There Is No "Why"

In the debate over our place in the universe and what life and consciousness are, there is one possibility that rarely gets addressed and yet is just as probable as any other hypothesis.

The question “why” is in valid and has no meaning in the conversation of reality. It is because it is. No reason, no motivation, no purpose, no predetermination.

This universe exists because it’s the version that became existent. There’s no reason why this version happened and others didn’t. Conditions were perfect to produce this universe. Anything a bit different and another universe might have occurred. I don’t intend to get bogged down in the theory of multi-verses. It doesn’t change this possibility.

The Earth wound up in the right place with the right elements present to enable life as we know it. Life evolved to adapt to the conditions already present. If the conditions had been different, say no water, life might still have occurred but not as we define life. Even on this Earth life might have not evolved past single cell creatures.

There’s no “why” involved. Life took the path made possible by the conditions present at the time.

Humans are the natural result of evolution working with the tools available. We aren’t special, in fact we aren’t the most successful life form to walk the planet, and for thousands of years longer than we’ve been around, dinosaurs. They lived in harmony with the planet. Had it not been for a natural event, asteroid or volcano, they might have kept the number of our earliest ancestors such that they never had the opportunity to evolve. Dinosaurs could easly still be the predominent life form on Earth had happenstance not intervened.

That’s the physical reality we live in. But the above leads to a philosophical conclusion. People don’t like to think about it.

If there’s no “why” for the universe and life, there’s no “why” for humanity. You could say we’re a happy accident. Our ancestors exploited a niche offered by the demise of the dinosaurs. There is no reason for humans to exist any more than there’s a reason for microbes to exist, or trees, or mountains.

Everything that exists in this reality exists because it exists. It’s the way various elements that happened to be produced in the birth of the universe came together in conditions favorable to their existence. It all could have gone another way, but it didn’t.

And because there’s no grand plan, no purpose, we’re free to follow our dreams. We will not exist forever, and neither will our accomplishments. The burden of being the best, the brightest, the richest, the most famous has been taken off our shoulders. We don’t have to be perfect, we can accept our imperfection.

Go be yourself. Don’t let anyone else tell you what you should be.