Our place in the Universe

10 Jul 2020, 2870 Words

Introduction

I strolled into the lecture theatre, glanced around, hoping to catch familiar faces. Luckily or unluckily I could not spot a single person I knew. I climbed way up, found an empty seat and got myself comfortable for the lecture to start. The module was about Charles Darwin and the Origin of Species. I picked this module because I was aware of how academically stressful my final semester was about to be. I read somewhere (probably module reviews) that the exams were simply multiple-choice questions and hence, I immediately decided to take it to clear my last General Education module.

Regrettably, the first lecture was a bore and so was the second one. I realised I might have taken the wrong module after all. I whined to my friends that I should have taken other modules instead-but surprisingly enough, did not drop the module. I went on with it. By the end of 8/9 weeks or so, the fundamental construct that I wholesomely believed since young, came crashing down on me. The knowledge that I acquired through these classes single-handedly questioned everything and anything I’ve ever pondered about since the day I started perceiving things.

The module was conducted in such a way where the audience went through the experiences of Darwin since the time he decided to go on his 4-year adventure on The Beagle to explore the world. It must be noted that he took up this trip solely for his thirst for adventure rather than to come up with the Theory of Evolution. In fact, contrary to popular belief, he only put together this grand theory after coming back from his trip. This post is obviously not a module review so I’ll just briefly summarize a few things I learned. Firstly, he was interested in the natural world from a very young age. He used to collect beetles and other natural specimen and spent a great deal of time just inspecting them. Secondly, he was from a really rich background so there was not a real pressure for him to succeed to survive. However, his dad really wanted him to become a doctor and hence he matriculated to study Medicine. Unexpectedly for him, he did not really have an interest in it and found the courage to tell his father that he did not want to practice Medicine. Surprisingly, he proposed that he wanted to venture out to see the open world instead.

On his journey, he noticed a lot of interesting animals. He visited islands that no man have ever set foot on and pondered about the similarity of animals across various islands. He collected various specimen as he went from one island to another. After 4/5 years, he came back to his hometown and decided to marry. Subsequently, after settling down, he finally started trying to figure out a collection of doubts he had over the 4 years. He then proposed, famously, in ‘On the Origin of Species’ that all creatures must have evolved over billions of years. He started with just plants and animals at first, and finally extrapolated that humans must have come about the same way — through evolution. He theorised that all living things must have had a common ancestor. To back his claims, he released a series of books after the Origin of Species with plenty of compelling evidence ranging from plants, animals and even humans. Although it was controversial for a lot of people of that time, they slowly came around. This was to be expected as this was a scientific theory explaining mankind’s origin in a heavily religious world. Within 10 years, most human beings in his country accepted their origin. And in over 100 years, various pieces of evidence were found to confidently back his theory. Evolution came to be understood and accepted as how concepts such as Gravity and various other natural phenomenon were affirmed and trusted.

If I recall correctly, the lecturer covered this amount of content by midterms. I was commuting back home late one night when I started pondering about the repercussions of this knowledge. Let me just state here that I knew about the basics of evolution since young. I think all of us know it at some level because it would be weird if we have not been explained by someone about this. But I don’t think many of us pondered beyond that basic knowledge. What it means to have been evolved from species that neither looked nor thought like us. Species that went on with their lives just like how animals around us currently do.

Imagine this. Single-cell organisms form on the ocean bed, and after millions of years, we have various sea creatures. A few of them rise to the surface and luckily evolve enough to survive the sun rays on them. A few move over to the shore, and again by natural selection, survive outside of an ocean body. Later on, the world is populated with various creatures — dinosaurs, birds, reptiles, elephants, you name it — by the same aforementioned process. And in one of those categories, homo sapiens. Us. The only ones with a sense of self, yet shockingly and evidently from the same group of organisms that evolved over the years.

This may seem like random facts just being spewed across the screen but this irrefutably answers our origin. More interestingly, the implication of our origin finally answered one of the questions that I have desperately asked myself all these years — ‘What are we doing here and most importantly, why?’. This principally translates into one of the most asked questions on the planet — ‘What is the purpose of life?’

