Does Humanity Deserve to Exist?
82Homo sapiens - the thinker
Why are we worth anything?
In the long and evolving history of the Earth, many powerful and great species have come and gone. Dinosaurs come to mind, but also wonderful sea creatures, species of flying animals, and other can be found now only as bones in our museums. We know a lot about these once living beings by their bone structures, but what do we know of their brains, their ability to think of themselves as unique and important individuals? Did dinosaurs ever wonder why their world was coming to an end, or did they simply plod along until there was no more food, when they had to lay down and die?
As a child I wondered at these animals, being something of a budding scientist at about age five. We found a dinosaur bones in our back yard and a museum came and took it away for their collection. I would go to the museum at times to see it in the display case, but now it's been retired, I am told. Yet I wondered more about the animal itself. Was it self-aware? I didn't know what that word meant at an early age, and I still struggle with exactly why it would make us so special in the Universe at large. Maybe it doesn't. Perhaps self-awareness is more of a curse than a blessing, because we know one day we are all going to die. Some of us find comfort in our religious thoughts, of a life after this, but others of us who doubt that scenario have to ask ourselves, what makes us so special as a species, and do we have a right to exist?
All things change, so the saying goes. Once the Earth was muchdifferent than it is today. The huge coal and oil depositstell us of another age, a warmer age, with higher humidity and higher carbon dioxide levels than we have today. It was an age of animals we would not recognize today unless we had museums to show us what these fantastic monsters and microorganisms were actually like. One day will some other creature evolve intelligence as great or greater than our and wonder at our bones found in layers of rock and soil? Will they see us as just an animal, which had its time and then disappeared?
We think of ourselves as this fantastically talented and worthy creature, given the right to live and the right to conquer and tame every other life form on the planet, yet when it comes to simple biology, we are a very weak and really not very useful animal. We use up the resources of the planet as if they were laid down over the various eras simply for our own benefit, and plan no father ahead than tomorrow for the day when this kind of rampant consumption must come to an end.
We dream of going to other planets, but to do what? Merely to use up the resources there until we will be forced to move yet again? have we moved in the past, like some disease across the Universe, seeking a new host to infect? Or perhaps we are just stuck here, and this is all we will ever have.
Well, the answer I find from my own observations, studies and learning have lead me to the conclusion that we are no more special than any microbe, any two, four or no legged creature on the planet. However, we do have one capacity that no otheranimal today possesses, and that it the ability to completely destroy the Earth, leaving it up to possible surviving species to evolve into what we could have been.
Some people tell me that God made us in His image, and if that is so, we must be lacking some of the substance of a creator, because we are basically as flawed as any animal can be. A bear might kill in self-defense, or a lion in order to eat, but we kill for reasons far worse than any other animal I can think of. Maybe ants come to mind, since they often wage wars against other colonies, but we wage war for ideas, for beliefs, for insults and sometimes simply for greed.
In fact, greed seems to be our main motivator. My cats will eat only enough to satisfy their hunger but, as anyone who has gone to a buffet will tell you, people tend to gorge themselves far beyond satisfying their immediate hunger. Is it a biological response, eat now for tomorrow we starve? Or is it greed, the inability to do what is right for all of us as opposed to what is right for only myself?
Yes, I can be as greedy as the next person, wanting more and more, with no real reason for the want. It is not need, because I do not need much of the stuff I have collected over the years. I simply want more and more, and everyone else be damned! I want it, I can get it, so I do! Saving for a rainy day has no bearing on me because I am special, a creature with god-given rights and no one to oppose me, save for other human beings, and they can all go to hell as well! I have guns and weapons and I am big, you are small, I am important, you are not.
And so it goes. So what is there to be found in our species that makes us worthy of survival? what makes us so special that we can ignore the world around us and continue to exist? Will we, indeed overcome our baser natures and exist as creative beings, and will even that serve to give us a right to exist?
Well, the cold, cold Universe probably does not care about us anymore than it cares about whether or not a sun, or a solar system, or a galaxy continues to exist. One day, as we stand on the brink and see our destruction looming close, perhaps we will realize that we indeed have no special purpose, no overwhelming right to exist, no reason whatsoever for being here. And the Universe will not shed one tear, because the Universe does not have feelings or goals. It simply exists because it exists, without having or being pressured to give an explanation.
