[Notice: Given the evolving state of Science, until most recently this posting could not have been written. It is directed towards those who are intellectually and philosophically minded. To those who are, where you disagree, put forth an alternative.]
“Death borders upon our birth, and our cradle stands in the grave.” -Joseph Hall, Bishop of Exeter (1564-1656)
Yes, we are born to die. In between birth and death, there is life. Many a commentator has expressed a pessimistic, if not nihilistic, point of view upon that brief period; for example,
“Life has to be given meaning because of the obvious fact that it has no meaning.” -Henry Miller (1891-1980)
“The light of life is insufficiently bright to overcome the darkness of reality.” -Erich Maria Remarque (1898-1970)
“There is infinite hope but not for man.” -Franz Kafka (1883-1924)
Then, there is the most famous of all; namely,
“Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player that struts and frets his hour upon the stage then is heard no more. It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury signifying nothing.” – William Shakespeare (1564-1616) from Macbeth
Consider the following: There is no state of death. Death is but a moment, a moment of transition from living to non-living. Living creatures tend to be hard-wired genetically to avoid that moment. All fail.
If death is but a moment, what is life? Consider the following excerpt (Edited) from the novel, Retribution Fever:
“There is gold and a multitude of rubies; But the lips of knowledge are a precious jewel.” -Proverbs 20:15
Some years earlier, two young men sat at the bar at an Officers’ Club engrossed in a philosophical conversation. The slightly elder, a first-lieutenant in the United States Army. The younger, an ensign in the Navy. “So, to begin, what separates the living from the non-living?” asked the younger.
“You’re the self-appointed expert, Ensign Biologist. You tell me.”
“With pleasure. A famous Hungarian-American physiologist named Albert Szent-Györgyi characterized life as nothing but an electron looking for a place to rest.”
“What the Hell does that mean?”
“Too sophisticated for you? Right, Army! Brains in its feet. Moving along, what might be a simpler definition of life?”
“I don’t know. Reproduction?”
“What about crystals? They reproduce themselves. Are crystals alive?”
The Lieutenant displayed an overly dramatic yawn then shrugged. “No, I suppose not.”
“Why not?”
(Silence.)
“Okay, I’ll tell you. Crystals don’t contain information creating metabolic activity that generates energy directly or indirectly. ‘Indirectly’ refers to viruses.”
“So, now you’re saying that life requires not only reproduction but information and metabolism?”
“Indeed, I am! Yes, metabolism. The biological process by which the absorbed products of digestion transfer energy used to manipulate matter. Isn’t that the reason we’re here for supper? To ingest fuel for our respective metabolisms?
[Optional Note: Beginning with an equation containing a constant derived by the Germanic physicist, Max Planck (1858-1947), by the early 20th-century Quantum Physics was displacing Classical Physics; which had been unable to explain certain well-documented phenomena. Basically, Nature represents the cosmic expression of energy. Matter, for example, can be described as energy compressed. Although seemingly a smooth wave, energy occurs in small, discrete packets. Each packet represents a quantum of energy. That configuration confers upon energy a kind of granularity. Operationally, Nature can be viewed as acting as a continuüm but a granular continuüm.]
“We may have reached a point in our conversation . . . .”
The lieutenant interrupted. “You mean, in your monologue.”
“Anyway, I may have reached the point in my monologue where our usual definition of ‘life’ breaks down. If so, for purposes of current definition, the best we may be able to say is that a life-form is an entity containing information in the form of nucleic acids that cause the transfer of energy and result in reproduction. These entities may be complex multi-cell organisms such as humans. They may be simpler single-cell organisms such as a bacteria. They may be only strands of nucleic acid with coatings of protein, such as viruses.”
“After listening to your lecture, I now have but one thing to say.”
“What?”
“It’s time for supper!”
-End-
All right, we have offered an awful truth, an operational description of life and of its ending. Other than the nature of life and its ending, be there another awful truth?
Yes. Human existence! How so? The reality may be that we may not exist, at all, exist as a phenomenon that is, but exist only as an epiphenomenon like a shadow on a wall.
