Why
are we here?
Lets start by asking the same questions about somethings around us. If I was to ask, "Why is that house there?" or "Why is the wall there?", one would tend to respond talking about the purpose of these structures: The house for someone to stay in, and the wall to mark a boundary. Likewise, Why is money there? Why is the government there? and so on and so forth. All of these responses pertain to the purpose of the objects.
Here is another set of questions: Why is Mt Everest there? Why is the solar system there? Why is the river there? Now, how would one respond? Suddenly, the same syntax connects to a different meaning and one tends to respond with the causes, rather than the purpose. So, because the Indian Plate went and hit the Euraaisan plate - slam bang .. lo and behold there was Mt Everest. About 13.73 ± 0.12 billion years ago a big explosion cause the creation of the Solar System. Melting ice and rain water collect and forge a way from a ground at a higher altitude, to a location at a lower altitude, usually merging into a larger waterbody, that is how the river is formed.
Why do we respond to the same question differently? Why can't we think of a purpose of the existence of Mt Everest? The solar system? The river? Some of you right now would even be getting your answers ready ... atleast for the river ... if not for the solar system, while Mt Everest's purpose would be a bit difficult for most to conjure up. All these natural occurring phenomena are generally explained away by their causes rather than their purposes. The existence of man made stuff is usually defined by the purpose.
We too are a part of nature, and yet constantly try and define our existence by our purpose rather than the cause ... Why does the human being try and do that?
If we were to look at ourselves as a part of nature, and our existence is defined by Darwin's theory of evolution - based on natural selection.The stronger wins, the adaptable wins and the weaker and the rigid looses. While Darwin's theory brought us here, what could be our future, if we were to perpetuate it ... the weaker of us would loose ... the stronger win. Some of you would light up and say ... That is life! Isn't that way we conduct our human interactions ... and our Politics? While Darwin's theory, brought is here, I am not too convinced that it is the best way to lead into the future. Not just for you and me, but also not for mankind.
Here are some lines by Richard Dawkins for you to think about ...
"For good Darwinian reasons, evolution gave us a brain whose size increased to the point where it became capable of understanding its own provenance, of deploring the moral implications and of fighting against them" ... "Stand tall, Bipedal Ape. The shark may outswim you, the cheetah outrun you, the swift outfly you, the capuchin outclimb you, the elephant outpower you, the redwood outlast you. But you have the biggest gifts of all: the gift of understanding the ruthlessly cruel process that gave us all existence; the gift of revulsion against its implications; the gift of foresight - something utterly foreign to the blundering short-term ways of natural selection - and the gift of internalizing the very cosmos."
Now ask yourself: "Why are we here?"
For those interested in knowing what got me thinking this way, I was listening to a very interesting podcast from Radiolab. Here is the link In Defense of Darwin? ... and incase you want to download it and listen to it at leisure, here is the link In Defence of Darwin?
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