What are we all doing here? Are we just an accident, resulting in a runaway chain of events that we call Life? Countless billions of organisms compete with each other all over the planet, seemingly with one specific purpose – to make copies of themselves. Are we humans any different?
Does the fact that that I’m writing this have any impact at all on whether my genes will be passed on to future generations? Is this, or any other endeavour in the arts, the sciences and all those activities that are the product of our seemingly unique minds (if we limit ourselves to just this planet) an indirect means for us to achieve greater recognition, or in many cases financial means, which in turn increases our chances of survival and further reproduction by our offspring? Or are our minds, our consciousness, our wondrous awareness of the fact of existence, a freak by-product of DNA replication?
This is a historic moment for the universe that we know. For the first time after all these billions of years, DNA is no longer the undisputed master of its own existence. It has given rise to an entity that can manipulate it. We are fast taking over as masters of this section of the universe, and the sky is, literally, the limit. It could be that this stage has already been reached outside of our planet, but there is nothing yet to show for it, as far as we can see.
Where does all this leave us? Was the universe "meant" to become aware of itself? Would an incredibly large universe, made up entirely of dead matter, have made any sense at all? But is there any law that says that existence should make sense?
Maybe I should concentrate on football, and things would really start to make sense, and so would I…
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