Penni, in all seriousness, I agree with the notion of:
Why should we see man as some sort of culmination of evolution? . . .
To look at our evolution and think that by golly we are it and to look at the universe of possibilities out there, is to my mind to really prove that we are not it.
I think we are a species of narcissists.
There is so much that we know already, but really just a blink of what floats on around us. We are left inferring things about the age and beginning of our universe (as though there may actually be one) from the taildust of receding galaxies, galaxies that we can at best discern only through a glass darkly.
It is our imperfection that is our greatest secret to survival. We are sprung from a carbon based chemistry that inherently is susceptible to imperfect reproduction. It is that susceptibility that ensures diversity which in turn explains our surviving as long as we have, and lengthens our chances of making it well into the future at least as viable biological entities. It is the motor of biological evolution.
Yet there is this force toward conformity, that reviles differences. I would call it the my my my force, where I am right, you are wrong. This somehow seems at such odds to recognizing that we are on a path and not at the summit.
My personal belief is that we are part of something we can never fully understand. We can look for meaning in what we see and experience, but there are perspectives out there that we can never know, and "scientific" truths far beyond us, either in unbelievably large space/mass/time or immeasurably small.
But to look in the mirror and see perfection, is somehow strange to say the least. And to think we are alone in this vastness of possibilities is likely just as strange. |
