Autobiographical Essays

Essay 5 - Libertas – Davy Jones

This might seem a strange essay to include in an autobiographical collection; however, autobiographies are not just about the physical business of living.  Awareness of the way a person thinks, reasons, and perhaps arrives at decisions completes any character assessment.  The following essay is, if you like, an exercise in weeding out distractions to arrive at an answer.  A process I usually employ is a straight-forward -  problem-solving approach:  problem-solving consists of using common, or informal methods, in an methodical way, for finding answers to problems.  Some of the problem-solving systems developed and used in a number of disciplines are related to mental problem-solving procedures studied in psychology.  Who can use such an approach?  Are any special skills employed?  The answers are – Anyone – and - Not Really.  These days we are very lucky; if someone is determined enough to ‘get to the bottom’ of an ambiguity – there’s no reason why they shouldn’t. 
First, reduce the problem to its simplest components, and work forward from that simplest point.  The following essay may serve as an example – prove informative – and reveal a little more about my thought and research processes…

I strongly suspect both my parents died not knowing nor understanding why they had been part of this world.  I also suspect this sad prospect may be applied to the majority of the seven-billion people who inhabit this world today. Most of us though, at some stage surely must, ‘wonder what it’s all about’, but, rightly or wrongly, never quite formulate an answer.  Questions and answers alluding to the, meaning of life, have emerged throughout history.  Many of those well thought-out responses have been recorded worldwide in religious, philosophical and scientific disciplines.  Today, we live at a time when both education, and an embarrassment of information is more readily available.  Thus, should we choose, anyone might construct a reasonably informed and logical judgment on such a question.  

Official responses to the queries about – ‘the meaning of life’ or ‘why are we here’ - range from profoundly thought out, philosophical responses, both ancient and modern, to a glut of glib answers - mere dogma - trotted out by any number of religious or cult organisations.  The human race has grasped at these, mostly false straws, in the hope of finding some inner peace, or some logical reason for simply ‘being’.  Anything at all, to make the related pain and joy that accompanies us from cradle to grave, more comprehensible.

In a paper entitled - Heavenbound A scientific exploration – Henig, makes the following observation…‘Lost in the hullabaloo over the neo-atheists is a quieter and potentially more illuminating debate.  It is taking place not between science and religion but within science itself, specifically among the scientists studying the evolution of religion. These scholars tend to agree on one point: that religious belief is an outgrowth of brain architecture that evolved during early human history.  What they disagree about is why a tendency to ‘believe’ evolved, whether it was because belief itself was adaptive or because it was just an evolutionary by-product, a mere consequence of some other adaptation in the evolution of the human brain.’ HENIG, 2007

The gods, or spirit representatives, could also be seen as providing a ‘third-party’ – a ‘big brother’ – who ensured submissive compliance was rewarded, and arrogant non-compliance was ruthlessly punished.  This ‘third-party’ could also be blamed or beseeched in troubled times. 
Gods were, and still are, mankind’s security blanket in troubled times!  Likewise, the old remedy of basic reward and punishment – heaven and hell - are still applied in the common religions of today.
Shamanic practices held sway, and from our understanding, a philosophy similar to the Aboriginal Dream Time was adhered to, and strictly governed day-to-day living.  Religion could better be described as ideology in the sense that – as with modern-day Islam – religion was the law and dictated every aspect of daily life.  

Prehistoric Medicine
Medicine predating written records, evolved with the emergence of modern hominids over two-million years ago.  The study of prehistoric medicines is mainly dependent on sources such as skeletons, artifacts, and cave paintings.  It draws heavily on anthropological studies of indigenous cultures in Asia, Australasia, Africa, and the Americas.  Prehistoric people relied on a combination of religious beliefs and practical treatments, made from local materials to treat their ailments. Their anatomical knowledge appeared to be very slight, and they believed illnesses were caused by supernatural media, such as the gods or curses.  Rational treatment was used only on obvious injuries; otherwise spiritual treatment was carried out by a shaman or medicine man, who received his medical ability through his relationship with the gods.

