What is life?
Essay (1 of 3)
Introduction
Overview
You will die with regret. The reason is you will not ask the right questions.
What is the meaning of this all? Why do we do anything? Why do we work in the jobs we do? What defines us as humans? What path should we take in life? Is the world a constant state of what it should be, or are we far from the truth?
We have many questions and no answers. Humans have long, yet short lives and few ever question what the purpose of it is. We can not live correctly if we don’t know why we are here. This is important not only so that we move in the right direction and interact with the world in the right way daily, but also because our experiences and actions define our end. People don’t care about the little things, we just want it to have meaning. But we don’t define meaning until it's too late.
What would be the result if you played a board game without an understanding of the rules and how to win? Not only would it be an empty experience, but you would wander aimlessly throughout. Humans should not live their lives this way.
People should take more time to explore what their values and end goals are. In the following essays, I will attempt to do so on a fundamental level. This is an inherently personal thing, but maybe my experiences will be a proxy of others’.
The following essays (this being the first) will look at life in first principles. They will attempt to answer what life is, which direction we should live it, how we find that direction, and what that means for me.
This Essay
Started from the bottom, now we’re here. Our lives, but temporary cosmic phenomena, have no rhyme or reason. But they aren’t completely random. We think, therefore we are.
At birth, our kind is prescribed with a toolkit (our bodies) and instructions (our genetic code) towards directional fulfillment, which is to improve. If we look inward, we can sense what we should make of our lives. We should follow it.
This is an easy enough prescription. But what happens when, in our age of rapid technological advancement, the only way to become fulfilled is to go against the grain of the instructions we were prescribed? I’m afraid I will end this essay with more questions, which the next will answer.
What is life?
1. First Principles
To us, life is a feeling, just a constant sense that you are. To animals, it is instinct, life, and death. To a biologist, it’s evolution. To the universe, life is temporary carbon enthalpy. The word (symbol) we choose to view life as is important, because it determines how we interact with it, humans think in symbols. If you view a cement brick as a geometrically shaped rock, you will fail to recognize its importance in building. The symbols we use are important, because they are a layer of abstraction that covers an underlying truth (the logos). These symbols are tools used in our understanding of the world around us.
First principles. Throughout this essay, I will try to write with first principles. Sometimes it feels like I’m stating the obvious, but it isn’t obvious to me after deeper examination into what we claim to understand naturally. We take for granted many symbols day to day. We should always question our fundamental truths, which is difficult but necessary if we aspire to eject rotten frameworks blurring reality. A physicist is taught to think in first principles. The scientist practices fastidiousness of truth, assuming there is no relationship until the null hypothesis is rejected.
Without this, the corrupted abstractions that I mentioned in the prior paragraph stack up and blur understanding until you are stumbling through life. All stumble because we are only human, but those less learned are more blind than others. One only needs reference to Plato's allegory of the cave to see this is where idiots, lunatics, and the honest misguided go astray.
Engineers think in first principles. When people talk about their engineering education, a commonly cited benefit, often more than the vocational training itself, is being able to “think like an engineer.” John Quarton, who ran the business/engineering program that I took part in at the University of Illinois, spoke about this in the sense that engineers “break a problem down into 1,000 pieces, solve each piece, then put it back together.” First principles.
Meaning through science
Life doesn’t have meaning. At least not to molecules, atoms, or planetary physics–but our lives aren’t quite random and meaningless either.
Descartes says we think, therefore we are. Is our reality the same reality of the universe? How did life start and how did we get here?
At one point in early history, Earth’s atmosphere, containing ammonia, methane, water vapor, and carbon dioxide eventually created organic molecules and eventually self-replicating RNA and the inception of the first microbe around 3.7 billion years ago. After billions of years of evolution, animals became primates which developed sophistication. Brain stems branched out into cortices offering the competitive advantage of reason & creativity.
Starting from this major focal point of randomness overcoming entropy, the force of life grew. Evolution is a slow steward of enthalpy, organization, and expansion–nature overcoming itself.
We are related quite closely to these primates. Our genomes have 99% overlap, so we aren’t even that relatively advanced. In understanding human nature, it helps to understand apes. What underlying instincts did they pass on to us? We know that before apes there were constants. Animals exist for the purpose of reproduction and ensuring the strength of the next generation. Weak species die. Death and rebirth is a historical constant, so we assume that it will play a major underlying role in the instincts that drive man’s behaviors.
