Disclaimer: I am not a biologist, chemist, physicist, or astrophysicist. This is what I understand from a broad education. If something written here is wrong, teach me what is right...
I am not afraid to die. And here's why:
I am not afraid to die. And here's why:
This concept is one of the most beautiful things to me because it’s as close as I think I will ever come to understanding the meaning of life. It explains, satisfactorily to me, where I came from before I was born and where I will go after I die.
I was sent to Catholic school for the first 6 years of my primary school education. I often head the phrase "Ashes to ashes, Dust to Dust". While I'm sure they were talking about the Christian god of Genesis creating humans out of dirt, I think the phrase was misused and misunderstood. There is a much better, more logical, completely factual application for the phrase.
Let's rewind billions of years. The solar system is just a big cloud of gas and debris left over from a cosmic explosion ( perhaps a supernova ).
Eventually, due to the law of gravitation, the particles in the solar nebula began to stick together. The densest concentration of these particles will become our sun. The ball of matter grew and grew until it was so massive that the pressure and gravity kicked off a fusion reaction. Sol was born.
This star, this fusion reactor, began turning hydrogen into helium, until a score of elements were formed. These elements all reacted in one way or another and the entire naturally occurring periodic table formed. Of course, some of the heavier elements were present from the ancient star that created the solar nebula in the first place. The real heavy elements have been here since the big bang.
While our proto-sun was forming, the planets began to come together.
Over an immeasurable amount of time, life evolved from inorganic molecules and began to replicate. It is impossible to know what animated the first living cells. I like to think that the Miller–Urey experiment is a good explanation, Given the right atmospheric conditions, the proper chemical ingredients and a little bit of electricity, the building blocks of biological life can be synthesized-- amino acids. A monkey hitting keys at random on a typewriter keyboard for an infinite amount of time will eventually type the complete works of William Shakespeare. Some call it chance, others probability, some people call it luck.
The amino acids that concentrated on the shores of the ancient seas combined to form RNA. RNA, through similar processes, evolved into the more complex DNA. Soon enough, a self-replicating cell with the basic features of a living organism was developed. It is quite possible, probably, and likely that single-celled life evolved from inanimate materials. The only alternative is to say that a god did it. To me that is embracing ignorance. Just because it is impossible to understand how this happened billions of years ago is no excuse to use the god-of-the-gaps excuse. So let’s humor the idea that a single, replicating cellular organism developed through natural processes.
This single cell kept replicating, and mutating, and changing, adapting to the environment, carving out new niches with each mutation. Most likely it was the radiation from the sun from a time when Earth had a different atmosphere. Maybe it was from the radioactive elements that began to react in the earth, exposed by tectonic action. This took a very long time, mind you. Billions of earth years. Eventually they evolved into multi-cellular organisms. The process is impossible to explain with today’s science, but to dismiss this theory in favor of supernatural events is highly illogical. Let’s run with abiogenesis for a minute, for the sake of the larger point I wish to convey.
We come to every kid's favorite part, the dinosaurs. But they were wiped out by an impact event 65 million years ago; probably whatever object made that enormous crater near the Yucatan. A geologist will tell you about the K-T boundary. This is a layer of sediment found worldwide. It was deposited around the same time the dinosaurs disappeared. It was probably placed from the debris from an enormous object hitting Terra. The small rodent-like mammals were able to survive this event because some of them lived exclusively in the water (and were not affected by the fallout from the impact). Others survived because they could burrow underground. Mammals are homeothermic. They can regulate their body temperatures from the food they metabolize. Reptiles rely on the direct heat from the sun. Mammals create their own heat using the metabolized energy from food. This is one example of how they were able to survive the following ice age, while their ectothermic cousins were unable to survive.
Eventually these little rodents kept mutating and changing, maybe even cross-breeding (nobody knows for sure because the fossil evidence accounts for a tiny fraction of the species that have inhabited the earth). These little fuzzy mammals, over a long time, evolved into the first primates.
The primates, who stood upright to see predators far away, who had thumbs and a large brain for intelligence, who dexterous and agile enough to hide in the treetops from predators, began to use tools. (Please remember that when I say things like 'began to', I mean after a very very long time of natural selection and gene mutation)
Enter the hominids. 15-20 million more years of natural selection, Homo Sapiens arrive. A few thousand more years and my human mother gave birth to me outside the city of Boston, MA.