• http://www.tiscali.co.uk/reference/encyclopaedia/hutchinson/m0097007.html

That is on one level.  On another level entirely, the need for the human race to grasp at straws presents an opportunity for the smart mind to control the gullible mind.  With the emergence of self-awareness and the greater thinking power of a complex human brain – physical strength alone was no longer enough to make a leader. 
It is suggested that one in ten people demonstrate leadership capabilities.  Whilst all cannot be leaders – many can be ‘leaders in their field’.  Opportunists abound throughout all cultures.  Often the most successful survivors are the best opportunists.  Those who see an opening then use it ruthlessly to further and improve their own life-style, and perhaps the life-style and chances for their own families for many generations.
* c. 2000 BC: Time of Abraham, the patriarch of Israel.
* c. 1200 BC: Time of Moses, the Hebrew leader of the Exodus.
* c. 1100 - 500 BC: Hindus compile their holy texts, the Vedas.
* c. 563 - 483 BC: Time of Buddha, founder of Buddhism.
* c. 551 - 479 BC: Time of Confucius, founder of Confucianism.
* c. 200 BC: The Hindu book, Bhagavad Gita, is written.
* c. 2 to 4 BC - 32 AD: Time of Jesus Christ, the Messiah and founder of Christianity.
* c. 32 AD: The Crucifixion and Resurrection of Jesus Christ.
* c. 40 - 90 AD: The New Testament is written by the followers of Jesus Christ.
* c. 570 - 632 AD: Time of Muhammad, who records the Qur'an as the basis of Islam.
The origin of religion can generally be traced to the ancient Near East and classified in three basic categories: polytheistic, pantheistic and monotheistic.  Atheism is really a modern belief, or perhaps more correctly, a non-religious belief system, that resulted from the logical and scientific empirical thinking of the  "Enlightenment" period of the 18th century.  http://www.allaboutreligion.org/origin-of-religion.htm

Throughout history, the human race has had a fascination with the ‘spiritual world’; this fascination today often borders on rabid fanaticism.  This fantasy spiritual world has been created entirely in the human psyche.  It is a nebulous world inhabited by demons, spirits, evil monsters, hobgoblins and gods of everything;  a vibrant imaginary world, apparently holding all the answers to seemingly unanswerable questions.  This world is an illusionary world, where mankind’s incredulity can be quickly and easily satisfied and impossible questions answered in one fell swoop.  But it certainly isn’t real!  Furthermore,  such a world provides only parody, not empirical reality.

The human race has sometimes been described as being ‘hard-wired’ in the spiritual sense.  Since the earliest times - before recorded history – ancient peoples followed rituals, rites and ceremonies which shaped their daily lives, and gave added meaning to their very meagre existence.  Primitive mankind followed nature’s rules, performing rituals that apparently guaranteed control of their uncontrollable environment.  If their feeble efforts failed, then the fault lay somehow within them. 

The god’s were seen to be punishing mankind for some lack of observance or failure to obey obscure – but futile, manmade rules – invented by a shaman or similar person.  Naturally, this special person was, or in some cases still is, regarded as being in touch with the spirit world.

Could this be linked to something as basic as the need for self-regulation of a mind which has the capacity for self-awareness, and has the capacity to extrapolate beyond mere self, into the minds of those with whom he or she shares their daily life?   Certainly, control and power, play a large part in the conundrum, even if its basis is illusionary. 

Whilst prehistoric peoples may not have employed psychologists per se, they almost certainly employed psychology on a fundamental level.  The power of the human mind to justify itself as an individual persona, and to promote its own selfish traits and personal welfare, over others, has in all probability been with us before we descended from the trees.  As the human race has evolved, so too has its ability to manipulate in fact – or in fiction – the world, and those with whom daily lives are shared.  Summed up in a few words – this amounts to little more than self-survival at any cost.  Hardly an  altruistic attitude – much more to do with ensuring personal and or familial advancement. 

