It wouldn't be the best solution, but it would be a solution.

Well, before we do, we probably should take a vote of the world's population and see if the majority of the people's population want to invent a bomb to destroy Earth instantly.

Considering such action requires me to ask have you considered the consequence of the unhappiness you may cause before this bomb is completed. Those who are unhappy have the opportunity to make their own personal bomb, so we dont need such expense in the manufacture of this annihilation technology. Simples..

If I microwave my hair to dry it, I might agree with you, however, if one looks at their own definition, the definition of any organism, one can see that such a proposal only indicates the ultimate in personal dysfunction.

Every living organism lives by consuming the environment. It has systems developed to accomplish the ends of life, to have life and have it more abundantly.

One can then put it technically,

A living organisms environmental acquistion system is that system of an organism which must acquire something from the environment, process that which it has acquired, for a product that maintains and promotes the life of that organism.

Biblical metaphor indicates that we have seven of these "shutters" (the solution to the name of the beast, actually given 4 times in the text -the shutter that turns the past into the future and the future into the past--ie. mind) (shutter--that through which life comes and goes)

1) The Ocular System
2) The Vestibular System
3) The Digestive System
4) The Manipulative System
5) The Respiratory System.
6) The Procreative System.
7) The judgmental System (currently under development in man)

We acquire experience in order to produce human will which sustains and promotes the life of the body.

So, the problem is, biologically, and logically, the product of a yet dysfunctional judgmental system.

Oh, yes, and these are the seven seals referred to in scripture. The seven plagues of man. They are our job. -- damn, more work.,

Is it necessary to kill the happy people to make the unhappy people find an end to their unhappiness? Sounds a little unbalanced. Sure the happy people would end happily but that doesn't mean it is fair for them to die.

It can't be the best solution. Why can't the unhappy die and leave the happy alive?

Well, I think you would just return in your next physical life and have to try it again until you get it right.

Anyway, everyone has the option of ending it all whenever they want. The vast majority (99.99999%) doesn't even with their unhappiness. So, the question is why do we not end it all? What is motivating us to stay alive?

Rich

Even for the unhappy, the destruction of the world would preclude their chance for experiencing future happiness. Of course, the other side of the coin is that those who are currently happy would never face future unhappiness.

But are their not other criteria by which one could judge life? Perhaps if one asked about destroying future creativity, one would give a different answer. Ask this question of Beethoven, who was miserable quite often in his life, and ask him whether he wished to die before completing his symphonies but end his suffering.

And proprioception -- knowledge of where our body is in space (DIFFERENT than vestibular, which is sense of movement)

And the immune system (recognition of self vs non-self at a molecular level)

And our homeostatic mechanisms (temperature, fluid, electrolyte, and metabolic regulation)

But that adds up to more than 7... sorry.

I am sorry also, for stupid me thought that a stipulation was the acquirement of something from the environment--from which a form or material difference was abstracted. There are countless systems of the body otherwise.

I think there is a difference between acquisition system and other systems. I have no idea where I got that from.

Well, you didn't mention the immune system and that's probably the most basic of them. The entirety of our integumentary and mucosal surfaces are covered with microorganisms, and the skin, gut, genitourinary, and respiratory systems have extremely elaborate immune functions. Recognition of self from non-self happens at multiple levels, including innate immunity (recognition of generic microbial motifs, perhaps best described for the toll-like receptors), and specific immunity (immunoglobulins and T-cell receptors).

Homeostasis is a generic statement about the body's self-regulatory processes. Why do you sweat when it's hot out and shiver when it's cold? Because of a system that you haven't mentioned.

So these two would easily meet your requirements. But that would mean they'd add up to 9...

Immune system?
facinating, I have never known anyone to set out to find and eat viruses, etc, while at the same time avoiding a digestive process.

I don't think you yet understand.

A thing is some material difference in some form, every possible craft will abstract material and apply a new form, or abstract form and supply a new material.

Just like an organisms environmental acquisition systems. These are systems that craft abstracts to support its life.

From things we make things. In order to do so, we must change the material or change the form in order to create a new thing. A very hard concept I admit, but I think it can be mastered.

I would not give up though, there is a good possibility I could be wrong, however these systems have one other thing in common--they are all directly linked to what we call awareness. We have choices we can consciously make in their behalf. I am still young at all this.

Babies have a respiratory system but they breathe just fine without consciously 'setting out' to do so. Humans can set out to eat a hamburger, but their digestive system is not what deals with the hepatitis A virus or the enterohemorrhagic E. coli on it -- it's the immune system.