Fast forward 70 years into the future. I'm about 90. Modern medicine was good, but some of my poor health choices and genetic weakness causes me to detereorate quickly. I have a genetic predisposition for cancer and Alzheimer's, as well as blood pressure and blood-glucose related disorders. I don't know how I will die, but I will. I'll expire in a hospital bed surrounded by robot nurses, dying from whatever ailment it is while pondering about star formation and stellar evolution, and how I'll soon be among the stars.
I opted to get cremated, because I see no use to waste the valuable burial space on my lifeless carcass. The ashes are scattered in the woods somewhere in New England, maybe from the top of one of the White Mountains, perhaps over the ocean. I don’t care where my remains go, because the ashes won’t get very far for very long unless something accelerates it to Terran escape velocity on a trajectory that avoids the numerous orbiting bodies of this system. My remains will likely stay on this planet for a long time.
The law of conservation of energy is a universal constant. The law states that neither energy nor mass can ever be created or destroyed. This is an observable fact. You can't get rid of an ice cube. You can melt it, but it will be a puddle of liquid water. You can boil the water, but it will still exist as steam in the room. You can run a current through liquid water to break the bonds and create hydrogen and oxygen, but it will still be there. Add enough energy to the hydrogen and oxygen gas using a spark or compression and it will start a combustion reaction with the end result being water molecules and some heat. You can take the oxygen and bombard it with UV radiation, and some of it will react to form ozone. The net energy is still there in any case. This is true for any chemical and every element. You cannot get rid of matter. You can only rearrange it.
When I die, my body will go into the ground, or perhaps the atmosphere, where it will stay for a very long time. That is, until Sol gets a little bit older…
Fast forward about 5 billion years. Who knows if human civilization is still around? Maybe we killed every living creature from nuclear combat, maybe we're living underground, maybe we evolved into robot-hybrids during the singularity event and what used to be Hominidae is now scattered throughout the galaxy like the borg. Our star is running out of fuel to fuse. It is beginning to expand and turns into a red giant. It already enveloped mercury, venus, and the star that was once our sole energy producer begins to envelope the good earth.
The oceans boil away first, and the atmosphere is flung off into space from the increasing solar wind. Earth will eventually be vaporized. The sun will start exploding in a succession of layers, spewing out hot gas. After all of the outer layers of the sun are ejected, all that will remain is a small white dwarf. All around it will be a new planetary nebula. The white dwarf will (theoretically) run out of energy and turn into a dense black 'brown dwarf'. But the planetary nebula is there. The net energy is still there, because you can't get rid of it.
Eventually, due to Newton's law of gravitation, the particles in the solar nebula began to stick together. The densest concentration of these particles will become our sun 2.0. The ball of mass grew and grew until it was so massive that the pressure and gravity kicked off a fusion reaction.
And it starts again. The entire cycle starts all over again. A new star is born. Planets begin to form. Maybe life evolves and reptilians become the dominant, intelligent, toolmaking species on Earth 2.0 because the K-T event never happens again... Or maybe we come back after a few billion years of being scattered throughout the galaxy, and return to where our ancestors first crawled out of the ocean. Maybe they seed the oceans with bacteria in hope that life will flourish again. Maybe that's how life got here in the first place. Maybe no planet in this solar system 2.0 has the capacity to support life. But all of the atoms that made up my body are still there. They may be scattered and stripped. Maybe some of the energy was converted into photons and two iotas of my previous energy rocket to opposite sides of the universe at the speed of light and are entangled forever. The energy may be converted to antimatter through some yet unknown process, but the energy is still there. My energy will never go away.
THAT is beautiful. That is not a creation 'story', it is a history of events that happened, and a schedule of things to come (minus a few theories which have yet to be observed and tested to the full extent of science). It's not subjective. It's not written in a god book that was constructed and changed over 2000 years by many authors. It’s not what I hope to be true. It’s not what I was indoctrinated to believe. This story didn't fall from the sky, and Joseph Smith didn't transcribe it from a delusion he had in a cave. These are what observations of the physical world predict, and what the evidence of today points to. This is where you will go, too.
This is the story of life in the cosmos, and we are bound to it. Next time you notice the sun, close your eyes, aim your face at it and smile at the energy it radiates. That's where your atoms were born, and that's where your atoms will be vaporized; into the fires from which they were forged. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. It makes much more sense in this context.
