Why Me?
I know its difficult, even painful to think about, but the next time you are stuck in traffic, or can't find anything good on TV, take a few minutes to ponder the imponderable.
You are an improbable collection of atoms, bound together for some unknowable reason, spinning at an inconceivably fast pace on a dense ball of remarkably similar matter (atomically speaking). No one knows why you think, why you feel, or why you breathe.
The gods that brought inner peace to your ancestors—tucked them in at night—are relics. The modern day equivalent, the all-too-human scientist, will freely admit he doesn’t have any real answers.
Sure, he can tell you a bunch of neat things about the world around you.
He’ll blow your mind about the size of the universe, while his feet are planted firmly on the ground. He’ll tell you what’s in the center of the Earth, without ever traveling there. He’ll tell you fantastic tales of giant creatures who lived millions of years before, and about the intricate, microscopic processes that govern matter on the atomic ( and even sub-atomic) level.
But ask him “WHY ME?” and he’ll come up short. There is no bridge between the what and the why. Ask him to explain consciousness and its origins, and get ready for silence.
The processes that science says makes you tick: atoms combining to form molecules, specialized molecules called amino acids joining forces to create proteins, which in turn perform essential life functions in our cells, and the DNA that keeps the process replicating over and over; none of it comes close to explaining what we really need to know.
To tell a story, we were told in school, you cover five essential elements: who, what, where, when, and why. Science has convincingly answered the first four. Unfortunately, I think that’s as far as we’ll ever get.
You are an improbable collection of atoms, bound together for some unknowable reason, spinning at an inconceivably fast pace on a dense ball of remarkably similar matter (atomically speaking). No one knows why you think, why you feel, or why you breathe.
The gods that brought inner peace to your ancestors—tucked them in at night—are relics. The modern day equivalent, the all-too-human scientist, will freely admit he doesn’t have any real answers.
Sure, he can tell you a bunch of neat things about the world around you.
He’ll blow your mind about the size of the universe, while his feet are planted firmly on the ground. He’ll tell you what’s in the center of the Earth, without ever traveling there. He’ll tell you fantastic tales of giant creatures who lived millions of years before, and about the intricate, microscopic processes that govern matter on the atomic ( and even sub-atomic) level.
But ask him “WHY ME?” and he’ll come up short. There is no bridge between the what and the why. Ask him to explain consciousness and its origins, and get ready for silence.
The processes that science says makes you tick: atoms combining to form molecules, specialized molecules called amino acids joining forces to create proteins, which in turn perform essential life functions in our cells, and the DNA that keeps the process replicating over and over; none of it comes close to explaining what we really need to know.
To tell a story, we were told in school, you cover five essential elements: who, what, where, when, and why. Science has convincingly answered the first four. Unfortunately, I think that’s as far as we’ll ever get.
posted by J. Bovenizer | 2:36 PM
1 Comments:
That's why faith in a higher power is as relevant to us today as it ever was to our ancestors. Nice article!
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