Understanding the minds of the ancients is difficult from where we in the modern world sit – perched amongst our air-conditioned branches, with full bellies and nothing but idle thoughts, TV, or a surfeit of modern day propaganda to fill our otherwise empty minds.  Trying to inhabit the world of prehistoric cultures from this distance is very difficult, if not impossible.  The prehistoric world is inconceivable to modern man; on a day-to-day basis it is difficult to know where to begin in describing its workings.  Discussing early records, S. H. Preston, suggests that life expectancy from prehistoric times until 1400 or so was in the range of 20 – 30 years - Ch. 2 Samuel H. Preston pp. 30.  He goes on to say …’the most satisfactory collection of skeletal remains is drawn from the Maghreb peninsula (North Africa, between Egypt and the Atlantic) during the Neolithic period.  This population evidently had a life expectancy at birth of about 21 years.  Its age patterns of mortality were remarkably similar to that of modern populations at similar levels of mortality.

Whilst life expectancy was short, the likelihood of losing a child was equally gloomy with an average death rate before the age of five averaging around five hundred in every thousand.

In an essay entitled, ‘The Decline of Childhood Mortality’ – (Kenneth Hill Ch. 3 pp.38).  Hill, admits the difficulties involved in retrieving accurate information from fossilized remains.  However, he goes on to discuss a more reliable method using the Theoretical Constraints of Population Dynamics method…‘Over the long haul of pre-recorded history, the human population survived but grew very slowly, with an average annual growth (allowing for periodic ups and downs) of less than one per thousand.  Births and deaths had to have been in very close balance, and the net reproduction rate (number of females surviving in the next generation to replace the mothers of one generation) must have averaged only very slightly over 1.0.  For this to have occurred, the requirements of population dynamics indicate that, over the long haul of prehistory, the probability of dying before the age of five for females was probably not lower than four hundred and forty per thousand live births and not higher than six hundred.  Risks to males would have been similar or higher.’

The environment of nomadic hunter-gatherers peoples, whose homes were rude shelters in damp, dark inhospitable places, would be a world of mystery and a terrifying place where the prospect of often violent death accompanied each passing day.  Little wonder such people developed an inner desire for ‘something better’ – even if it was in an imaginary, heavenly or spiritual form of afterlife. 

In a sense, we here in Australia are fortunate to have a first-hand view of one of the few remaining ‘primitive religions’ to still exist to this day – namely, the Aboriginal Dream Time.  Robyn Davidson, in a recent Quarterly Essay on nomads, sums it up beautifully in the following paragraphs:

‘One could say that the Dreaming is a spiritual realm which saturates the visible world with meaning; that it is the matrix of being; that it was the time of creation; that it is a parallel universe which may be contacted via the ritual performance of song, dance and painting; that it is a network of stories of heroes – the forerunners and creators of contemporary man.

During the creation period, the ancestral beings made journeys and performed deeds; they fought, loved, hunted, behaved badly or well, rather like the Greek gods, and where they camped or hurled spears or gave birth, tell-tale marks were left in the earth.  While creating this topography, they were morphing constantly from animal to human and back to animal, again rather like the Greeks.  They made separate countries, but interlaced them (related them) with their story tracks.  They created frameworks for kin relations. 

Many different ancestors created a country, by travelling across it and meeting each other.  In that way, a particular country is shared by all creatures who live there, their essences arising from the Dreaming, and returning to it.  Some Dreamings crossed many countries, interacting with local ones as they went, and connecting places far from each other.  Thus the pulse of life spreads, blood-like, through the body of the continent – node/pathway, node/pathway – as far as, and sometimes into, the sea.  At the end of that epoch, exhausted by their work, they sank back into the ground at sacred sites, where their power remains in condensed forms.

It is not quite right, however, to say that the creation period is in the past, because it is a past that is eternal and therefore also present.  Ancestors sink back into, but also emerge from and pass through, sites. 

In other words, an ancestor's journey, or story, became a place, and that place holds past, present, and future simultaneously.