We are beings of carbon, water and other chemicals and as such we are born, we exist for a time, and then we die. Even our best intentions, our most powerful emotions, do not give us any special right to exist, to continue to exist or to guarantee that we, among all the beings in the Universe, have any promise that we will somehow exist in spite of ourselves and the horrendous things the Universe can throw at us.
Furthermore our existence on Earth is fragile. Increase the temperatures a few degrees, lower them the same amount, or throw an asteroid at us, allow the superheated mantle beneath the crust of the Earth to burst forth, and we shall see just how vulnerable we are to the world we live in. In spite of what anyone tells you, there is no special being watching over us, no intervenor who shall cause the asteroid to miss, or the mantle to bubble up and fry the planet, or the ice to melt or the heat to dissipate.
No power that set all these things into motion cares a whit if we cease to exist because nature had its way and eliminated us.
Yes, it's a dark philosophy, but to me it seems true. I live each day with the idea that the next minute may be my last. I live with an intensity that is very important to me, but I also live with a crushing humility that there is no safe guard, no special assistance to be rendered if things go horribly wrong for the human species.
We may indeed become like the dinosaurs, exhibits in some future museum, or we may simply never be heard from again, because there is no being out there in the Universe or beyond that cares whether or not there was once life on the Earth. And perhaps too, we may overcome ourselves and keep from dying off, becoming just another experiment in evolution that failed.
I neither know nor care. I am living my life to the fullest while I have it, and that alone makes me believe that life is precious and I want to keep it as long as I can. Heaven, if it exists, can wait, and oblivion can wait too.
Tell me your thoughts in comments below.
If a galaxy is of no importance to the scheme of things, then why do we think we are?
Our existence
Are we worthy of continued existence?
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Comments
I don't know if women would do a better job as long as they had to please men in order to stay in power. I think that even when women are allowed to rule they still have "play by the rules" men have set up, which usually include war and greed as the basis.
If a woman could rule and not feel complelled to "compete with the good old boys" then maybe the world would be a better place.
But I still have to wonder, do we as a species have any special right to exist? I still feel as if we have somehow mentally divorced ourselves from biology and the world around us, and have come to feel entitled to a special place in the pantheon. Reality often has a harsh, cold and cruel lesson to teach us in that regard.
Hello Ivan...I agree totally with all but one comment you made and that is that man has the ability to destroy the earth. This planet has survived catrastrophe far greater than anything mankind can create. It will continue on long after we, short lived, innocuous cosmic virus have run the full gamut of existence. I say, with no arrogance intended, that those of our ilk are members of more highly evolved of the human Genus/species.
Thoughtfully presented.
Qwark
Am I mistaken in my understanding that Margaret Thatcher was a woman?
Actually, I think a maternal society would be more successful. Women like Thatcher are the exception not the rule.
Qwark is correct. Earth will continue despite our worst efforts. It may take a very long time for Gaia to recover but time would be meaningless to Earth without humans.
Are we worthy of survival? I believe we could be. If we learned to exist as part of Earth rather than attempting to consume it entire, we would be as worthy as any other part. Should we continue as we are, we will be shaken off like a bad case of fleas, to borrow a line from the late, great George Carlin.
It’s amazing how in concert our thoughts are Ivan. How long do you suppose it would take me to learn Spanish?
Qwark, I guess I should say we would destroy our ability to survive on earth, something which no other species we know of could do. Dinosaurs did not bring about theirown destruction, but we could easily wipe ourselves out without intervention by a natural disater. Please accept my correction.
ColdWarBaby, Maggie T was indeed a woman, but I do believe she had been brought up to see the world as her ancestors had, Rue Britania and the whole nine yards. She was a female ruling as if she were a man. I would like to think that a woman ruling wihtout having to worry about how men criticized her might do better. I don't know, however, since most women compete with men and have to be "better tha a man" to win out. Look at how many men in the U.S. thought Hillary was notup to the task, although iover here she is getting good reviews as Sect. of State. So in effect they are doing the same things a man would do (and more) just to get into power. And once there they have to "out-man" the men to stay in power.
