Why Are We Here?

 The older I become and the more I read, the more I wonder about origins and the why’s and wherefores’ of Life.  Specifically, I keep wondering why humans are here at all.  The most likely explanation, I know, is that we are all accidents of evolution.  That is, we began as sponges in some ocean and then began acquiring the genes that eventually gave rise to life forms, which in turn led to humans over millions of years.

But, more to the point, what, if anything is our purpose in being here?  I know the God seekers think that a spirit who seems to be in charge of all life, created humans especially as some kind of tribute, although a tribute to what I keep wondering. Does God in some way resemble humans, so that humans were created in God’s image?  Maybe so, but, if so, what might we make of such a trivial pursuit? God felt so inadequate that she had to create a human-form resembling her? And then, what, she created humans in all possible states of adequacy and behavioral patterns?

And now, we are left with Humans, many of whom seem to prefer killing as a hobby, or even a career choice.  I look around me at our current world and what do I see? Russia under that braindead human Vlad the Impaler, continuing to spend its money and its human resources trying to kill as many Ukrainians as possible.  And, then after a couple of years of that debacle, Hamas in Israeli-Land decides to move into action and kills 1400 Israeli innocents. But, really, everywhere I turn to see humans killing other humans. I need only turn around almost anywhere in America to find one or more Humans gunning down fellow American Humans, mostly all of the Innocent variety.

It seems almost anywhere you go (and there are exceptions I know) Humans appear to spend a lot of their time and energy trying to figure out ways to kill other humans. So am I to conclude that Humans are placed here explicitly to kill off other Humans?  I imagine that, eventually the Humans of the Killing variant will eventually graduate to the really big killing machines. I mean, think back to the mid 1940’s and Japan in that World War II killing game. Yeah, we were all getting really good at killing large numbers. But then we decided that rifles and bombs were mere playthings. So, we invented a really big killing device—the Atomic Bomb. And we tried them out in Hiroshima and Nagasaki.  We apparently don’t really know, but estimates range between 100,000 and 200,000 Japanese Humans died as a result of the two bombings. So, two bombs and BANG, a hundred thousand or two are dead. That was so large that it actually caused the ending of that particular War.

But did it end all wars? Hahahahaha . . . no not even close.  Some estimates suggest that somewhere close to a half million Humans have died in the Middle East since the creation of Israel.  And remember, the killing machines associated with the Israeli-Middle East conflicts, also in turn produced the 911 attacks, which led in turn to more killing sprees all over the Middle East.

And we should never forget those World Wars, both I and II, where it is estimated that in the tens of millions of Humans died as a result.  See, I was born in the 1930s, and Humans have continued killing other Humans ever since, in non-stop killing sprees. And it wasn’t as though something happened to trigger those killing sprees. Nope, they have been going on ever since man acquired an understanding of how to kill other Humans.  It makes me wonder whether more sophisticated killing machines are the true end result of Human evolution, maybe even the true purpose of human evolution.

So, as I begin aging out (I am pushing on toward 89 after all) I have begun concluding that the main purpose of Humans and Human development is killing other Humans. Now, exactly why any God would choose that objective for its creatures is way beyond my Pay Grade.  It does sort of suggest to me, though, that a God is a pretty unlikely development instrument for Humans and other of our world creatures. More likely, way more likely, I would conclude that Human development is mostly accidental and is an example of evolution going seriously off course. And you know all this great fear about AI that has been growing of late? That AI might begin moving out of our control, and begin simply taking over from Humans? Well, maybe that is exactly what is going on, and that this disastrous developmental path on which Humans are proceeding, where we continue to improve our ability to kill off other Humans, may in fact be brought to an end finally by AI interventions.  Think of that. What a concept huh? Who knows, maybe AI will curtail Human Murder instincts and cause Humans to develop in some slightly more “civilized” manner. Wouldn’t that be nice? And would God be pleased, huh? She might be smiling down on us as we consider how to end AI. Funny, Huh?

Tata Humans . . . think hard about all this.  It’s time for a change.