Why are we here?

 Why are we here?

With an infrared telescope well outside the earth's atmosphere, we can see the light that was produced at the beginning of time in our now expanding universe, a place without edges, all boundaries distorted by the curvature of spacetime, the inflation of which is driven by the dark energy which we are struggling to understand.

We are able to think about the beginning of time by imagining all of the energy that is our universe now gravitationally contained in a relatively tiny space. This is where the laws of physics as we understand them cease to make sense, although we are able to contemplate, to try to imagine how things might work, beyond that boundary.

So, at the most fundamental level, we don't know why we are in this universe, or in one of many others.

At the beginning of time there were no molecules. They appeared as the system cooled and chemistry began, creating lumps in an otherwise amorphous plasma, and gravity sculpted stars and galaxies, asteroids and planets and moons and solar systems everywhere.

So, at a fundamental level, we are able to say that we know why the earth is here. We have a solid understanding of planetary mechanics, how our solar system works, how our galaxy and other galaxies operate. 

We also have a solid knowledge base upon which we are able to construct a reasonable understanding of the transformation of geological elements

in the earth's core, its crust, in the portals between them, the volcanoes and the earthquakes, an understanding of the genesis of oceans and atmosphere. We understand enough about chemical and electromagnetic processes, and the effects of pressure and temperature, so that we can intelligently discuss the genesis of molecules, the resultant primitive membranes, the proton pumps and flow of electrons, an understanding of the molecular elements utilized in energy generation and storage and the formation of structural elements at the core of carbon based cellular life, life which captured carbon, sulfur, nitrogen and phosphorus and the meager amounts of available oxygen, and generated oxygen as an end product, gradually changing the atmosphere, so this chemical cycle could be reversed, starting with oxygen and ending with carbon dioxide, favoring a much more energy intensive form of life, which became abundant in the water and then on land.

This process also enabled the genesis of nucleic acids (sugars), and amino acids (to form proteins) that would evolve into the code for consistent cellular reproduction (DNA).

So, at a fundamental level, we are able to explain how life evolved and why life is present now, during the latest half  billion years of the existence of this 4 billion year old planet, 13.5 billion years since the beginning of local time

Now complex multicellular lifeforms roam the earth and fill the oceans, live amongst the grasses and mosses and trees and flowers, swim in the rivers, and fly through the air, feeding upon each other in complex ecological systems which have evolved during the past 500 million years.

Allow me to fast forward to the latest 20 million years or so. We know that we share nuclear and mitochondrial genetic codes and metabolic processes with all the bacteria and fungi and plants and animals currently extant, or in the fossil and genetic record. Creatures which breathe the way that we do, and have body plans similar to ours, are easy to recognize. If we turn to species closely genetically related to our own, we can see ourselves in them, in appearance and behavior. The tailless great apes diverged from the also tailless lesser apes, the gibbons, about 17 million years ago, and orangutans from the rest of us, not long thereafter. Gorillas diverged from our lineage, chimpanzees and bonobos and homos, about 7 million years ago, and we, the species homo, from them, about 6 million years ago. The bonobo like australopithecus existed about 4 million years ago, after which we, homos, emerged a million years or two later, as homo habilis, homo robustus, homo, erectus, and others, homo rhodesiensis becoming recognizable about 600,000 years ago and anatomically modern homo sapiens (including other homonims, like the quite recently extinct neanderthals and denisovans), about 300,000 years later.

Evolution is context dependent, responding to circumstances in particular places at particular times. The extinction of the large dinosaurs as a result of an asteroid impacting the earth 65 million years ago, enabled the mouse-like early mammals to flourish, to give rise to the most significant large animal biomass on the planet, us and our domesticated animals, and the largest creatures which have ever lived, the blue whales.

So, in a nutshell, this is how we got here, and also, so to say, why we are here, but this is not a philosophical answer.

We are here for all the reasons alluded to thus far. We were not planned. We are not the product of intelligent design. We are here despite a myriad of other potential outcomes of the evolutionary process. We did not evolve in order to explain the universe, to recognize its beauty, cherish the world and marvel about the life that flourishes here in every nook and cranny. We did not evolve in order to invent physics and mathematics and all of the marvels of science. We did not evolve in order to compose music, to sing, to dance, to paint, to tell stories, to understand, ethics and morality, to love each other, to heal, to nurture, or to teach children about empathy. We did not evolve to fly to the moon or to mars. But we are able to do all of these things, and much more.

We are enormously lucky to be alive as a result of a process with no intentions.

We have more reasons to live than any one of us could possibly imagine, and thus it is our obligation to do so.

Aubrey Lieberman

2/4/23