As for Spanish, I did not speak it when I came here but I learned it as I went along. Spanish in Spain is different than elsewhere, but most of the words are the same. There are exceptions, of course. For example in Spain we call a swimming pool la piscina, but in Mexico they say la alberca. For automobile we say coche and they say carro. We use informal plural "vosotros" for "all of you" or "you" plural, but in Mexico they do not use this form. They use Ustedes instead, which we use but only in a formal sense. In your part of the U.S. Mexican Spanish is more in vogue. But the idea is we understand each other as well as the English understand Americans. Some words need explanation, but most are clear enough.
Now as for Argentina, well, Italian is heavily influencing the Spanish spoken there, but again with a few moments to sort things out, we understand each other well enough. In Argentina they would pronounce calle (street) as caje.
Spanish is also very logical with few exceptions, unlike English, which has many exceptions. And it is as rich in content as is English. So, I think you'd have no problem learning to speak Spanish at all! Good luck, my friend!
Ivan nice thoughts a simplified idea. Your mind think Why we exist? The simplest answer "I think therefore I am"
You have made some very worthwhile observations yet one other difference sets us apart from all those other species.Not one of them could have written your article except a conscious being of some kind,i.e. you.We carry the double edged sword.For destruction or creation we have a tool that does without question set us apart and that's our consciousness.Yet something holds us back despite reaching this consciousness some thousands of years ago.
Are we the speck in the infinite universe or is the universe the speck in our conciousness that may indeed be the question.
Chances are we may be supreme beings of the universe created to be so but act like we are not and entrust our world to those who merely pose as authorities,i.e. goverments,religions etc.,etc.,etc. who simply seek to maintain power over the likes of you and I.And teach us to respect and search for that higher power or authority from an early age.I think history will show the blood trail in the wake of that practice(still continuing at present).
We have eyes and ears but we walk along as if blind and deaf myself included have done so as it seems the nature of our entertained society.
We may very well annihilate ourselves and most other life with nuclear,biological or some other contrivance(though unlikely we peasants will be the developers or trigger pullers on that) but likely the earth will remain in that event.
Seems very evident that it NEVER had to be that way.Always a choice(natural disasters aside),a free will even if it was anothers free will dishonestly used against others.
Only with complete honesty will we find morality and pure love for life.In the here and now,not up there or out there somewhere,not later after we die but in this life.
jolinarodriguez, If I think not, would I cease to be? Literally, without a thought process, could I still be me? I have often wondered about that as well, but what if a dolphin also thinks the same thing? How would we know it? Would we even care? How would they communicate this idea to us? Would they want to?
Maybe in their own way a lot of animals think this and are self-aware in one degree or sense, or another. Maybe we only feel as if we think, but it's really something else, posing as thought. Are we conditioned biologically to have the appearance of thinking, without really knowing what conscious thought is?
There is no way currently test ourselves against true thought, if such a thing exists. But I can envision a time and place and state of being where thought is more powerful that physical strength, where true thoughts can do things in both a world of pure thought as well as a world of physical motions. Would we be more dangerous if our uncontrolled urges and the things we call thoughts were powerful enough to act on the world and things around us?
No, I am not convinced that we think and therefore we are; I actually believe that what we call thought is like baby-talk, and needs a lot more refinement before it can be called true thought.
Thanks for the comment and observation.
Robbo, thanks for the observations. I do wonder if things exist merely because we are conscious of them, or if there are things we can't see or comprehend, but which are still there.
What if an entire world of creatures & things existed to which we are oblivious? Would that make them more or less real? Even if they are self-aware, they may also not see us, and therefore we are oblivious to them. Yet, does that make us permanently unable to one day see them? Can we think past what our senses tells us, past the "real" world we see around us, and comprehend things beyond our current understanding, beyond our current vision?
Such might be determined as true thought, not limiting a being only to the things it already knows. I often wonder if there is a stream of consciousness out there, or all around us, to which we have not yet learned to listen, or even hear. I can only say I really do believe there is thought far beyond what I conjure up in my brain, thoughts which almost hurt when they bubble up near the surface.
I call this true thought.
Thanks for the comments and observations, and keep thinking!