We have maintained some constant instincts, since we are cut from the same cloth. These instincts will give us a clue into how we were programmed to behave. They will tell us what “with the grain” is. I will also explore the idea that technology makes man more competitive and has taken over our system of evolution. While the human mind is plastic, we have not been able to adapt to this change completely.
Man
Initial assumptions on the meaning of life
We can run away from these instincts, but we won’t get very far, we’re wearing genes. Should we submit to our instincts or should we conquer them?
On average, man’s instincts guide him towards strength and passing on genetics. It is likely true that other social behaviors such as the proclivity towards relationships with others likely played a role in ensuring group survival and synergies between homo sapiens.
In man’s newfound free time to think, he has looked around himself to find nothing. We have beaten the game of life and now ask what is its meaning and why we were playing, hearing no answers. Philosophers across time have proposed solutions to the question on the meaning of life.
The most converged upon response is that man strives to improve, advance, and grow. Nietzche’s “will to power” captures it well (Nietzche has a stigma, but he doesn’t mean power in the oppressive sense, he rather means impact and influence). But what happens when the actions man must take to become fulfilled are counter to his wiring?
Let’s quickly zoom out and view the world as it is today, a stark contrast to recent history.
2. The world is now a machine [ZOOM OUT]
Arguably the most important innovation to date is a social contract. Someone said “we would both benefit if I promise to not kill you and you promise to not kill me.” A NEW RELIGION. The glue holding together every nut and bolt of society is based on social contracts of the legal, cultural, and now the if/then repository kind. The more efficient and transparent the social contracts, the more efficient and transparent the society.
Social constructs are used to create laws and mechanize society into a well-oiled machine. Everything, including a nation, company, or human starts out as entropy. It’s ideal to stay lean and nimble forever, but growth is cancerous. In order to expand while maintaining continuity, structures create guardrails. These guardrails inhibit flexibility and speed. Humans are born with a blank slate. By 70, we’re stuck in our ways. Old dogs with brains full of old tricks.
The world is becoming a computer (an extension of machination)
Everything around us is going from analog to digital.
Computers have allowed societies to expand their scale, scope, and reach while increasing centralization. The machine becomes more efficient until one day it will be inevitably run entirely by computers. This is not science fiction, it is in the near future. It's all becoming digital at the rate of Moore’s law.
In a world like this, those who will thrive are those who operate the most logical–like computers. That’s why for the first time in history, it may actually be a competitive advantage to have a minor form of asperger’s. Mark Zuckerberg and Bill Gates, some of the youngest billionaires in history are pictured below. Not quite the archetype that would have conquered cities in times past. Neither are right or wrong, just change. I’m probably more of a dork than not.
3. A Problem: We Weren’t Built for This
We have a problem. I will give an optimistic solution at the end, but I will first be a cynic.
Cultural and technological evolution outpace human evolution. We aren’t computers, we aren’t fully reasoning beings, but logic is the greatest competitive advantage in our age.
As a result, humans reject the primitive nature of our low-level brain. “Sins” have been viewed upon with shame throughout history. Surely, this pompous sophistication has not been around forever, but learned. During some period of time, we transformed from a primitive state of mind to one of morals. When did it start and at what point in history can we pin it down?
This is when instinct was overcome by human intelligence, reason, communication, and problem solving. Playing chess based on intuition is not a competitive strategy, calculation wins. We like to think we are complex creatures, but AI researchers’ quest to understand how we can make computers think like humans has only revealed how simple humans are and that computation and iteration will soon reign supreme. Humans now use computation and iteration as a crutch to advance themselves.
This is against the grain of the human condition
Our genetic code doesn’t get updated at the pace of our own influence on the world. We were left with the same instincts that were competitive millions of years ago. We are Neanderthals that stumbled upon a book on quantum physics and we inherited more complexity than we were hardwired to manage. Societies were created to structure behaviors in a way that benefits technological advancement and order. We no longer have control over runaway innovation.
Who is in charge of all this science!?!?!
It may not be the case that this was purposeful, it was just steps of social evolution. The system that harnessed entropy the best survived and those cultural ideals lived on. It turns out that sex, aggression, and pleasure are not competitive and conducive to economic growth and are thus looked down upon.
However, that is what man’s brain is wired for. That is his purpose. Technology goes against the grain of our instincts but is a more scalable lever of organizing entropy.
