Yeah, I was amazed when I heard about it too.

Really was one of the biggest breakthroughs that I've been around for. And it sounds like it was actually fairly simple (not to demean the guy who did it, I'm sure it actually was hard, it just sounds easy)

Hmmmm..... I talking about science especiallly OOL and how the Consititution was used to silent hard science. 

You guys are getting too philosophical or scientific and losing focus on what constitutes a living organism. You have to think not only about humans and animals but plants, bacteria, viruses and even non carbon based lifeforms. What is it we all have in common? The answer is that we are all forms of self sustained awareness. Humans have five senses that define our awareness. Some organisms share these senses while others have different ones, but it is all the same principle. And when we die our senses stop working because the foundation on which they exist breaks down. Thus, I don't believe in awareness after death, not unless there is a sixth or more sense beyond our current scientific understanding.

Now, if you want to figure out why we became aware that too is simple. Everything in the universe reacts to other things based on the laws of physics, whether it be gravity, electromagnetic fields or what not. And there is much more beyond our understanding. But our senses behave in the same way. They react to the physical conditions that register in our brains and use that info to sustain our mode of awareness. We are governed by the universal laws even if our set of senses are only temporary. its really simple. Thus our purpose of existence is to react with the forces at be just like everything else out there.  We are just an expression of awareness. But when you add it all up I think we are part of a greater awareness, the great spirit if you will. It works on all levels.

Lets put it this way. In our body there are trillions of living organisms. White blood cells for example. They have their own life cycles and act independent of our consciouss will. And up until a hundred years ago we did not even know they existed. But they serve a purpose that is crucial to our own life cycle, our ability to sense and our capacity for self awareness, and they do so without even knowing we exist. Why cant it be the same for us? Why cant we be a minute part of a greater system? Everything works in the universe because there is system, the governing law of the cosmos if you will. We will never be able to grasp the full extent of it, but somehow I feel we are a part of everything by merely abiding by the same rules as everything else.

This my last post on the topic in this thread as it's derailing (we can continue this in another thread).

You impose design onto chaos. There are a number of redundant proteins and organs (the appendix immediately comes to mind) in a range of organisms. What you see as evidence of design is simply human interpretation and modelling to make sense of a complex and chaotic system. The same is true of the metabolome shown in the link.

You can take a protein sequence, run a multiple sequence alignment and find numerous homologous proteins, yet only a small number of mutations can completely change a protein mechanism, rate, pH and stability, which can then have a knock on effect on metabolic pathways. 

What I find amazing is you'll completely ignore the vast amounts of evidence placed in front of you in multiple threads, from peer reviewed papers and find small out of context quotes that you think somehow support your misinterpretation and misunderstanding of science.

You don't actually exist. You're merely my imagination.

We are robots created by bird-like-creatures from one of the moons of Jupiter

well, the leading theories are I belive the multiverse theory and the improbablility (dunno if thats what its called tbh) theory.

"god did it" is not a relevant scientific theory, so take that out of this.

personally I dont know but I assume that its one of the two main theories till something better comes along, its called science.

I believe Bugenhagen has the answer you seek.  Go play FF7.

who created the Intelligent Creator?

I'm not being ironic, I feel like my head explodes whenever I think about any sort of life-cycle, or how our body works (esp. the brain). when I program something (I'm a computer scientist, that's the best analogy I can make, sorry hahaha), there's a beginning and it might end or just loop infinitely (or it can be "killed" by someone or the machine can be shut down), but the program certainly is not in an infinite loop state until it starts.

I like nr.4 more, but with a twist: It seams to me like the universe craves complexity wherever it can produce it. Life is extremely complex, so that is the result of that craving. Everywhere there is a chance to sustain life (not only the one type we know of) life will form or be brought to and remain (eventually, but billions of years is a long time). Yes, I believe even in a star.

We will have some answers to some of these theories in the next decades, and better answers in about 100 years but all regarding life in our solar system. Even if it turns out that there is no trace of life past or present in the Sol system other than the Earth, it won't tell us much about life elsewhere.

Edit: That craving might be god's work though or even god himself.