First of all, I unapologetically admit that I do not know the meaning of life; however, I do know that there is a meaning – or meanings. Now, with that off my chest, let’s begin.
What if there were no meaning? Charles Darwin introduced his scientific theory that the branching pattern of evolution results from a process he called natural selection, in which the struggle for existence has a similar effect to the artificial selection involved in selective breeding. Darwin has been described as one of the most influential figures in human history.
No doubt evolution exists, or actively existed, but “natural” selection? Selection requires someone intelligent to select, to do the selecting. But Darwin said, no, that stuff just happened on its own, so to speak, or was “natural”.
Some time ago I was watching the Bill Maher program on TV when he was interviewing Niel deGras Tyson, director of the Hayden Planetarium in New York. Tyson is a brilliant astrophysicist with an engaging personality, ideal for TV. I don’t remember the question, but Tyson gave a description of the heavenly bodies, how they move and align with each other and how Earth is the only planet known apt for life, including human life.
“And it’s all random?” Maher asked – a leading question if there ever was one.
“All random”. Tyson said.
Albert Einstein, a scientist of some note, would not have used the word “random”. Rather he would have said something like the following, which he had written previously elsewhere:
Another argument is Ivan’s in The Brothers Karamazov, who, although he doesn’t deny God’s existence, rejects a God who allows innocent children to suffer. Which is more or less the same as rejecting his existence.
Soren Kierkegaard, a 19th century Danish philosopher, claimed that a true philosopher, having observed and even felt the cruel suffering of human existence, would choose suicide in order to avoid such suffering, which is unavoidable for all living beings in this world. But, he also reasoned, the only other possible solution, although doubtful, could be faith in Jesus Christ who, after all, also suffered greatly. So, as a true philosopher, he decided to try it, just as an experiment. It worked for him – although he spent many years fighting with the Danish Lutheran Church’s dogmas.
Nonetheless, many in the scientific community would agree with Tyson that it’s all random. Because to a certain extent they have substituted faith in Darwin’s evolution and natural selection for God or divine intelligence. If everything can be explained by the evolution of species – including humanity – no creator or divine intelligence is necessary. In fact, they get in the way. The human being is no more than a highly developed animal. The species from which the human being evolved are apes. One fine day millenniums ago an ape, or a pair of apes, descended from a tree and didn’t climb back up. He (or she) was your great – to a millionth degree removed – grandparent! To believe that this is all there is to it, is extreme materialism.
Take Ted Williams, one of the greatest baseball players of all time. He was also an American hero, having fought in World War II as a fighter pilot. Strangely enough, when he died his body was frozen in some lab-business in Arizona. The intention is for him to stay there until medical science is sufficiently advanced to avoid death completely, when he would be melted and continue to whack home runs. It’s true, folks. And he isn’t alone.
“The Singularity Is Near,” is a book by Ray Kurzweil, the principal researcher and A.I. visionary at Google, and the leading biotech futurist.
Decades ago, Kurzweil predicted that aging would be “dramatically slowed” by 2029 when, furthermore, computers would achieve consciousness. Therapies enabling immunity to disease and organ replacements would make longevity almost too easy. What´s left is up to nanobots: cell-sized paramedics, so to speak, that zip through our bloodstream repairing aging tissues and can upload our brain-like thinking caps. After human intelligence merges with Artificial Intelligence in a cloud, most of us will become digital entities a million times more intelligent than mere human beings. This will happen in 2045; it will be a moment called the Singularity.
Ray Kurzweil is seventy-seven. Hey Ray, I muse, that’s twenty years from now. You’ll be ninety-seven then. Are you sure you’ll make it?
Kurzweil is not alone of course. Other apparently equally intelligent individuals – at least such highly educated ones – are diligently working toward that Singularity, although they may not call it that. Nearly every one of them believes we will eventually learn the secret to eternal life.
If these people are so smart, I don’t see why they completely ignore one other option, one which guarantees immortality and doesn’t demand wasting time and money on Artificial Intelligence and other Frankenstein experiments: reincarnation. Not artificial reincarnation in a goat or a cow, but real reincarnation of your spirit to become a better person on Earth the next time. At least that’s the objective.
But even if we also accept a divine intelligence, it doesn’t answer Ivan Karamazov’s doubt about an uncaring God who lets children suffer. Ivan didn’t consider reincarnation, according to which those children would spend time in the spiritual world upon their death and reincarnate on earth where and when their suffering would be compensated for, and the guilty would suffer. God doesn’t make children suffer, human beings do,
God gave human beings freedom though, with which we can carry out intelligent, feeling actions, such as teaching children how to live in Brazilian favelas (slums) or Indian ones, as well as incredibly stupid, cruel actions, such as imaginary singularities or belief in the possibility of eternal physical life.
Why, pray, are they so determined to live forever? It can’t be because they fear what will happen to them after death – some hell-like existence or being bored to death on or in a cloud. They don’t believe in an afterlife of any kind. The reason, then, must be fear of non-existence. Yeah, that’s scary!