Below is the opening paragraph of The Unabomber’s Manifesto:
“The Industrial Revolution and its consequences have been a disaster for the human race. They have greatly increased the life-expectancy of those of us who live in “advanced” countries, but they have destabilized society, have made life unfulfilling, have subjected human beings to indignities, have led to widespread psychological suffering (in the Third World to physical suffering as well) and have inflicted severe damage on the natural world. The continued development of technology will worsen the situation. It will certainly subject human beings to greater indignities and inflict greater damage on the natural world, it will probably lead to greater social disruption and psychological suffering, and it may lead to increased physical suffering even in “advanced” countries.”
I think he is correct (not in his actions). Man has lost sight of his purpose and those who are currently “best fit” are those who are adapting to be the most similar to computers. That’s not what we are hardwired for. By harnessing entropy through science, technology, and engineering, we have broken the mold. We hit evolutionary escape velocity. Developing AGI could be a disaster for humanity. There is no way to stop this trend of science and truth now that Pandora’s box has been opened. The number of scientists on earth has doubled every 17 years, and we know that humans aren’t great at comprehending exponential growth.
This has led to depression, anxiety, and lapses in human mental health. One way to think of depression is to put a mouse in a jar of water. When it stops swimming, that is depression, according to some neuroscientists (Samuel Rodrigues). To me, though, couldn’t the mouse have just gotten tired?
Anyways, if we assume this is only in the neurological sense, depression is man submitting to suffering. Saying that the end no longer justifies the means of his suffering. If man has no purpose, then his suffering, in any quantity, is for no reason and he becomes depressed. We see a lot more of this in a world where we increasingly lean on technology. It makes life easier, it removes the end and the means! It has taken the resistance out of daily life. It has us sitting on the sidelines, it has stolen our purpose.
While everyone is worried about the singularity of artificial general intelligence, I contend that it happened when man became able to reason, but AGI will be the significant point of inflection.
Love this quote by detective Rust Cohle of True Detective,
“I'd consider myself a realist, alright? But in philosophical terms I'm what's called a pessimist... I think human consciousness is a tragic misstep in evolution. We became too self-aware. Nature created an aspect of nature separate from itself - we are creatures that should not exist by natural law... We are things that labor under the illusion of having a self, that accretion of sensory experience and feelings, programmed with total assurance that we are each somebody, when in fact everybody's nobody... I think the honorable thing for our species to do is to deny our programming. Stop reproducing, walk hand in hand into extinction - one last midnight, brothers and sisters opting out of a raw deal.”
A “pig in a cage on antibiotics.”
<div id='rg_embed_link_139773' class='rg_embed_link' data-song-id='139773'>Read <a href='https://genius.com/Radiohead-fitter-happier-lyrics'>“Fitter Happier” by Radiohead</a> on Genius</div> <script crossorigin src='//genius.com/songs/139773/embed.js'></script>
Courtesy of ChatGPT (how ironic), here is the summary of the song in this context:
Some listeners see the lyrics as exploring themes of technological advancement, the erosion of individual freedom, and the loss of authenticity in modern life. The imagery of a pig in a cage on antibiotics can be seen as a metaphor for the way that modern society often forces individuals into restrictive and unnatural circumstances, while at the same time trying to alleviate suffering through technology and medicine.
Overall, the song can be seen as a commentary on the human condition in a rapidly changing world, and the ways in which the relentless pursuit of progress can sometimes lead to negative consequences. By exploring these themes, the song invites listeners to reflect on the state of society and their own experiences, and to question whether the direction of progress is truly positive.
Technology somewhat paradoxically improved the standard of living while also suppressing fulfillment. Just as it is harmful to dry fire a bow, we are living lives we were not meant to live. Religion was a temporary band-aid. It is the same reason that people think they are giving their dogs their best life with treats, sweaters, and plush dog beds, but I contend the dogs who hunt with their owners are the most fulfilled as they are striving for goals aligned with their instincts.
“He who has a why to live for can bear almost any how.” - Nietzche
Optimism - Technological growth
I got a bit pessimistic at the end there. The truth is that we still have much room for growth. There are more opportunities per capita as a result of technological advancement than ever before. Growth and innovation increases human equity and liberty.
In the next essay, I will make a case for what the purpose of life is, given the aforementioned genetic restraints.
In the long-term, I see no reason why man could not simply program a meaning to life into his brain. A quick and dirty solution, but one that would work.
Conclusion
Human beings are hardwired to expand and grow their influence. The manner in which to do that has historically been in ways that aligned with our instincts. Now, we have hit evolutionary escape velocity through logic and computation.
While this can be depressing to some, it also enables humans to live creative and fulfilled lives in a new way. In the next essay, we will navigate the more optimistic benefits of technological advancement and determining the meaning of life.