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The Meaning of Life
Do you feel that your life is without meaning? Does the huge cold indifferent universe around us make you believe that no life could ever have meaning?
Ask yourself, 'What would a source of meaning for my life look like?' If you are like most people, your answer will have these features;
It has to be something much bigger than me. Something I can be part of. In fact it should be as big as it possibly can be. Something like God but it would have to be real not mythical.
It has to be something that gives my life direction. Something worth working for.
It has to be something old; ancient. Not some fly by night fad.
I can show you something that will fulfil your needs. It is the biggest thing around that could possibly give your life a direction and it's story goes back hundreds of millions of years. It is waiting for you to come to its aid and by helping it you will become a pivotal character in its story. You will be remembered for longer than a minor player like say...the human species.
I would like to introduce you to your life's source of meaning; the Biosphere.
The Biosphere and its Desires
What does the biosphere want from you? To understand that you must first listen to its story and then imagine what its next step is to be. Then you can take up the cause of helping it achieve its next step.
The story begins about 600 million years ago in the Cambrian Explosion. Of course the biosphere existed before that but it was relatively simple and unchanging. The Cambrian Explosion was the biosphere deciding to make something of itself. It started by diversifying the life forms that were its component parts. A multitude of forms appeared; Arthropods, Moluscs, Chordates, Plants, to name a few. Each of these groups grew ever more diverse.
They began to build new environments for themselves; reefs and kelp beds. These new environments opened up new niches which life forms could adapt to and diversity grew more.
They began to expand into environments that differed from their intial homes; the deep sea, tidal pools, fresh water rivers, lakes, ponds. They broke out onto the land; at first they stayed close to water at latitudes that were warm and had plenty of rain. They started building more new environments; forests, fernlands.
And as each new environment was occupied the biosphere's diversity increased. Not only were niches in the new environments created but many species found niches that involved traveling between different environments. The number of niches grew geometrically. Each new environment created more niches than the last.
Over time, the biosphere expanded into almost every environment on the Earth; every part of the ocean was colonized, every bit of fresh water, even if it was seasonal, was exploited by complex communities of life forms. Almost every bit of land was being used by life; to be sure life thrived in wetlands and well watered high lands but drier lands became grasslands; cold high latitude lands became tundra, covered in ground hugging water conserving vegetation. Homeotherms like dinosaurs, mamals and birds, evolved and invaded these cold places. Hot desert life forms evolved that conserved water; cactus forests grew up where only a couple of hundred million years ago no plant could possibly have lived.
The biosphere has a long history of striving to become more diverse and to expand. It wants to continue to expand but it can't seem to expand beyond the Earth. So how do you fit into its story? As a human being you posess abilities no creature has ever had before. You have the ability to leave this planet on purpose. You have the ability to manipulate genetic code and create new life forms adapted to more difficult environments. In short, you have the ability to help the biosphere colonize its final frontier; space.
The Biosphere's Future - Expansion
To be sure, Mars becons. But all planets, moons, minor worlds have potential. If we can build machines that can survive on these hostile worlds than we can build life forms that can too. If we can build spacecraft that travel between worlds, then we can build life forms that will bridge these distances. We can open more niches in the next few thousand years than the biosphere has been able to open for itself in the last 600 million years.
We don't have to design a life form for every niche. They will adapt and evolve new forms that will fill many niches for every species we launch.
To be sure it will be a painful experience. When a new environment opens up an event inevitably occurs which evolutionary scientists call a radiation. Many new lifeforms rapidly evolve. They compete with each other in new ways and many old species go extinct. We will not be able to stop some of our creations or their improved decendants from returning to Earth and reaking havoc.
The Cost of Humanity
But the painful experice has already begun. Homo sapiens is already reaking havoc on the Earth. Homo sapiens has radiated across the surface of the Earth, adapting to every enivronment and even creating his own; urban sprawl and agricultural monocultures.
Many people have called for an end to the havoc of Homo sapiens. These environmentalists and ludites want to preserve the biosphere. But the biosphere is not a pickle to be preserved in a jar. The Biosphere wants to grow and diversify and it is still doing it the way it always has; it is expanding by evolving new species with new capabilities and in the process, temporarily losing diversity. But the pay off will be greatly increased diversity in the long run.
The biosphere created us. It has lost much to do so; Dodo birds, woolly mamoths and giant ground sloths. We owe it a great debt. To repay it we must fulfill our destiny and help the biosphere expand into space not throw our technology away or separate ourselves from 'nature'.
What You Can Do
How do you take part? What direction should your life take? Push the story forward. You can do so in innumerable ways. Become an astronaut, engineer or scientist and work in the field of space exploration. Become a geneticist or chemist and work on designing new life forms that can live in space or on other worlds. Work as an acitivist promoting this work; lobby your governments to support it.
To be sure we need to mitigate the harm we are doing to the planet. The existing biodiversity of the Biosphere will prove inspirational to scientists designing new life forms for other planets. In fact, some existing life forms may be able to survive on other worlds, especially once our genetically engineered creatures have teraformed them. So do work as environmental activists; work as scientists developing solutions to environmental problems; work as teachers and help children to understand their destiny. Vote for green leaders who will help stem the tide of damage while space is colonized.
If you cannot do the work yourself, then work hard and do not be a burden on society. Earn money and give generously to those who are doing the work. Follow the work closely and do not let those who would argue that it is a waste of effort go unchallenged.
Your life is not without meaning. The whole universe is not indifferent. The biosphere is waiting for you to act.