For traditionally oriented Aboriginal people, the historical past lies a couple of generations back and always will.  The Dreaming encompasses and surrounds this time of living memory, which sinks into it.  Time sinks into place, into Country.  Each sacred site contains a potentially limitless supply of the particular species left there by an ancestor.  But in order to ensure their continued generation, ceremonial action is required.  If this isn't done, or isn't done properly, that life-form will eventually disappear [a term Aboriginal people call ‘Looking after Country]’.  Children, too, are born from the ancestor's spirit which arises out of its place to impregnate a woman.  Such children belong to and have responsibility for that place, and will return to it after death, so that its life potential isn't dissipated.  Not only did the mythical ancestors give the world its shape, they imbued it with moral and social structures – handing down laws whereby all humans have intrinsic value and a share of goods.  Living by these laws invigorates the life-force surging and burgeoning through the land.  In fact, to sing a ritual song is to move that ancestor along through the land.  Earth is sacred, sentient stuff; it is not a counterpoint to heaven.  Heaven and earth are embedded together, on the same plane.  A country is saturated in consciousness.  It recognizes and responds to people.  It depends on people.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dreaming_%28spirituality%29  NO FIXED ADDRESS: Nomads and the Fate of the Planet - Robyn Davidson

The questions themselves – questions such as: why does the sun shine – why do we die – what is death – why do the seasons change – is there life after death (or why am I afraid of death) – all stem from a mind that is capable ‘self-awareness’; a mind capable of communication and exchanging high level thought processes with other ‘like-minds’. 

The philosopher, Protagoras, 484 - 414 B.C. when asked about the existence of God replied that his faculties were too limited to take him to a conclusion on that matter and his life too short for the necessary search.  He later said that God existed for those who believed in God. (de Bono 1993 – pp.20)

In essence, the ‘requirement’ for a spiritual world offers an escape from the harsh world of reality.  It also offers a multitude of instant answers to questions beyond the rational thought of the time.  The spiritual world fills many ‘perceived’ inner needs – not least amongst them the need to avoid or ‘survive’ death – or to have a meaningful spiritual existence after death.  It can be deduced that fear of death led to the creation of ‘another world’ – a world inhabited by beings or creatures capable of not only surviving death but of not even being subjected to the same physical cosmic strictures as mere flesh and blood.

Science Daily (Oct. 29, 2004), discussed how the fear of death affects people’s political choices.  Whilst this study is related to modern day political choices, I suggest the basic hypothesis applies equally to our prehistoric cousins: 

‘This research is based on the idea that reminders of death increase the need for psychological security and therefore the appeal of leaders who emphasize the greatness of the nation and a heroic victory over evil.

To test this hypothesis, Jeff Greenberg, a professor of psychology at the University Arizona in Tucson, Sheldon Solomon (Skidmore College) and Tom Pyszczynski, (University of Colorado, Colorado Springs) and their colleagues conducted an experiment that is scheduled to appear in the December 2004 issue of Psychological Science.  For their current research, the scientists asked students to think about their own death or a control topic and then read campaign statements of three hypothetical political candidates, each with a different leadership style: "charismatic" (i.e. those emphasizing greatness of the nation and a heroic victory over evil, as described above), task-oriented or relationship-oriented. 

Following a reminder of death, there was almost an eight hundred percent increase in votes for the charismatic leader, but no increase for the two other candidates.

"At a theoretical level," the authors wrote, "this study adds to the large body of empirical evidence attesting to the pervasive influence of reminders of death on a wide range of human activities. 

These findings fit particularly well with prior studies showing how mortality salience leads people toward individuals, groups, and actions that can help enhance their self-esteem.  People want to identify with special, great things, and charismatic leaders typically offer the promise of just that.’