I would just hazard a guess that my understanding of human biology is quite a bit more complete than yours, so if there's anything I don't understand it's how you arbitrarily categorize basic biological processes yet reject others.

Our immune system does this:
Antigen presentation - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Let me give this one more try.

I will ask two questions.

How long can you live without a viral attack?

How long can you live by holding your breath?

You are the one who doesn't get it -- you're twisting and contorting basic human biology into some sort of metaphysical construct that is not only inaccurate, but it wouldn't be meaningful even if it were. You're also asking these questions in imprecise, tangential ways.

1) You will ALWAYS be subject to viral infections. The question is how long will you live without the ability to fight them off. Having cared for infants with SCID, DiGeorge syndrome, CVID, and other rarer immunodeficiencies, the answer is months.

2) If you hold your breath for long enough, within a couple minutes you will either involuntarily take a breath or you will pass out and begin breathing involuntarily anyway.

Well, you answered the question behind the questions. Were you in earnest or simply being contentious.

Earnest answers to strange questions. I suspect you're trying to lead me to some point, but you've asked very unusual questions, probably though because I believe you didn't articulate them as you meant to. Not sure if it's deliberate or not, but if your aim is to make a hierarchy of biological systems (i.e. we'll die in 5 minutes without breathing but no virus can kill us that fast), it's a moot point because our biological survival requires in ALL cases gas exchange as well as functional immunity against microorganisms. Which is more important? You can't survive infancy without an immune system. What are the metaphysical implications of this? None.

My former area of research (and I did a project on this in West Africa during my final year of med school) was the interaction of malnutrition with infectious diseases. Long story, but malnutrition syndromes are partially triggered by infections, and conversely susceptibility to infections is worsened by malnutrition. Two of our MAJOR interfaces with the environment around us are 1) the ability to take in and process food, and 2) the ability to recognize and defend ourselves against pathogens (but recognize and tolerate our own body at the same time) -- and these are intimately related physiologic systems in both health and disease states.

Now, let's go back to your questions and see how many ways they can adequately be phrased and answered, which I must do because the questions weren't very clearly articulated:

How long can you live without a viral attack?
If you mean how old must someone be before a viral infection, the answer is some happen even before birth (CMV, herpes, HIV, hep B, rubella), and nearly all will have a viral infection in the first couple months of life.

How long can you live without a viral attack?
If you mean how long can someone live if there is no viral infection, the answer is it depends on all the other things that might kill you instead. To my knowledge we don't depend on any virus to live, but that's probably not 100% true, I'm sure some of our endogenous gut bacteria have commensal phages.

How long can you survive if you cannot fight off viral infections?
In the case of the most complete congenital immune deficiency disease (SCID, or severe combined immunodeficiency), most children will die in the first year of life if they do not receive a bone marrow transplant, often from viruses but often from other microbes.

How long can you live by holding your breath?
"By" holding your breath? It's a false question, because holding your breath doesn't make you live.

How long can you live by holding your breath?
Is this a trick question? Because you MUST hold your breath fleetingly between inhalation/exhalation. Breathing at 10-15 times a minute is necessary for normal exchange of carbon dioxide. If you breath too fast and blow off too much CO2, then you can become alkalotic and this can be life threatening (though ordinarily alkalosis will suppress respiratory drive).

How long can you live by holding your breath?
As I said in my previous post, if your question is really "how long will you SURVIVE by holding your breath", the answer is that you will live a normal life span as long as you're able to pass out somewhere safe. Toddlers have breath holding spells when they have tantrums. They pass out and start breathing again immediately.

How long can you live by holding your breath?
Do you mean how long can you survive without any breathing at all? A few minutes.

What about the lymphatic system?

Blowing up the world would be a stupid solution that only silly humans would come up as an answer to the suffering in the world. Considering that human suffering is caused by humans, blowing up the planet would not only take care of the problem of humans, but all of the rest of the planet that does not deserve that fate.

Good going! But you better be careful, the ability to spot self-referential fallacies can only lead the the trouble of becoming a real philosopher! Beware.

That is a complicated one. If the question is about biological systems that modulate our interaction with the outside world, then the lymphatic system certainly counts in that it's central to the immune response to tissue infections. In this sense it's part of the immune system, and of course lymphatic fluid and lymphoid organs are filled with B and T lymphocytes, immunoglobulins, and other mediators of inflammation. Lymphatics in the gut are also where fat-soluble products of digestion are absorbed into the body.

The other aspect of the lymphatic system is that it is part of the cardiovascular system, and it drains interstitial (extravascular) fluid back into the closed circulation. In this sense it's not really so much part of our interface with the world, but rather a homeostatic system.