And the answer unfortunately or fortunately is simply — nothing. There is no purpose to life. As aptly put by Mark Manson, author of his latest book ‘Everything Is F*cked: A Book About Hope’,

‘One day, you and everyone you love will die. And beyond a small group of people for an extremely brief period of time, little of what you say or do will ever matter. This is the Uncomfortable Truth of life. And everything you think or do is but an elaborate avoidance of it. We are inconsequential cosmic dust, bumping and milling about on a tiny blue speck. We imagine our own importance. We invent our purpose — we are nothing.’

— Mark Manson

Scary isn’t it? Not just that, it is downright depressing. Why? Well, let me explain. If you believe your purpose is to ensure you do good, you will end up living your life with that goal — helping the unfortunate and keeping the ones around you happy. If you believe your purpose is to spread your religion, you will end up doing that for the bulk 60–70 years of your life — forgiving people for their sins or partaking in the rituals that you believe in. If you believe your purpose is to build a country from scratch, you will end up doing acquiring knowledge, leading capable people who could do that till your last breath. If you believe your life’s purpose is to nurture, protect and provide comfort for your kids, you will again do everything in your power to do that and you will close your eyes with a smile on your deathbed, perfectly content with the life you brought your loved ones. But if you believe you do not have a purpose, then what? You do not know what to do anymore. Existential crisis. Bam.

Although this was gut-wrenchingly depressing and difficult for me to accept, I had to eventually. However, accepting the truth and nature of things also gives you freedom. Freedom to decide what you want to do with your ‘new’ enlightened self. I associated this ‘freedom’ with the same feeling everyone would have if they were told that they have exactly 24 hours to live. Instead of wallowing in despair, people would make the most of the situation. Do things that make them happy, spend time with people they love, apologise for all the hurt they caused, hold them close and simply live life to experience the most pleasure, contentment and closure they can in the next 24 hours. You could say I am a hedonist, but I do think that is what we would end up doing.

This brings me to the point that, we each can choose to live how we want for the rest of our lives. Do you want to pursue knowledge? Sure go ahead, study. Do you want to be as rich as possible? Sure, go ahead and find ways to achieve that. You want to slack and watch TV shows till the day you die? By all means, go ahead because none of us has any predefined purpose anyway. However, unfortunately (or fortunately), we do live in a world with rules. Rules that are not particularly universally right or wrong, but precepts that most people agreed on and established. Some of these rules are laws while others are traditions and culture. Therefore, choosing the way we want to live might directly contradict with these established rules, which inevitably gives rise to consequences. And well, we all do face consequences right? We try our best to avoid negative consequences and aim for positive ones. Some perceive living in a small household and living paycheck to paycheck as a negative consequence while others don’t. It all ultimately comes down to what you can live with (and can’t) in the long run. But the bottom line is, your life is yours to live, yours to invent your own calling and yours to fully experience it in both sickness and in health.

I think a lot of people have come to this conclusion sooner than me, age-wise. I guess that is primarily because of my religious background and upbringing. Well, when people you love ingrains in you something from young, you tend not to question it as much and accept it wholeheartedly. You don’t question it anymore even when you grow up and consequentially, it becomes a part of your life.

‘Oh it is just a custom and we follow it’, ‘It’s faith, we can’t argue against it’, ‘There should be a reason why you were born in a well-to-do place, with food on your plate and shelter above your head, while there are kids who starve to death somewhere else. There is a reason for all atrocities that happen. Don’t worry about it, just continue adhering to the virtues. There is a reason for everything.’, ‘Good things will happen to good people and bad things happen to test and mold you into a better person, so it’s important to be good.’

“Wait. Hang on, so what separates me from an unfortunate human being? Am I a morally better person, and that’s why I ended up with the things — food and shelter — that I have now?” I am not going to outrightly refute anything that I have written in the previous paragraph. Loved ones often pass down their beliefs and knowledge so that the next generation could live a good and kind life. The values that I have been taught only allowed me to take the path filled with kindness. However, gravely, blindly devouring values and teachings passed down from our forefathers also diminishes our ability to think clearly and ask the right questions. Stay with me on the following thought experiment.