You will take different forms. Heck, maybe some of your atoms will become part of a future sentient tree. But none of us will ever leave this universe. WE ARE ALL IN IT TOGETHER. That's where atheist morality can come from. We are all brothers and sisters of the same star.
90 years is a good long time for a primate. That's why I need to enjoy life today, here, now. I'm not saying I live recklessly and only for the moment. I live for this life on Earth. Do good things not because you fear the lake of fire, or want the reward of living forever (which would be boring after the first few hundred years anyways). I don't refrain from raping and pillaging everything around me for fear of punishment. That is negative reinforcement. I am more civilized than that. I have more character than that. My mother taught me better manners than that. I need to do good things so that other people enjoy their lives too, because I want them to be my companions. I understand that we're all on this rock together. We share one planet in the same system in the same galaxy. It's as simple as 'we all bleed red'. It’s always better to work together. Two heads, or seven billion heads are more powerful than one.
So what is the purpose of life? That is up to each individual to decide. We all have a different upbringing, so we all have different views on this. Here's where the libertarian in me comes out. A few hundred years ago some old guys hit on this idea of 'natural rights'. They coined the idea that every single intelligent sentient being has the right to life. They have the right to liberty. They have the right to pursue happiness, whatever floats their own boat, to determine their own destiny, as long as it isn't destructive to others.
My purpose in life? I want to travel as far as I can from home. I want to learn as much as my tiny little thick skull can hold. I want to meet as many people as I can, so I can learn from them. I want to find another human that I can spend the rest of my life with happily and become entangled with. I want to have children, and raise them so that they can continue pursuing happiness in a peaceful and productive way. I want them to learn everything they can, and teach it to their children. I want them to keep doing this on and on until eventually mankind (or whatever we evolve into) will be able to leave this solar system and see what is on the other side of the galaxy. I want to see us harness the power of an entire galaxy... I want this species to survive, because I have tasted love, and it tastes good. I'm not talking about love for a woman or a man, but a passion for all of the quaint hobbies I enjoy. I love watching light refract off moving water. Watching the sunset, exchanging my ideas on an open forum, letting hot water run over my body, traveling so fast that the tears are pulled from my eyes, or standing on the weather-deck of a boat at night trying to decide where the horizon begins and the ocean ends. These are just a few of my favorite things. You might share some with me but you have a list of your own. These are things that make you happy; things you would do if you had leisure time. That is the purpose of life.
I am not afraid of this. Some people find the idea of no afterlife, of no eternal soul disturbing. I find the reality thrilling! (Dawkins ripoff, please don't sue me man). I feel like to not continue this cycle is selfish. To not want to find out what is on the other side of the pond, mountain, planet, or galaxy is ignorant.
So yes, I am perfectly satisfied with and not afraid of one mortal life here on this speck of a planet in this ordinary star system tucked in an insignificant corner of a typical galaxy. I like being mortal. It makes everything special, because it makes us responsible for our own actions.
That is why living, sentient organisms on Earth are special to me. Not because a creation myth says a supernatural perfect being breathed into some dirt and pulled out a rib, but because out of chaos, order can be achieved. From 8 × 10^52kg of matter (a guesstimate of the mass of the observable universe), a miniscule, insignificant sliver of that matter can combine to form something that is self aware, a thing that can make art and love and foster ideas, and learn about itself and its home. We are all "star stuff, the ash of stellar alchemy... emerged into consciousness. We are a way for the cosmos to know itself."
More evidence to support these statements here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sun
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stellar_evolution
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planetary_nebula
"We are all star stuff" - Carl Sagan
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iE9dEAx5Sgw
EDIT: I have since learned that our sun is probably on the last leg of it's life. The next time it goes red giant, it will probably not have enough energy left over to start a new star. I'm not worried though, because the energy is still there and the meat of my point remains. Maybe when the Andromeda galaxy crashes into us some of our atoms will be a part of a new star.
EDIT: I have since learned that our sun is probably on the last leg of it's life. The next time it goes red giant, it will probably not have enough energy left over to start a new star. I'm not worried though, because the energy is still there and the meat of my point remains. Maybe when the Andromeda galaxy crashes into us some of our atoms will be a part of a new star.
