In the grand scheme of things, life, as we know it, is a rare phenomenon. Throughout all our explorations and research of the universe, most of our discoveries have involved finding optimal conditions for it: presence of water, carbon, etc. While direct evidence of “life” is yet to be found, many astrophysicists and biologists believe that with billions upon billions of galaxies in the universe, it simply has to exist somewhere other than Earth. Whether you believe extraterrestrial life exists or not, it is clear that you exist, and you have a life and are able to think consciously about this. Taking into account how rare this is in the universe, it’s interesting to ask yourself: Why did I come into existence? Why does my life exist? I’m not quite sure how I feel about that question myself. While I think that life is a special mechanism, you have to think that on a universal level: it just exists, and by itself, can have no meaning. Like the video says, we have to create our own sort of meaning in it. Each person must do what they want in order to create that “significance” (even if it’s in our own mind) or some sort of happiness that makes their existence feel like it matters. Humans have done that in one simple way: advancement. Advancement in the way we think, the way we survive, the way we live. In the 1800’s, this involved the Industrial Revolution, naturally, the next step after the agricultural revolutions that took place in the previous millennia. Instead of just taking natural resources and using them, we used natural resources to create physical resources: possessions made by man through his abilities and skill i.e. technology, buildings, and factories. Through these things, humans have been able to produce goods and output them at an unprecented rate. This consequently led to the rise of consumerism starting in the late 1800’s, due to the ease of producing such large quantities of goods. Industrialism such a powerful phenomenon that it’s continued to this very day, and if we stay on the same path, it’s most likely continue to exist in the future. I simply can’t imagine a world where industrialism doesn’t exist. If we didn’t advance in the way of producing more goods/services to cope with a growing population, how else would we be able to advance further without the Industrial revolution? It seems unlikely that we’d be advancing in the sector of technology (think iPhone 6, laptops) before we even learned how to mass-produce, for example, a piece of furniture or clothing. It seems unlikely that we’d try to advance in the field of medicine/health before being comfortable with our living conditions and food supply. In retrospect, the Industrial Revolution seems to be a perfectly logical step towards advancement for the human race at the time, and in today’s world, one must feel lucky that it took place.
Posted on: Sat, 13 Sep 2014 01:35:48 +0000
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