Consider the age-old question, Which came firstly, the chicken or the egg? The egg!
The phenomenon may be the origin of genomes comprising different forms and arrangements of nucleic acids. These genomes then create that which biologists call “disposable soma”, a sort of shell surrounding the genome.
All forms of life are disposable soma; i.e., epiphenomena. The human epiphenomenon, however, is different from all other forms of disposable soma. Unlike other forms of life, we can report to ourselves that we exist. We can report to ourselves that we are reporting to ourselves that we exist; i.e., we possess recursive capability, curiously, a capability essential to further development of Artificial Intelligence. Given the advances in Science and Technology during the last few years, we now can act back upon the phenomena, genomes, that created us and change them.
One might ask, In doing so, are we not tampering with the basis of life itself? Yes, we are. What will be the outcome of our tampering? No one knows. What is the most probable outcome? Catastrophe but not necessarily. As stated, no one knows.
What to do? Whereas the decision might seem cognitive and rational, it may not be. It simply may involve basic biology. Novelty! It is a driving force among most mammals. One consequence of novelty being a controlling factor of our behavior has been the development of Science and its offspring, Technology. They comprise the same tools that are allowing us to turn ourselves from epiphenomena into phenomena. Also, they comprise the tools that may lead to our self-destruction as a species via Artificial Intelligence, biological warfare, nuclear warfare . . . or genetic engineering. If so, woe be we!
“The future isn’t what it used to be.” -Yogi Berra (1925-2015)
Novelty may have been our salvation in the past but our demise in the future. Then again, maybe not.
If not, the new context will raise a host of considerations such as, What kind of humans do we want to produce? Pale-skinned, golden-haired, blue-eyed beings with aquiline features, thin lips, straight hair, and high IQ’s? Dark-skinned, black-haired, brown-eyed beings with thick features, fleshy lips, kinky hair, and low IQ’s? *
http://www.unz.com/jthompson/world-iq-82/
Could such considerations lead to global warfare? Likely. To peaceful coëxistence? Unlikely. Eventually, to a single, homogeneous species? Possibly. Could such considerations lead to Paradise? Perdition? No one knows.
Whatever the case, biologically-driven novelty will have its way. Then, its consequences will have theirs. In the end, Mother Nature always wins.
One might ask, Why such awful truths, be they truths? That question is one for Theology to answer not Science. Science tries to answer The How. Theology answers The Why.
Science and religion. One does not preclude the other. Ask one of the two greatest minds in human history, Albert Einstein (1879-1955), the other great mind being Isaac Newton (1643-1727).
“Science without religion is lame; religion without science is blind.” -Albert Einstein
Let us not delude ourselves that, despite our marvelous advancement in understanding our Cosmos, that understanding remains sketchy. We know mainly about the four percent available to our observation currently. About dark energy and dark matter, we know almost nothing.
Supersymmetrical String Theory? Eleven dimensions? If valid, what vistas, scientific and theological, would our understanding them reveal?
We know that we have a function even as merely epiphenomena; namely, reproduction of the germ-plasm. Such reproduction requires control of territory and resources; hence, warfare in whatever form.
What of purpose, though? Does our existence as humans have a purpose? If so, what might it be?
Might not we be the way that the Cosmos recognizes its own existence? During the Golden Age of cinematic theaters, Paramount News billed itself as “the eyes and ears of the world”. Might not we humans on Earth and others like us elsewhere be the eyes and ears of the Cosmos? Collectively and individually, might not we be the sensory organ by which the Cosmos understands itself?
Poetic? Indeed. Such a purpose, nevertheless, would lift our species from the limited world of the physical into the unlimited realm of the ethereal. Considerations to be pondered. Questions to be answered. Fascinating!
Your task? To seek. Through seeking, to gain knowledge. Through knowledge, to gain understanding. Through understanding, to gain wisdom.
“Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you.” -Matthew 7:7
While seeking, Science and Philosophy notwithstanding, you might consider the following: Despite the “heart-aches and thousand natural shocks to which flesh is heir”, if filled with love, human life can be a lovely song as the songstress, Ruth Etting, sang.