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2004/10/041027141726.htm

All organised religions had a beginning – originating with one man or woman; a person who sat amongst others – perhaps freezing cold and uncomfortable – a person who sat and studied others.  This was a person who had an idea and was prepared to offer that idea to others.  Maybe in some cases it was simply a thought, spoken openly, rather than some great design or plan to take over the minds of others.  Perhaps more than one person was responsible for the further development of a belief.  Maybe, as often happens, the belief was linked to some quirk of nature – ‘we have done something wrong – it has rained non-stop for a month – the gods must be angry with us’.  This type of thinking suggests immediately that if ‘we are good’, then, ‘the gods will stop being angry with us and the rain will cease’.  The sun will reappear and all will be well.  So, if ‘we’ as a group do try to mend our ways – and magically the sun reappears – we are ‘obviously’ onto something big!   The same concept fits in with the characteristic humans have towards mass hysteria – and primitive mindlessness, which is often more obvious amongst our closest primate relatives – with whom we sadly still share many savage behaviours.

The idea might appear simplistic, but given that living conditions for many thousands of years, and indeed in many parts of the world to this day, are basic, to say the least, it is hardly surprising the thought of being able to control one’s ultimate destiny holds such great appeal.  Life is a truly hard road for many and at the end of that pain-filled road awaits only death.  No wonder the human race looks for an improved and more appealing outcome.

Origin of Religion - Important Dates in History:

Origin of Religion - Ancient Foundations

The very life of the community depends upon observing the conventions of communication. The function of a religion is precisely to guarantee the whole system of convention, or the rules of thought and language, conduct and role.  For Judaism and Christianity, the idea of salvation is inseparable from the idea of belonging to a community of so-called chosen people or elite, that is, the Church, considered as a body of members, or an assembly (Latin ecclesia), whether it be Israel or the communion of saints.

© 1993-2003 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

Religious salvation is basically the idea of incorporation in a divine community through conformity to the will of God. In the later phases of the Semitic tradition, salvation began to include the idea of survival beyond death, first through miraculous resurrection of the body and later, as a result of Greek influences, by virtue of the inherent immortality of the soul.  Salvation, however, remained subordinate to and conditional upon membership in the divine community. After death, those who remain unincorporated are spiritual outcasts consigned, for example, to the Judaic Gehenna, the Christian Hell, or the Islamic Iblis. On the other hand, salvation beyond death is conceived of as being a state of the most intimate union with God, in which, however, the distinct individual personality of each member is preserved.

© 1993-2003 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

So, as demonstrated thus far, the whole issue is extremely complex.  However, that complexity consists of a miasma of mostly manmade garbage.  Strip away the nonsense and we are we left with little of anything with real substance!  Taking a different view, based more on a scientific approach, it is easy enough to develop a framework that doesn’t require gods, or any spiritual exploitation.  However, whilst lengthy, the so-called explanations thus far,  allied with ‘the meaning(s) of life,’ or ‘why are we here,’ show how easy it is to be bamboozled by waffle.  Such waffle is created, not by ‘experts’, but by those with their own agenda(s).  If we now apply our problem solving technique and simplify the notion – and in the process, define the model at its most basic level – perhaps we will come up with some sort of logical conclusion.  Whatever that conclusion, it won’t include spirits or gods.  Nor will our conclusion elevate the human race to a comparative god-like condition.

So, back to the original question:  What is the meaning of life?  Straight away, under our self-imposed simplification process, we find ourselves running into some very specific requirements.  In the first place, we should be asking ourselves things like:  What is life?  Whose ‘life’ are we actually talking about – human life or other forms?  Once we start to address those questions – others will arise in a logical order.

Applying some serious thought to -  'the meaning of life' let us first try to define what exactly life is.   Each of us would possibly come up with a different answer, but that matters not.   The following sentence is my condensed elucidation…

Life is primarily a chemical reproductive vehicle, expressly adapted to survive and thrive within an explicit environment.  To clarify – by ‘life’ – I refer to all living things – from the smallest microorganism -  to the largest known life-form.

For those not fully conversant with the history of life on this planet, perhaps we should first recap on what is known about ‘life’ on Earth.

