If there is a common theme within religions and associated philosophies, it’s one of trying to position oneself in the broad context of life, the universe and everything as something special. You have somehow been tapped on the shoulder with a special and unique mission or destiny, or a special purpose or meaning that you have to carry during the time of your existence, something that places you uniquely above the rest of life, the universe and everything. Hogwash!
Author’s note: for the sake of brevity, I intend to use the acronym for self-awareness or consciousness as SAC; for the overlapping concepts of destiny, fate, function, meaning, purpose or reason as DFMPR. That should save a bit of space!
A Few Ultimate Questions:
Is there a DFMPR to life, the universe and everything?
What is the DFMPR to life, the universe and everything?
What is my DFMPR within life, the universe and everything?
Does the universe have a SAC?
A SAC universe, well that’s the only way it could assign you a, or influence your, DFMPR. But, looking up at the night sky, do you really think the universe gives a damn about your alleged DFMPR in life? That would indeed imply that the universe has some sort of SAC. But, IMHO, the universe did not assign you a DFMP at birth and does not acknowledge any DFMPR to your existence. You can contemplate the universe; the universe can not contemplate you. Alas, that’s because the universe is not alive, it doesn’t have a mind; it does not have any SAC. To argue otherwise is to invite trouble.
Some readers might recall the controversy of James Lovelock’s Gaia theory which seemed to imply that Earth (Gaia) had a SAC and the planet could somehow intellectually manipulate the various geo-chemical cycles (feedback mechanisms) to optimise the environmental balance between extremes that could otherwise result without those mechanisms. Gaia’s DFMPR was to produce and ensure an optimum Earth; a Goldilocks Earth, an Earth that’s just right for life. Of course those feedback mechanisms were just the result of natural unconscious physical laws, and too many New Agers read too much into Lovelock’s ideas. Planet Earth exhibits no SAC and neither does the universe.
By extension, there is no nebulous supernatural other within the universe that serves as a substitute for a SAC universe. As a jumping off premise, there is no such thing as either a SAC universe, or a supernatural realm that contains any deity or family of deities within that universe.
Speaking of the universe, I should mention here the Anthropic Cosmological Principle which comes in two basic formats, weak and strong. The weak version basically states the bleeding obvious, and that is the universe is bio-friendly. If the universe wasn’t bio-friendly, we wouldn’t be here to make note of that fact. The strong version however implies a DFMPR to the universe. The universe has a DFMPR to be bio-friendly and to produce life forms, like us, that can appreciate the DFMPR of the universe. Of course for the universe to have a DFMPR, it either has to be SAC of have a supernatural creator that is, unless of course the universe and its DFMPR is a simulated universe. See below.
I guess I should also mention astrology here if for no other reason than readers would expect to find it mentioned. OK, I’ve mentioned it, now it’s time to move forward. Astrology is a 100% human invention and has no cosmic or personal significance in any shape, manner or form. Of course you are perfectly free to adopt astrology as your answer to your DFMPR, but that suggests you are happy to negate any free will others might think you have.
Let’s start at the most elementary basics and work the way upwards, starting with the four forces and associated particles plus the elementary particles (electron and quarks).
There are four fundamental forces in the universe, with associated particles that form the entire bedrock for all of life, the universe and everything. They are gravity, the weak nuclear and strong nuclear forces, and electromagnetism. You know all about gravity; electromagnetism is also a pretty familiar concept from the light that you read by, to the compass that guides you from Point A to Point B. Now do you associate any intelligence or SAC with these four forces? - Probably not.
There are also a few fundamental particles that you have probably heard about, namely electrons and quarks. Quark combinations make up protons and neutrons, and they in turn, in association with electrons make up atoms. Are electrons and quarks SAC? Do they have intellect? Do they have free will? – Probably not.
Atoms combine to form molecules, and molecules can combine to form really complex molecules, and combinations of really complex molecules can form life within all those other non-life bits that comprise the rest of the universe and everything. But if the fundamental building blocks have no SAC, how can combinations of them have SAC? It’s like building a house of red bricks only to have the finished house appear blue!
Still, somewhere along the line, un-SAC bricks can form a SAC house – you, for example. Therefore, the eternal question – the bits and pieces what makes me up has no SAC, yet I have, a SAC that is. Therefore, I’m more than the sum of my parts and I am somehow special (relative to the universe) and no doubt endowed therefore with some special DFMPR, if I can only figure out what.
Conversely, one could take the point of view and argue that gravity has a DFMPR to its existence, ditto a quark and therefore they have a SAC in order to carry out their DFMPR (like keeping Earth in its orbit, or making those neutrons) and therefore a rock has SAC (being made up of bits and pieces of SAC bits and pieces) and therefore you aren’t unique in your SAC vis-à-vis the inanimate world. But you still have to figure it out – either way you have to figure it out what your special DFMPR is. However, I have a hard time thinking that most living things would accept that all non-living things have a SAC, so let’s scratch that option.
Okay, the universe isn’t SAC and has no DFMPR, it just is; you on the other hand are SAC and therefore assume you have a unique DFMPR, whatever. But is that by your choice and alterable (free will) or by the design of the universe and unalterable?
From the moment of the Big Bang, all the laws, principles and relationships of physics became hardwired into the fabric of the universe, fixed and forever unalterable. That implies total causality and that outcomes are fixed. Plug in the numbers into the equation, crunch the numbers, and out will come the answer, fixed and immovable. Everything that happens in the universe is predetermined even unto billions of years into the future, including you and your DFMPR. Your life may have DFMPR except you have no choice, no free will, in what that DFMPR is. Absolute cause-and-effect rules out free will. Let’s move on from there.
Let’s forge ahead instead with the standard model and see where that leads us. The standard model, scientific model, being that the universe has no SAC or DFMPR, causality is iffy (due to quantum physics); you have SAC so there’s a transition between no SAC and SAC as complexity increases. There is no nebulous other (something supernatural) pulling your strings; you have free will.
You exist. You have not always existed and you will not always exist.
You did not create yourself. Is there a reason you exist apart from the sex act that created you and perhaps the wishes of your parents to have a child (you) – though that may be a good enough reason in itself.
A more interesting question though is, is there really a DFMPR to your existence, and by extension to all that came before you, leading up to you, since if you have a DFMPR your parents had at least one DFMPR – creating you – and so on back on down the line.
Working backwards, if there was a reason for you, therefore there was a reason for your parent’s existence, your parent’s parents, back to the rise of Homo sapiens, the primates, the mammals, life itself, stuff (planets, stars, and galaxies), the creation of matter/energy and the time and space to ultimately produce you. If you exist for a reason, then everything that went before had a reason to exist as well.
To be continued...
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