Think again about our evolutionary process. Think about the organisms we evolved from. Amusingly, we evolved to be intelligent species while other species evolved to be less intelligent, for example, animals in the Animal Kingdom. The only thing superior about us is our intellect(in this case, I am also encompassing self-awareness/consciousness under intelligence). However, when we see an animal kill or even torture a fellow animal, do we believe that animals are inherently evil? We don’t. We just come to the conclusion that nature is cruel. Obviously, among the Human community, we draft who is good and who’s not based on their actions, especially so when we are religious. Think about all the suffering people went through since the dawn of time. Extermination and torture of various groups. The way people were killed mercilessly, for no valid reason at all. Recall everything and anything people had to endure. Think about the things that are happening now, in the US and various other countries. With this overwhelmingly bleak insight, we conclusively come to the ideology that humans are cruel, to begin with. Now take it one step further and imagine an entirely new species (evolved from us) with a far better intellect than us. To briefly put in perspective, presume there is a new species with an additional level of intellect, similar to the difference in intellect between that of a goldfish and a human being.

Would this species look at us closely and be able to separate us into various groups of good/evil based on our actions? Or would it simply say ‘Well, that’s just the nature of the human species? They are not doing anything right or wrong.’ Hmm. Don’t we say ‘Well, that’s the nature of a cat’ when we see it torture a mouse before it eats it? We do. Therefore, I believe, a species of far greater intellect would inevitably come to the same conclusion — ‘it is just the species’ nature’ — as well, no matter what we do. Be it ‘good’ or ‘bad’ things. That is just the way nature is, and we are part of nature.

My point is, at the end of the day all we ever do is, answer to our consciences. If your conscience allows it, voila, you have your good night sleep. If it doesn’t, then you learn to change your ways so that you could be at peace.

Am I denying God?

Alas, no I am not. I do not think I have any right to. Darwin in his autobiography wrote this:

“This conclusion was strong in my mind about the time… I wrote the Origin of Species; and it is since that time that it has very gradually with many fluctuations become weaker. But then arises the doubt–can the mind of man, which has, as I fully believe, been developed from a mind as low as that possessed by the lowest animal, be trusted when it draws such grand conclusions? … Nor must we overlook the probability of the constant inculcation in a belief in God on the minds of children producing so strong and perhaps an inherited effect on their brains not yet fully developed, that it would be as difficult for them to throw off their belief in God, as for a monkey to throw off its instinctive fear and hatred of a snake.”

— Charles Darwin

In this case, he was losing faith in his religion, however, he also admits that our minds developed from an ancestor species with much lower intelligence than us. Therefore, he does not trust it enough to make grand conclusions such as the denial of God. I stand with him on this point as well. I don’t think we simply do have enough intelligence to put up a verdict regarding the denial of God. Imagine how much intelligence a fellow animal in the Animal Kingdom has. Asking ourselves the grandiose question of God and expecting an answer which denies it is like asking a little mouse if it believes in God. That is precisely how we would be perceived by future advanced species. I have no idea how intelligent homo-sapiens would get in a million years but I can guarantee that our intelligence would mean nothing much to them when they look down at us.

Therefore, no. I cannot bring myself to deny God as I believe that I don’t have any right to. Darwin chose to be an Agnostic and I choose to keep my religion. However, this brings me to an interesting question. Is reproduction an absolute necessity then? Essentially, that is the only way for evolution to progress. Is it our duty to reproduce then, so that intelligence could develop further? I can’t seem to find an answer to this. After all, this question leads to another big philosophical question — ‘Is existence better than non-existence? Is something better than nothing?’

I do not really have a clear answer to this.

So what then is our place in the Universe?

Succinctly put, I believe we are nothing more than a teeny tiny part of a long process called evolution. I don’t think we could put a tangible attribute to our existence but more of an abstract concept altogether. A part of a process. That is our place in the Universe. I do not know where this process would lead us to, whether it is for the better or for worse, but I guess we will be long gone before we find out an answer.

Nonetheless, right now this moment we are of blood, flesh and mind. Let’s just experience the full weight of our existence.

Or not, your choice.