The Hadean Era takes us back some 4000 million years, when Earth was, as the name suggests, like Hades.  The actual period, designated the Hadean, started with Earth’s formation 4.5 billion years ago, until 3.8 billion years ago.   Still semi-molten and nothing resembling the planet or atmosphere we know today; the Earth could hardly have been considered conducive to supporting life at all.  Nevertheless, geologists studying ancient sediments in Greenland found traces of possible organic carbon, which might be evidence enough to suggest the possibility of a form of photosynthetic life already emerging - even in that  hostile environment.  We today associate photosynthesis with plant life and green leaves, however, if some early form of photosynthetic life had emerged in the Hadean Era, it would almost certainly have been anoxygenic (non-oxygen developing).   From this snippet of information start to consider ‘life’ as a form of CHEMICAL REACTION linked to the conversion of energy.

Moving only a short jump forward to three-and-a-half billion years ago – just into the Achaean Era, circa 3.8  to 2.5 billion years ago  – the oldest beautifully formed fossils from this period were recently found by scientists working in the Western Australian Pilbara region.  These fossils take the form of tiny weblike patterns, which date back 3.49 billion years.   Essentially fossilized bacterial remains, the weblike forms existed at a time when Earth’s atmosphere was practically oxygen free.  Such life forms may well have been the original contributors to the life-giving gas – oxygen – we breathe today.  Whilst an important point in itself – it should also be realised here that such primitive life – IS WITHOUT DOUBT  OUR UNIVERSAL COMMON ANCESTOR!  Everything considered to be a – living thing – descended from one such basic primitive life form.

Point ONE then is – all life originated as some form of self-replicating, bacteriological, molecule!  For those wishing to do their own research – perhaps begin with something like: Molecular paleontology and complexity in the last eukaryotic common ancestor - http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23895660

Geological ‘time’ is only really outdone by cosmological time.  These expanses of time are truly far beyond human imagination.  Modern humans, you might recall, have only been around for an estimated two-hundred thousand (200,000) years.  That is the blink of an eye compared to the billions of years under discussion.

The period of Earth's history named, the Proterozoic ("Early Life") Era, began 2.5 billion years ago and ended 542 million years ago.  Whilst these geological periods are sub-divided into shorter periods, for the purpose of this essay, the major eras will serve as a guide.  Life during the Proterozoic was thought only to exist in the oceans and it is likely that about 1.7 billion years ago, from this still microbial life, the first single-celled creatures with a real nucleus appeared.   Some 30 million years before the end of the Proterozoic Era, however, the first multi-celled creatures started to emerge.  Up until then – life was still microscopic, but, in the process of living, such life also produced the gas – oxygen – which, ironically, as a gas, would have been toxic to such life.  Also, during this geological period, the climate went through vast extremes of heat and cold. 

In addition, plate tectonics ensured even the shape of the land mass itself changed beyond recognition;  whilst difficult to envisage, Earth itself has undergone reversals in magnetic polarity over these enormous geological periods.  I add these few facts simply to impress upon the reader – we are not talking in terms of normal human comprehension. 

Having created an outline of the existence of chemical life in its most basic form, it is now time to move on to creating a hypothesis of how such basic life became as complex as it is today.  I’ll admit, I have the luxury of saying what I like, without too much consideration to the known facts.  However, being well-read and not without imagination, allows some poetic license which may well be nearer to the truth than not!  For the reader, I am assuming some prior knowledge of Darwin’s Theory of Evolution, and hopefully some additional contemporary information which confirms the, so-called, theory.

Life, having got started in whatever god forsaken corner of the Hadean environment, faced many challenges.  Initially, the environment which allowed for life’s replication processes to begin was obviously extremely limited.  REPLICATION and REPLICATOR are two words that are important in this whole process. 

Note: Also see  - crystal replication and others.

As planet Earth evolved and stabilized, so too did its atmosphere and overall environment.  Although again, I would remind the reader, Earth’s environment and atmosphere has changed many, many times, and during those times has suited some ‘life forms’ more than others.  This fact alone is central to my hypothesis, for I maintain that we today have the wrong mind-set when we think about ‘life’!

