" and "Evolutionists have freely admitted that the origin of gender and sexual reproduction still remains one of the most difficult problems in biology".

@Nelson,

Of course, sex is a social construct at higher level of consciousness. But, the authors quoted have not discussed it n these terms. Their concern has been as how sex drive developed guaranteeing the continuity of life. It is estimated about 5000-6000 million years ago organisms developed with front and back.. They attempted to understand why sex and gender evolved in what circumstances. If sex emerged out of urge to pass gene, why it happened to opposite gender developed, why not a single gender because primitive life's urge should be the same or why not reproductive mechanism in a single organism as self pollinating plants.

Jonathan Edwards

Like one or two other contributors I think the answer you are looking for, Daniel, has nothing much to do with struggle for survival. I rather doubt that many forms of life go in for struggling for survival and I think there are reasons for thinking that life would have evolved much as it has even if there was no struggle and everything survived.

I think the real answer is that life is a rather unusual type of metastable chemical state that induces the formation of similar instances of the same state, with a high degree of similarity, but, importantly, not complete similarity. The genesis of such states will have been entirely according to the laws of mass action - i.e. stochastic or chance based. A further complexity is that at least in its known form life involves several different metastable states that together induce the formation of similar instances of each other - some being proteins, some lipid membranes, some nucleic acid. The chance of all these states occurring in a combination that works this way must be very very small, but since the availability of atoms has been very very large there is no need to scratch heads further as to why it happened.

I think an often overlooked aspect of evolution is that it is 'driven', if that word is useful at all, not by some struggle, but by a small 'error' rate in copying existing forms. This should not be seen as just a slight imperfection in the system, it is the whole reason for the changing that occurs over time in evolution. We now know that in human cells the error rate is programmed in a range of different ways, with translocations in meiosis and somatic mutations in immune cells, for instance.

A final key feature of life may be that it is compartmentalised into units so that new random changes only affect some of the units - this means that changes are relatively unlikely to destabilise the entire state and that some form of metastable state units will tend to continue. Sexual reproduction further stabilises the situation by providing a means to 'rescue' units that are tending to accumulate unstable features.

So maybe life is best seen much as Conway's Life Game arising in a computer that randomly writes its own programmes and with built in random programme shifts once it has started.

Andrei, you are right, cause-and-effect reasoning will get us nowhere. It is a "petitio principii," it begs the question. This is why I recommended abandoning cause-and-effect reasoning (or teleology) and adopting the notion that the universe (or what it is) develops by chance experimentation (teleonomy),

If one acknowledges “cause-and-effect reasoning will get us nowhere” and recommends “abandoning cause-and-effect reasoning (or teleology) and adopting the notion that the universe (or what it is) develops by chance”, it is not only rejection of scientific basis of EVOLUTION but also colossal rejection of our accumulated scientific endeavours of past and present.

Imaging there would be a spiritual force guiding human activity, why would these spiritual forces allow scientists to loose so much time....

Let's take the chicken and the egg. All depends on scales of analysis and precision in terminology. (1) What scientists name 'eggs' existed before the evolutionary appearance of 'chicken' because eggs are also produced by amphibians or reptiles that existed before the evolutionary appearance of the chicken; (2) You need a chicken to produce a chicken egg. So humans selected chicken, and once the chicken was there they produced chicken eggs

Scale-dependent causality

Science practice is based on causality because what is studied (e.g. phenomenon, object, living being) causes biology-based perception and mental effects that change behavioral or physiological expression in science practices. When expression in phenomenon ‘A’ causally determines expression in phenomenon ‘B’, a change in ‘A’ should temporally be followed by a change in ‘B’. The type of interaction between ‘A’ and ‘B’ will determine how a change in ‘A’ will contribute to a change in ‘B’. For instance, when a person touches a ball on a table the ball moves through physical action. However, the ball will also move when the person lifts the table without touching the ball. Is movement of the ball caused by the position of the table surface or the physical action of the person lifting the table? The person can lift the table in different manners causing the ball to move differently. The structure and position of the table surface being in contact with the ball and the physical structure of the ball also cause direction and speed in movement of the ball. Events or phenomena are apparently interconnected more or less through a chain reaction involving other events or phenomena. Phenomena or events apparently belong to an interconnected network of multiple events and phenomena. A change in one component might cause a chain reaction causing other components of the network to change more or less. Strong interconnected causality implies that a change in cause ‘C’ always provokes a change in a phenomenon ‘P’ temporally following ‘C’, although expression of ‘P’ might be determined by other causes that reinforce or reduce effects of ‘C’ on ‘P’. How and when phenomena or events are interconnected and perceived will depend on how the causal network is structured and analysed.

nucleic acid and protein: here again all depends on (evolutionary-based) scales of analysis...; Because proteins are more complex than nucleic acid, NA came first in evolutionary onto-genetic processes, but then reptile proteins existed before the NA of a bird currently flying around in my garden.....

Dear Andrei,

I think you find or similar stories in biology text books, at all education levels... no?

Shravani Bhanja

It is such a fundamental question for everyone- Evolutionary biologists, chemists, philosophers, physics, molecular biologists and not to mention all introspecting humans. However, may be it has happened just by accident through a sequence of reactions that was very right and then on has evolved to the world that is today.

Przemysław Damian Puszkiewicz

I suppose, the discussion boils down to the fact, either evolution is no science, simply a belief embarrassed and maintain with religious zeal or, if life is explained as cycles of matter and life it is another religion i.e., Budhism. However, "it has happened just by accident through a sequence of reactions that was very right and then on has evolved to the world that is today" does not explain gender and reproduction. Either there are/were some causes (constants/processes) in nature to give direction to the evolution for diversity including (gender) of life or it occurred under divine direction. .

Yijie Daniel Deng

From the view of physical world, life is made possible by incorporating three components into a highly organic assemblage: material (C, N, P, S and other elements), energy that support biochemical reactions and information (such as the unique sequences in DNA or RNA) that potentially directs reaction pathways. When unique combinations of the three components meet under a certain condition, the basic life reactions magically starts the cycles of reproduction, growth or survival. This is a assumption and the possibility for this thing happen is "zero" but it did happen in a miraculous way. No one knows exactly how.

We don't need the idea of god to explain anything, especially when that idea can complicate a question. Henna: it's just silly answer that allow you to stop asking questions, what I suppose is important for all of us. I can also recommend you book "What is life" by Erwin Schrodinger http://whatislife.stanford.edu/LoCo_files/What-is-Life.pdf

Shravani Bhanja

To each their own... man has evolved so much that we assign reasons for everything and analyze and try to understand everything....which is possibly the right thing to do and we are doing it. But in the larger scheme of things, may be we are nothing and everything goes on as a sequence of events intentional or otherwise irrespective of whether we do anything about it , whether we understand it or not. However, one does agree that we have evolved so much that we now decide the destiny of our Mother Earth. and may be if that is in our hands, it should be fundamental for us to address the issue of preserving it well. All else can follow. May be we should see God in the beauty and goodness of Nature....

Evolution is no science, it is a topic explored in science/religion....

Evolution is science? Why?

It is very strange that when it comes to acknowledge that evolution cannot explain most of the life diversity or its capabilities, instead of accepting it with dignity, scientists either divert attention to other ramifications or refer to emergence. Emergence is little understood and can be understood from within, therefore no arguments.

Even in a soup there are cause-consequence interactions among the elements constituting the soup, but very difficult to perceive and track with empirical research, and soup compositions can evolve in time, which is a form of evolution.

By the way, what is your definition of evolution (Darwinian evolution, genetic drift, non-adaptive mutation, runaway processes.....)?