We are blessed with 60 to eighty years, unless misfortune pays us a call, time in which we can add or subtract to the species known as mankind. Of course I often question the kindness of man. We live under principles of free will, with some modicum of restrictions, and it offers us avenues to succeed and live comfortably. But if a man or woman violates said free will by destroying another person, they do not deserve to exist any longer then some DNA testing and a swift execution. Other than that I think we do deserve existence, but we are sorely hampering our chances to continue on this planet by
the damages we cause to supply the greeds of our needs, Therefore we may very well set the time table on the continued existence of all men. ~~~Great Hub/Thoughts~~~MFB III
There are many people I know who say that precisely because we have these doubts, we need religion, a belief in God. that is the only way to make sense of our lives, by submitting our will to a Supreme Being. But while I admit that beliefs can be of great comfort, if one wants to know the absolute truth about our existence, belief may not be enough to answer the question.
Well, forgive me, I could not finish the article. Your take on human life, and social propensities, are worrisome to me. Regardless of claims to the contrary, mankind does not have the ability to destroy the Earth. Rendering it temporarily inhospitable is about the worst humanity could accomplish, and extinction would follow.
Some distant era could find us a catastrophically deconstructing monstrosity to be certain. However, there is certainly purpose in all things, and the cyclic activities of this Universe which extol man-kinds necessary place within it, clearly possesses a vested interest in our survival. Thus the "times they are a changin". To refer to humanity as a resource degrading, social disease ignores the fact that duality reigns supreme and all things come full circle.
There would be no carnivores, if there were no herbivores, if there were no carnivores, if there were no herbivores...and so on.
Furthermore, animals kill out of ignorance just as humans do...no more, no less. Regardless of the relative dichotomy inured, the default mechanism is still supreme. Surely the Misinterpretation of fear confuses most anything, regardless of its function and origins...but I digress.
Much of the current pseudo-science that posits homo sapiens are descended from animals presents mankind as a form of species. However, the term genus more aptly applies when considering the true implications of a Linnaean taxonomy scale. This then illuminates the critical roles man must eventually assume, quite naturally, within the Universe.
Truth be told, mankind is well within the tolerances afforded the genus, and is progressing somewhat normally in a relative sense...all things considered. Proponents of doomsday heresy are merely grown up children.
I enjoy this topic immensely and will post a hub about it. Be certain it will be a lengthy one.
Thanks, urimidden,for the insight and comments. The hub is meant to be worrisome, because we have never really defined for ourselves whyb we are creatures that have an entitlement to survive. We may not have the physical capacity to destroy the planet, to break it into pieces, but Earth as we know it could easily be rendered, for our own survival at least, lifeless by our own actions. Perhaps that is a better use of words to make my original meaning clearer. We could, indeed, render the Earth incapable of supporting our existence, along perhaps with most other creatures we know of.
Some few might survive such a human-caused disaster, but we most likely would not.
But my point in writing this is merely for us to examine what it is about us that an unbiased outside observer would find worthy of continued existence for humanity.
Yes, we believe this or that wonderful,positive thing, but we also manage to wipe out many human lives in the course of one year.
Yes we have great monuments to our intelligence, but how do we so often use that intelligence?
Why do we go to war? What is it in us that seems so capable of greatness, only to be over shadowed by this propensity to kill each other? Why does a teenager in a large city feel the need to kill someone else because of the colors that other happens to be wearing?
Why do we band together and treat others outside our group as different, or sub-human? Why do people like Jitler, Stalin, Mao Tse Tung, Saddam Hussein, Pol Pot and so many, many others come to power?
We may deny that this need to discover why we deserve to exist is so important, but history has shown us to be very self destructive, and one day, as weapons and temperments grow more and more hostile, will we pull the plug on our existence and join the ranks of other species that are no more?
I hope not, but we have to begin to think as a species and less and less as nations or groups or ethnicities. That is my take on it, anyway.
Again, thanks for the comment! I hope you'll reply again with more of your insight.
Thanks!
Beautiful article. Thanks.
Thanks, Misanthrope. Sad that we have to ask these questions, but if we are to identify ourselves as worthy, we have to ask them.
Gypsy Willow says:
7 months ago
Your observations are so true. I fear for my grandchildren. We have been given this wonderful planet yet men kill and torture over beliefs and religion. Makes no sense to me. If women ruled the world would we do better?