Hello, and welcome to the first post in a three-part series. If you can already guess the other two, 3 points. Life, as I’ve said before, is an amazing thing that I am extremely grateful that I have. Especially since I don’t know what the alternative involves. Life is a beautiful thing. How did it start, though? We still don’t know. Some people would say it started from a god, but I am inclined to believe that if the universe started from a god, it probably just started it all those billions of years ago and didn’t intervene much, if at all, after that. But more on that in the next post. So life arose through chemical reactions that just chanced to form a molecule that could replicate itself, and the rest is evolution.
Now, many people don’t quite understand evolution, especially those creationists who fervantly deny it. But creationists are silly. Besides, the ideas of the universe being created is not mutually exclusive with evolution. It’s only when you want to take literally a 2000-year-old book that contradicts facts that are now obvious that you run into problems. We have no idea how life began, but we know how it changed. When you have random changes in life, such as what happens when it reproduces, the stronger mutations survive to reproduce. You give it several billion years, and all the complexities of life arise.
That is one of the most amazing things about life; you start with something extremely simple, and over time, due to completely natural laws– not even laws, due to logic; strong survive, weak die– it grows complex and intricate. And if you keep life for the four billion or so years its been on Earth, you get things as complex as a whale, or an oak, or an eagle, or a human. Which brings me to another marvel of life: intelligence.
I am a sentient, self aware being. I can think. How is this possible? How am I doing this? I am capable of abstract thought; I can think; I can think about thinking. And I can communicate what I’m thinking. This is incredible. I often am deep in thought, only to suddely snap back to reality and realize I exist. I am alive in this body. This is very strange. Thought is such a mystery, really. What causes thought? No one knows; the inner workings of the mind are extremely mysterious.
There are, of course, theories, as there is for everything. But does the entire process of sentient thought arise solely from bioelectric chemical reactions in the brain? How does a bunch of neurons clumped together form a person. I am inclined to believe that there is something more at work here. But what? And how does it work? I doubt thought can ever be fully explained, really.
Oh, life is a spectacular state of being. So many mysteries to contemplate. So many things to experience, to think about. Which was, really, one of the purposes of this blog to begin with. Well actually, I had begun hoping I would think up some answers. I’m starting to doubt I’ll come up with many. But it’s just as well, really.
January 26, 2008 at 3:56 am |
Sweetheart, you are very smart and wordy and philomasophical. But the word “theories” only has one O.
– Your Friendly Neighbourhood Grammar Nazi (heil Webster!)
February 2, 2008 at 12:42 am |
depend on what you mean by sentient…I’m sure a dog would believe itself to be the end all and be all…I’ve always thought that humans had a bit of meglomania in them. Personally I’ve just decided life is a miracle and stopped trying to explain it. Then again I’m wasting mine by posting on random people’s blogs…
February 2, 2008 at 2:53 am |
True. It’s hard to tell what’s sentient or not, isn’t it? I would think dogs are as well, actually. As well as a few other animals. But it’s hard to tell where to draw the line, if indeed there is one. It’s kind of a blurry area. I’m not saying, of course that humans are the be all, end all of existance. We just happen to be the only ones on this planet to have developed language. Which I think is what seperates us.