Tuesday, July 24, 2012
On the Web of Life
I was watching a nature special the other day. The thing I've noticed about nature specials is that they're really ever about two things. The first is animals eating other animals in the struggle to survive. The second is animals making baby animals so they can eat and make further babies. So the purpose of life in the animal kingdom is really just to keep on living. We as humans tend to look for meaning beyond simply where our next meal comes from. In the end though we're bound by the same rules as all other lifeforms on the planet. We must consume life to maintain our own. Even a vegetarian has to eat something that was alive so that they may live. It got me thinking though about life and the world as a whole. As I've mentioned before, with energy it's impossible to destroy it, only transform it somehow. What if all life is connected? I don't mean in some vaguely spiritual way, although that could also be true, but rather in the sense that we're not individual lifeforms. What if we're all just pieces of a greater life web? If that were true then when a lion eats a gazelle it's simply moving part of the energy from one area to another. Now I know that some could argue against this idea because not all life coexists peacefully and it would seem counter to us being a part of something large. Look at our own bodies though. There are cells that mutate or grown out of control that ultimately destroy other cells for their own survival. If it happens within us then what's to say that we're not a part of something larger where the same thing is happen, only on a much grander scale?
This is where people start to look for a greater meaning to life since it seems like an almost pointless exercise to be struggling to maintain whatever energy we can grab for no other purpose than to hold onto it for a little while. A beetle has the instinct to live and reproduce and that's its whole purpose in life. Why though? To what end does it do this? The beetle exists only to exist. What if that beetle exists because it must consume a plant; who's own existence is there to serve as food for the beetle, and in turn the beetle must eventually become food to something larger than itself. This life web grows forever outward. Given enough time we all become food for something else. Our own purpose is to finally give up our own bodies so that something else can live. It can seem bleak since all of our experiences and memories come to an end. No matter how important we think we are, there will come a time when we simply don't exist as we do now. And in a way that's a good thing. If we are made up of energy that cannot be destroyed then what we are has to carry on somehow.
In the end it doesn't really address the overall question of what's the point of life? Most life on this planet strive to exist for the sake of passing on their genes to the next generation in a seemingly endless cycle. Maybe we as humans feel the need for there to be something greater behind it all. That being alive for the sake of living just isn't enough. If we are somehow a part of something greater then it's possible our purpose in life is more than we imagined. We live and die like everything else because we're a part of something. What that something is may be unknowable because we're talking about not just life on our planet, but possibly the entirety of the universe. We may be the equivalent of a single cell in this overall life, but each one is important, otherwise it would have no reason to exist in the first place. Then again maybe the idea of a grand life web is just another way of rationalizing all the dizzying randomness of life. Our purpose here could potentially be nothing more than an innate need to continue living. Life itself could only be a chance encounter of proteins that met in just the right environment. Still we are alive and we are aware of it so maybe it doesn't matter if it was all random to begin with. Maybe the first step to something greater is being aware that there is possibly something greater.
This is where people start to look for a greater meaning to life since it seems like an almost pointless exercise to be struggling to maintain whatever energy we can grab for no other purpose than to hold onto it for a little while. A beetle has the instinct to live and reproduce and that's its whole purpose in life. Why though? To what end does it do this? The beetle exists only to exist. What if that beetle exists because it must consume a plant; who's own existence is there to serve as food for the beetle, and in turn the beetle must eventually become food to something larger than itself. This life web grows forever outward. Given enough time we all become food for something else. Our own purpose is to finally give up our own bodies so that something else can live. It can seem bleak since all of our experiences and memories come to an end. No matter how important we think we are, there will come a time when we simply don't exist as we do now. And in a way that's a good thing. If we are made up of energy that cannot be destroyed then what we are has to carry on somehow.
In the end it doesn't really address the overall question of what's the point of life? Most life on this planet strive to exist for the sake of passing on their genes to the next generation in a seemingly endless cycle. Maybe we as humans feel the need for there to be something greater behind it all. That being alive for the sake of living just isn't enough. If we are somehow a part of something greater then it's possible our purpose in life is more than we imagined. We live and die like everything else because we're a part of something. What that something is may be unknowable because we're talking about not just life on our planet, but possibly the entirety of the universe. We may be the equivalent of a single cell in this overall life, but each one is important, otherwise it would have no reason to exist in the first place. Then again maybe the idea of a grand life web is just another way of rationalizing all the dizzying randomness of life. Our purpose here could potentially be nothing more than an innate need to continue living. Life itself could only be a chance encounter of proteins that met in just the right environment. Still we are alive and we are aware of it so maybe it doesn't matter if it was all random to begin with. Maybe the first step to something greater is being aware that there is possibly something greater.
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