Publisher's Synopsis
As humans, we share existence with all other agents of existence on an equal footing. In other words, all things are existentially equal although our species, absorbed with self-awareness and afflicted with hubris, generally thinks otherwise. It is instructive that we share more than 98% of our DNA with the great apes, 90% with the lowly mice, 84% with the dog, our favorite pet, 65% with the chicken, and between 40% and 50% with plants. Sooner or later, our assumed uniqueness and misguided claims of superiority are confronted by the realization that our egocentric valuations are of significance only to ourselves. Existence, neither an ally nor a foe, is indifferent to our presence or absence, teaches no lessons and makes no promises. It allows everything and disallows nothing. Existence simply provides us with an overabundance of critical opportunities to learn and to enhance our chances of survival. On this basis, mankind is solely responsible for its future, whatever this future may turn out to be. We live. If we are lucky we live well and come to understand the difference. Then we die. This may not always be the case, however. Increasingly rapid and wide-ranging advances in science, technology, and artificial intelligence strongly indicate that at some point in the not too distant future we will overcome the limitations of our biology to approach the very edge of the conveniently assumed divide that traditionally separates man from the commonly held view of a deity. Human behavior is what reveals who we are and provides a pathway to understanding our constant search for a purpose to our existence. There are critical, complex triggers that drive our behavior. Economics, Education, Ignorance, Politics, Religion, and Tribalism that parades as Racism, are perhaps the most significant of these triggers. They basically determine and support our sense of right and wrong, good and evil, love and hate, contentment and despair, courage and fear, indifference and regret, peace of mind, and our tendency to embrace delusion - the final refuge of the sane. In a word, they define us as much as they define our world and give rise to the most perplexing of conundrums: the self-serving ease with which we are able to justify or explain away delusional, discordant and harmful behavior by applying the built-in logic of every single trigger that we value. These triggers tend to propel our misguided sense of certainty about matters related to the origin and supposed purpose of existence. After all, there is no certainty even in respect of very many of the simplest, most common experiences of our everyday lives. This paradox is embedded in the frailty of our human senses. We see the same things and describe them differently; we hear the same words and understand them differently; we ascribe different meanings to commonly shared experiences. Certainty exists only as an agreement among a sufficiently meaningful and credible number of observers. Still, with willful certainty we seem to rely on three theories to explain existence: Existence by Proclamation - the biblical Genesis; Existence via the Big Bang - the generally accepted scientific view; Existence as Eternal Process - the denial of either a beginning or an end. The last seems to be the most reasonably meaningful, appealing, acceptable and defensible of all. The contention not only enjoys the sturdy support of the first law of thermodynamics, which states that matter cannot be created or destroyed but also comports very well with the thinking of Pre-Socratic Greek philosopher Parmenides' succinct declaration, "Ex nihilo nihil fit" - from nothing, nothing comes. Interestingly, regardless of the theory of choice, for perhaps 4 million years, mankind has been creating its future. This will be the case forever, of course, unless we inadvertently or otherwise make ourselves extinct. Accordingly, Life-Living-Dying-Death may be as much the journey as the destination.
