Dalek Prime wrote:Yeah. How about a brief synopsis of your conclusion? I don't want to read it, only to find out I exist to enjoy ice cream or something.
This is a copy and paste of an answer that I wrote on Quora for the question "Why does life exist?":
To understand why life exists, one must change one's fundamental understanding of the universe. It is not sufficient to look at the cosmos through the lens of conventional science, since conventional science does not and cannot hold the answer. Conventional science is concerned with how things work or how things happen; it cannot, however, explain why things happen. On the other hand, religion claims to explain why things happen; but the problem is that it does so in a way that is often subjective and nonrational, depending on things such as prophecies and divine dreams and visions. Therefore, we cannot understand our existence through scientific ideas such as evolution or physics, nor can we understand our existence through the paradigm of spirits and deities. What we need is a method of inquiry that combines the best of both worlds: one that is able to answer "why" while doing so in a manner that is based on empirical evidence.
Now, I believe we can postulate that whatever we are and for whatever reason we exist, it is not some mistake or fluke but is consistent with the nature of the cosmos. Regardless of what theories or doctrines you may believe, one thing that is indisputable is that we are the product of cosmic forces. In a sense, the cosmos is our creator. With this established, it is now only a matter of determining what, in particular, those forces are and how they work. I believe the best way to understand what these forces are is to put the cosmos in its simplest terms. We must find the lowest common denominator of reality.
Well, it is my conviction that the lowest common denominator of reality is the primal dichotomy of order and chaos. Order and chaos are typically viewed as abstract properties or concepts related to phenomena, however I prefer to view them as objective forces in themselves. They are the foundational forces of reality itself. I point to these forces in particular because in everything I observe in the world – in every organism, in every physical object, in every phenomenon – I observe either order or chaos, or some combination of both. Now, there seems to be two possibilities: either these forces manifest because they are typical symptoms of some deeper, common cause, or I observe these forces because these forces are themselves the common cause from which everything else follows. I choose the latter option.
An important property of these two forces is that, although they are opposites, they possess a paradoxical harmony and unity between each other. I believe this to be true because in many physical phenomena, I often observe a certain harmony between order and chaos. For example, supernovas are astronomical phenomena which are extremely destructive, yet they also can help contribute to future star production and they can produce heavy elements. Black holes are destructive astronomical phenomena, yet supermassive black holes at the center of galaxies hold the galaxies together in an orderly fashion. Nuclear decay is a completely random and unpredictable phenomenon at the molecular level but is predictable and regular at the specimen level. Mutations are random mistakes of genetic replication, yet paradoxically these mistakes are also the driving force of evolution. The aforementioned are examples of chaos leading to order. Things can also go the opposite direction: order can devolve to chaos. Probably the best example of this is the extensive assortment of diseases, disorders, syndromes, deformities and disabilities that plague organic life.
We can see this harmony between order and chaos in the delicate balance between life and death, creation and destruction, that exists in nature. The survival of some members of a population often depends on the death of others. Some species emerge while others go extinct. We can see this harmony in our very way of life: in order to maintain our own bodies we must kill, butcher and dissolve the bodies of other living beings. We can see this harmony in our own bodies: some of our hairs die and fall off as others emerge, dying skin cells are replaced by new ones, internal organ tissues are likewise in a constant state of renewal. Death and life, destruction and creation cooperate together. This is all part of the harmony/unity between order and chaos.
Another property of order and chaos are sense and nonsense. Sense and nonsense do not exist objectively but rather are the subjective manifestations of order and chaos. Some people think life is meaningless and absurd, others believe life is meaningful and precious. Some people believe life is worth living and some people believe it is not. None of these viewpoints is really incorrect. There is no contradiction here; there is only the harmony/unity of order and chaos. These conflicting convictions that people have are merely subjective reflections of objective reality.
To put it succinctly, life is one of many products/manifestations of the cosmic interplay between the forces of order and chaos. There is no meaning or purpose, per se, to our existence; instead, our existence is a manifestation, a representation, an indication of the forces of order and chaos and the relationship between them.