If you are reading this, I imagine you probably think that a blog about agnosticism would start by listing all the reasons why traditional religions are no more than a collection of myths and fables and lack a true understanding of God and its designs for us.
But as stated earlier, my real interest is applying an agnostic approach to all things in this existence, hoping to gain understanding. So, I’m not sure when I’ll even touch on the topic of traditional religions. What I will say about the traditional religions is that I’m not opposed to them. I believe they could serve a valuable function in society by offering a center for community and as an avenue for moral considerations. And I only think it becomes a problem when the old text that traditional religions are founded on is taken literally or when religious leaders claim understanding of God’s design for us. I’ll eventually get to the topic of traditional religions, but for now, there have been a lot of very exciting discoveries in science that may help us understand ourselves and God’s design better.
Lately, I’ve been contemplating if we can infer some purpose to life by observing the natural processes of the universe and our world. There is a theory that our universe is heading toward a state of Entropy. This theory comes from the Second Law of Thermodynamics, which states that in any isolated system, the amount of entropy, or disorder, will tend to increase over time. Entropy is a measure of energy dispersal or randomness, and in cosmic terms, this theory suggests that the universe is gradually evolving toward a state of maximum entropy, sometimes referred to as the “Heat Death” of the universe.
In simpler terms, we know that the universe is expanding. Galaxies are moving further away from each other. Stars, which offer a large portion of the energy in the universe, will eventually burn out. And if new stars aren’t being formed, what will supply the heat energy needed to support life?
Of course, we’re talking about processes that will occur over billions of years. So the death of our sun most likely won’t affect you or me, that is, unless we escape aging. But what does that mean for life, billions or trillions of years from now, when most of the stars begin dying out?
Sure, these are unfathomable amounts of time. But now, let’s look at our planet and the processes that have shaped it so that it could support life.
Have you heard about the Great Oxygenation Event?
About 2.4 billion years ago, Earth’s atmosphere began transforming from atmosphere to the oxygen-rich one we have today. And what caused that transformation? The mighty Cyanobacteria.
A microscopic one-celled organism changed our atmosphere, creating the Ozone layer we have today. It also allowed life to evolve to use aerobic metabolism, setting the stage for the complex life we have today. And how did this tiny little organism terraform our planet, creating the conditions necessary for the world we have today?
Through photosynthesis, the Cyanobacteria use energy from the sun, carbon from the atmosphere, and water to create glucose for themselves, releasing oxygen as its byproduct. But how can a microscopic organism change an entire planet’s atmosphere? Through the compounding effect of time and sheer numbers. The Cyanobacteria numbers were vast. They covered most of Earth’s shallow oceans, forming microbial mats. So, there were trillions of these little single-celled organisms producing oxygen daily for approximately 300 million years.
In effect, what these tiny organisms did as a function of being alive is reorganize the matter on our planet to be more hospitable to life. This is just one example of life reorganizing or shaping the environment around it to be more conducive to life. We don’t have to look too far for other examples of life behaving in this way.
Coral polyps build calcium carbonate skeletons that accumulate over generations, creating coral reefs that protect coastlines from erosion and provide habitats for approximately 25% of marine life. Beavers, through the building of dams, transform streams into ponds, creating new habitats for fish, amphibians, birds, and plants. The dams increase groundwater recharge, keeping the immediate forests near the dams hydrated, preventing forest fires from occurring around the damn. And China is experimenting with reintroducing Prewalski Deer to grasslands as part of a larger effort to restore ecosystems and combat desertification. The Deer spread seeds and enrich soils through their manure, in effect transforming the desert back to grasslands.
And, of course, take us humans, for instance. Perhaps the biggest perpetrators of terraforming the planet. It’s hard to fathom how much we’ve transformed our planet in the process of making it more conducive to our lives. Did you know that the United States was once more than 50% forest-covered? By 1919, we had reduced the area of Forest cover in the United States to less than 25%. All the changes to our environment occurred within 300 years from when the first settlers landed. And most of the change happened within 100 years during the 19th century through the widespread clearing of forests for timber and agricultural development, urban expansion, and the development of railroads and infrastructure.
Or take, for instance, how in just the last 75 years, through our burning of fossil fuels, we’ve managed to increase CO2 levels in our atmosphere from an average of 270 parts per million (ppm) to 400 ppm today. This global-scale transformation of our atmosphere is changing Earth’s climate and weather systems, raising global temperatures, changing rainfall patterns, increasing storm intensities, expanding desertification, and causing rising sea levels.
Given that we see countless examples of life acting in ways that reorganize the environment around it, could it be that, in some inherent way, life acts as almost a foil to entropy? If entropy is a movement toward disorder and randomness of matter and loss of energy, could life, which seems to function to reorganize elements around it, act as a counter to entropy?
I know this is a leap, but follow me here. Simple life, like single-cell organisms and animals, change the environment around them as a function of their living. But we humans, with the addition of industry and sentience, are far more impactful in how we shape the world around us. Could there be a time in the future, as our technology develops further, as our knowledge of the physics governing our universe gets deeper, that we spread out across the universe, terraforming other planets to make them habitable to life? Will we eventually get to the point where we’re gathering and transforming matter so that we can spark new stars, in effect creating new habitable solar systems?
Could this be the purpose of our existence? To try to counter entropy and, as a result, keep the universe alive? If you believe that life is programmed or designed to ensure its survival, then eventually, the only way to truly ensure survival is to be able to manipulate the universe around us. (I’ll get into this idea of programmed or designed survival in another article) For now, we are still completely at the mercy of the universe. All it would take for us to go the way of the dinosaur is a well-placed meteor. Ergo, NASA’s DART mission, which was an attempt to use one of our space crafts to alter the orbit of a potentially hazardous asteroid.
So, what moral lesson can we infer from these observations? If life itself acts as a foil against entropy, and entropy will lead to the death of life, perhaps the universe’s design or God’s design is for life to counter the universe’s eventual stillness. If that is the purpose or design of life, then what is our responsibility? As the most intelligent form of sentience on our planet, given that we are beginning to have a clearer understanding of the ramifications of our actions, what do we owe the other life forms on our planet? What do we owe each other or future generations of our species? Shouldn’t we do all we can as a society to set our future generations up for success? I can’t imagine an argument against leaving the best possible planet to future generations.
Perhaps the argument would be in the details. Someone might argue that the best environment for future generations is more carbon in the atmosphere or more nano/microplastics. Another argument against us terraforming the planet further is that we have historically caused more harm to nature than good, which is very true. But at this point, not changing our behavior is still going to cause massive changes to our environment as we’re still putting out more Carbon dioxide daily, putting more plastic in our environment, and consuming marine life faster than it can replenish itself.
We can argue on the specifics of what the best possible future environment should be, but everyone would probably agree that we ought to leave the best possible world to future generations. If we want to ensure the survival of our species and all life on Earth, we must continue to terraform our planet but do so in a way that works in harmony with nature.
I know, I am describing changes that need to work on Macro levels. Then how does this apply to us individually? Well, suppose you agree that our purpose is to ensure the survival of our species, future generations of our species, and perhaps the survival of all life on the planet. In that case, we should each do our part to make a net positive impact on the world.
We just need to look at the mighty Cyanobacteria for inspiration. Each microscopic organism did its part, toiling daily to churn out tiny amounts of oxygen. If every single one of us did just a little daily to make the planet a better place for life, that is 8 billion humans toiling daily to that end, over a few decades, we can make incredible change.