GIVE YOUR LIFE PURPOSE

This post is a resolution to welcome in the New Year. The Little Engine That Could is a classic children’s story. What is also classic about the story is its origin, which brings to mind the old adage; a failure has no parents a success has many. I have been working on a book in which I am struggling with abiogenesis. The idea not only refuted but also ridiculed by some and equated to “spontaneous generation” defined by them by the results of the scientific experiment of putting meat in a jar and watching; suddenly there were flies—spontaneously generated out of dead meat. As with thousands upon thousands others, I am asking the same question; however, rather than meat I use the sun, moon, and stars and putting them in not a sealed jar but putting them in the confines of the universe, and then ask the same question. How did life develop?

This is what reminded me to the story, The Little Engine That Could. Reductionism is an irrefutable approach, we know it exist and know what life is; therefore, we know, like the flies in the jar, it somehow spontaneously happened our job, the job of science, is to explain how it happened. Strange as the question may sound, we have to ask why it happened. The unfortunate answer, as unsatisfactory as it is, is the same as it is for the little train as it chugged up the hill; it happened because it could.

The section of the book I am working on at the moment deals with the deterministic formation of amino acids and their subsequent forming random sequences resulting in proteins. The question is simple; what is the purpose? What is the purpose of a random sequence of amino acids? The answer is simple; there is no purpose. As we progress in the story of evolution, we will eventually realize we have all the wonder things we refer to as the biota, all the living thing in our world. We cannot know nor be sure what will happen next. The human ego demands we treat ourselves as somehow superior in every aspect; therefore, are convinced what ever it is that happens, we will be part of it.  However, we are still compelled to ask the same question we ask ourselves of why random sequences of amino acids exist, what is the purpose of life; what is our purpose; why do we exist.

The answer of course, it there is no purpose. Strangely enough, a talking head on TV came up with the best answer to this question I have ever hear; “The purpose of life is to live a life of purpose”. That talking head was +Lawrence O’Donnell of MSNBC; unfortunately, I did not record the time or circumstances when he made this statement. He is involved in an example of his own advice; he started a project he calls, KIND, Kids in Need of Desks. The purpose is to supply children in Malawi, a small African country, school desks. His project is successful; however, success of a project is not a necessary component of having a purpose in life nor does it have to be one but can be many even hourly or day-to-day projects.  

Of course, your purpose of any project or objective must be benevolent that is be helpful like proteins are helpful in the evolution of biota. As all biologists can tell you, Darwinian based “natural selection” on trial and error periods, some short times while other times periods measured in eons of testing with either perpetuation of the helpful and eliminating the non helpful. The story of evolution is strewn with failures but there is no reason to not try. The main reason to take this approach is like the little train, because, we can.              

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