[another_someone]

once we die all of our body parts i.e. all the nutrients become part of someone or somthing else so as has been mentioned DNA deffinatly wants to carry on its evolution BUT it is not a living organism just like viruses they are nothing without the host cell. but i guess you could cliam that we become a part of so many other people once we die!!

It really depends on what you mean when you say we become part of so many other people?

What is "we"?

Out atoms are spread all over the place.  Most of the organism that initially consume our bodies will be bacteria and maggots etc.  Ofcourse, then other things will consume the bacteria and maggots, and some of those atoms will end up going back into some people somewhere.

DNA is just another set of atoms that will be spread around.

Where you start looking at information, rather than atoms, then you can look at the genes and the memes - and they will be passed on to other people while we are still alive, but will normally outlive the death of our bodies.

[paul.fr]

Finding apost by Colleen, reminded me of this topic. So i thought i would revive it somewhat.

Well, unbeknown to me. Richard Dawkins, had written a book way back in 1976 called the selfish gene. Here is a quote from the book.

Was there to be any end to the gradual improvement in the techniques and artifices used by the replicators to ensure their own continuation in the world? There would be plenty of time for their improvement. What weird engines of self-preservation would the millennia bring forth? Four thousand million years on, what was to be the fate of the ancient replicators? They did not die out, for they are the past masters of the survival arts. But do not look for them floating loose in the sea; they gave up that cavalier freedom long ago. Now they swarm in huge colonies, safe inside gigantic lumbering robots, sealed off from the outside world, communicating with it by tortuous indirect routes, manipulating it by remote control. They are in you and me; they created us, body and mind;and their preservation is the ultimate rational for our existence. They have come a long way, those replicators. Now they go by the name of genes,and we are their survival machines.

and

What is the selfish gene? It is not just one single physical bit of DNA. Just as in the primeval soup, it is all replicas of a particular bit of DNA, distributed throughout the world. If we allow ourselves the licence of talking about genes as if they had conscious aims, always reassuring ourselves that we could translate our sloppy language back into respectable terms if we wanted to, we can ask the question, what is a single selfish gene trying to do? It is trying to get more numerous in the gene pool. Basically it does this by helping to Program the bodies in which it finds itself to survive and to reproduce. But now we are emphasizing that 'it' is a distributed agency, existing in many different individuals at once. The key point of this chapter is that a gene might be able to assist replicas of itself that are sitting in other bodies. If so, this would appear as individual altruism but it would be brought about by gene selfishness. it still seems rather implausible.

Are there any plausible ways in which genes might 'recognize' their copies in other individuals.' ? The answer is yes. It is easy to show that close relatives--kin--have a greater than average chance of sharing genes. It has long been clear that this is why altruism by parents towards their young is so common.

To save the life of a relative who is soon going to die of old age has less of an impact on the gene pool of the future than to save the life of an equally close relative who has the bulk of his life ahead of him.

...individuals can be thought of as life-insurance underwriters. An individual can be expected to invest or risk a certain proportion of his own assets in the life of another individual. He takes into account his relatedness to the other individual, and also whether the individual is a 'good risk' in terms of his life expectancy compared with the insurer's own. Strictly we should say 'reproduction expectancy' rather than 'life expectancy', or to be even more strict, 'general capacity to benefit own genes in the future expectancy'.

Although the parent/child relationship is no closer genetically than the brother/sister relationship, its certainty is greater. It is normally possible to be much more certain who your children are than who your brothers are. And you can be more certain still who you yourself are!

One sometimes hears it said that kin selection is all very well as a theory, but there are few examples of its working in practice. This criticism can only be made by someone who does not understand what kin selection means. The truth is that all examples of child protection and parental care, and all associated bodily organs, milk secreting glands, kangaroo pouches, and so on, are examples of the working in nature of the kin-selection principle. The critics are of course familiar with the widespread existence of parental care, but they fail to understand that parental care is no less an example of kin selection than brother/sister altruism.

what do you think? Genius or what?

[dkv]

You are instance of Life Experience.
Without experience you are as good as dead.