What is the point of Life?

NASA's Great Observatories Celebrate the International Year of Astronomy
Originally uploaded by NASAJPL

How did everything begin?
What am I here for?
What happens when I die?

These are the ultimate existential questions that confront us when discussing life, religion, philosophy and the universe. For me, the Big Bang theory seems the best answer so far to the first question. The conditions that gave rise to life on earth seem very precise and rather improbable yet along with evolution seem to me to be the most likely explanation of the fact that we are here. What was there before the Big Bang and why it happened at all still seem unanswered but maybe that is due more to the limitations of my understanding rather than to gaps in scientific knowledge.

However, the purpose of the universe and of life on earth has not to my knowledge been answered yet by science. I know physicists are searching for the unifying theory but maybe it will still turn out to be just another mechanistic explanation rather than the reason or purpose for the universe. Personally I am happy to make my own purpose and just accept not knowing or being uncertain of any other, but I do rather like the idea of the giant experiment run by mice as described in the Hitchhiker’s guide to the Galaxy. It is certainly more appealing to me than the idea of God as described in the Bible.

I suppose there is a chance that some creative force was responsible for the Big Bang and everything that has happened since including evolution. Where the force came from is still a mystery, as is its purpose. We can speculate that maybe the purpose was because it could, or because it wanted to see what would happen. Or maybe there was some other purpose that we do not know of yet, or will ever know given our relative unimportance in the scheme of things. You could call this force God if you like but I think it would have to be a different God to the one described in Bible for a number of reasons.

Firstly, it says in the Bible that God created man in his own image and I have a real problem seeing some sort of supernatural human being physically able to create the universe. The force that created the universe by definition must be something quite different to us and we can probably not imagine what it might look like or how it might think. Secondly it does not seem to me that the universe was created for us or that we are at the centre of it as the bible suggests. We are just one species among many on a small planet on the edge of one galaxy among many in the universe. Therefore it is rather arrogant to think that we are the end product of evolution and the reason for it, let alone that this force would have some special attachment to one tribe of our species in a small part of this planet or that it would necessarily want to intervene in any way.

I think that in fact we have created God in our own image for a variety of reasons including the natural human desire to find patterns and the desire for order and certainty in a chaotic world. Perhaps though it is mostly to do with the last question: what happens when we die? That is our greatest fear and maybe the hardest to deal with. I believe that we have to accept death as the end of our life and that there is nothing after death. Many people believe in an after-life where there may be personal consciousness of some kind or even reincarnation. That doesn’t appeal to me particularly but when dealing with the death of people I love, I try to find consolation in philosophy, mythology and spirituality. Spirituality like morality does not have to be confined to religion or a belief in a God as I hope my next post will show!