That microbial replication process which began so long ago – is exactly the same process in action to this day!  The only variable that has changed IS the environment!  It is these massive changes in environment that has produced the wide variety of sentient life forms on Earth today.  It is worth bearing in mind however, that 99% of all species ever to exist are in fact now extinct.  It is thought that anywhere between one and four billion species of life form may have existed over geological time.  Today, whilst many life forms admittedly remain uncatalogued, the number of viable life forms is estimated to be only 8.7 million! 

My hypothesis then is simply this – LIFE per se – is a replicating chemical system that requires a very specific environment.  What we today call ‘a body’ or a ‘tree’ or any other ‘living thing’ – is in fact a closed environment in which ‘life’ can exist – and continue to safely replicate.

As ‘life’ moved out from those rare Hadean environments where it first existed – it very slowly developed its own closed system (body) that allowed it to ‘feed’ – from its surrounding environment.  These mutations continued in an adaptive sense over millennia – becoming ever more complex as the availability and variety of sustenance also increased. 

Nature doesn't care what receptacle carries life.  Its ‘vehicle’ can have no legs, two legs, three - four - six or eight.  It may be capable of surviving in the depths of the oceans or on the tops of mountains.  It may even survive in the deepest rock or the darkest cavern.  Provided the receptacle can draw enough nourishment from its environment to maintain and regenerate itself, the vehicle will remain a practical entity.  Life itself isn't too fussy either, it has no special preference for location - other than being in a sustainable locality that both protects and nourishes it.  Life is incapable of intelligent thought; life see no beauty nor feels fear.  'Life' or the concept of life, is just a word created by humans.   The word simply describes a ‘chemical aberration’, which is in fact parasitic and reliant on a favourable environment for survival. 

So – Point TWO – Life in general doesn’t have any intellectual meaning!  And that, unfortunately for those who think it should, includes human life – that is, as far as nature is concerned! 

The only ‘reason’ we humans are here is because WE have adapted to the current environment and successfully carry life forward in time.

Again we have reached a crucial juncture in our discussion.  The original questions needs refining perhaps to:  What is the meaning of human life?  What is its purpose?  These are question that relate more to human intellectual abilities and their associated cultural outcomes.  What do humans achieve in their lifetime  – is a very different question and opens up an entirely  different area of discussion.  As far as mother nature is concerned, once we have ‘regenerated’ – had a family AND REPLICATED – we have fulfilled our purpose, and are surplus to requirements.  Once our physical bodies become inefficient at converting energy – or incapable even of that task – we die.  Whilst our bodies remain able to CARRY LIFE and have the remotest chance of enhancing LIFE’S continuance,  in nature’s eyes, we are useful.  Other than that – as they say in the cartoons –

THAT’S ALL FOLKS…

In concluding, just a few thoughts to consider.  Humans like stories with 'safe endings'.  Whether it be a book, a film or an oral rendition, the ending must always be 'warm and fuzzy'.  Tales that end in a bad way leave feelings of great unease - of sadness, frustration and disappointment.  No matter how good the story was, a 'bad ending' will 'spoil the story'. 

Here then lies one often overlooked reason for the human proclivity to hanker after the spiritual and religious explanations - the offer of an end, not in the irrevocability of death - but in a new beginning.  The average human mind, it seems, is not good at coping with the less pleasant realities of life.  After all, who in their right mind would dream of dying in a car crash, or being blown apart by a terrorist's bomb.  Who indeed considers laying for months – or longer, often in severe pain, awaiting the unavoidable.  Who considers a life which will end in some form of senile dementia; a state in which one forgets all those family and loved ones, and indeed their own ‘self’.  Such a vegetative state is ever more common as physical life is extended, but science fails to keep pace with the consequences of extended aging.  Every day - without fail - this is the very real fate suffered by many around the world.

In physics we are led to believe all matter is energy – everything in the universe is or was energy in one form or another.  All matter must at some point return to being energy in its purest form – this stands to reason.  Atoms are forever…