Introduction
Questions concerning the sense and meaning of life have a long history. In the past they have been mainly involved with philosophical and religious conceptions of the world, of man and of God, of the human existence in general, of consciousness and happiness as well as of the purpose and significance of life. Traditionally, most people derive the sense of their life from their religion, which has been the only source for ethical-moral standards and value systems in the past providing them with rules and commandments for their behavior. Today modern sciences and technologies have changed not only our world but also the thinking of the world completely. Only a few decades ago, new results of natural sciences, starting with Darwin’s evolution theory, followed by recent disciplines of genetics, information technology and cosmology, formed a new scientific baseto newly discuss important questions of mankind. In contrast to former times, people of today are more and more used to understand everything and to rely on sciences changing their way of thinking and consequently leading to new conceptions of life.
The insight that our desires are the driving forces of our life is age old. Our desire conceptions refer to our physical and mental life and correspond to our nature. They essentially define the natural sense and the goals of our life. What we can’t reach in our present life, should be reached in the lives of our children and grand children etc. An unsatisfactory life, not corresponding to our desires, disagrees with nature and thus makes no reasonable sense. A relevant priority list of our desires, apart from religion, social ties, ethics, moral and values could read as follows:
– We want to look better than today and our body could be healthier and stronger. Summarizing, our appearance and our physical abilities should be absolutely perfect.
– We want a better intellect, working faster and not forgetting anything, capable to solve all problems. Summarizing, our mental abilities should be perfect.
– We would like it best if we would be reborn young again and again und if we could use our mental and physical work, all our knowledge, our experiences and our work of past lives in further lives too.
– In this case, it would be best to start new lives again and again with an ideal body and an ideal mind. The remainder then would take care of itself automatically.
This wish list has already been considered in the evolution process to a large extent in the past. Remember our pre-human ancestors were not really perfect. But evolution has developed mankind continuously over a time period of more than ten million years, to what it is today. Surely it will alsochange us gradually in the future in the desired direction.
Nature gives the individual ways of life a new chance again and again. It never stops developing life to a higher degree of quality. These mechanisms of evolution are still active in us and we use them in our lifeeven when thinking or planning. We ourselves want to organize our life in a more and more perfect way. Contrary to animals, we are aware of it with our intellect and we are actively steering these processes. This holds also with respect to future lives. A pretty and intelligent girl longs for a pretty, handsome, nice and intelligent man, etc. Within the animal world, the strongest male has the best chances. With the natural sexual selection mechanisms, nature has taken in the long term the desired progress into account.
What we would like best is to live forever with a young body. This wish is due to our survival instinct, genetically embodied in all organisms since the first living cell. Because it is not possible to stop the natural aging process and to prevent death at the end of life, the only way out is that life has to start from the very beginning in a permanent regeneration process. With everlasting life cycles using the imperishable genetic information and constant cell division processes, nature was able to fulfill the desire of survival for all organisms from the outset. Thus, eternal[1] life is guaranteed on earth by permanent rebirth. However, this fact is not conscious to us because our faith tells us nothing about our genetic information, which is responsible for earlier and later lives on earth. Instead, it promises a soul life after death. However, with the help of natural sciences, our intellect is able to distinguish between realities and illusions.
The best way to live forever young would be to be reborn again and again. In this case we would have also very concrete desire conceptions for future lives,
– We wish to be reborn as our own children or grandchildren because then we could best secure a good future for ourselves as our own parents, grandparents or great-grandparents on our own account.
– Naturally, we would like to grow up in a good parents’ house, which we – as our own parents and grandparents could arrange best on a long-term basis.
– Last but not least, we would like to be reborn in an even more developed, better world. In no case, would we like to be reborn under medieval or Stone Age life conditions.
By passing on a complete set of genetic information from generation to generation since million of years we are an almost perfect physical and mental copy of our ancestors. Therefore the above very special desires concerning our family and environment have been likewise fulfilled by evolution to a large extent.However, the problem is: we are not conscious of earlier lives. Nevertheless, like all living organisms in nature we also are reproduced again and again out of living egg cells or seeds, containing all information of earlier lives.The more conscious we are implementing our insight into the immortality of the genetic information, the more we are motivated to fulfill most of our desires for the future. This insight will also change mankind’s view in the long term because our intellect is also working with evolutionary principles.
Fortunately, we inherit not only the body and the spirit of our ancestors but also their goods, their culture and their civilization. We grow up in our parents’ house and in a society with a given infrastructure. Nevertheless, most humans are not content and still want more. Nature wants us to strive for changes, for adjustment, for improvement and perfection. We always get a new chance again and again in every new generation to become more and more perfect. That is exactly what we wish for ourselves.
– We wish prosperity, safety and security.
– We wish to look good and understand everything.
– We wish to enjoy life and to be happy.
In order to meet our desires, we do a lot. We train hard physically and mentally, we learn at school and later at university, we do sports, we buy cosmetics and style our hair, etc.
Only by the death of the old, used up body and by the birth of a young one, nature has been able to develop ourselves evolutionarily over millions of years to what we are today. Owing to this life cycle, our language and our thinking spirit has been developed, etc. We should never forget that (1) death is a necessary evil in order to make improvements possible and (2) that survival of all living organisms is ensured only by continuous reproduction in the natural life cycle of death and rebirth, which is the most important prerequisite for the evolution of life.This insight changes completely our thinking concerning the sense of our life.
Information processing in brains, computers, somatic cells etc.
Very generally, aspiritmight be defined as an invisible protagonistor physicochemicalmechanism processing information. This is analogous to what we call our human spirit or mental self,which processes all information collected by our sensual organs in an electric signal language. Part of it is our thinking spirit, which we call our intellect or our thinking self. It is working with our experiences and knowledge using our human language. Thus, very generally a spirit is processing information. Information is stored in different forms in books, in genes and in computers and therefore is also processed by different spirits in different languages. The information spoken or printed in our language can be understood only by our human thinking spirit active in our brain. One and the same information can be communicated, spread, stored and processed verbally in many different languages, written with different symbols, transmitted optically or electromagnetically with different communication languages and processed electronically with different computer languages. Living nature was able to unfold and spread itself over the world by its own very special genetic information hidden molecularly in the DNA[2] in its own genetic language. In all cases, the rules of information exchange and data processing are given by imperishable physical, chemical, mathematical and biological laws of nature.
Spirits are working with information, which is something mental like our knowledge, our consciousness and our intellect. What we know is invisible and immaterial. It is hidden in our brain and stays spontaneously at our disposal. Information becomes visible for our eyes in pictures, patterns or symbols and audible for our ears by sounds, tones or words. One can deduce it from a special arrangement of the colored points within a picture, from the arrangement of numbers, letters and words of a text, from the arrangement of point on the light track of a CD[3] or from the arrangement of the molecules along the DNA. Acoustic waves carry the information of music, tones, spoken words or sounds in their frequency spectra transmitted by the air, analogous to electromagnetic waves, like radio waves or light waves, which even carry information through empty space. Thus, matter is the information carrier, but not the matter itself, only the pattern of their symbols written on it, can be processed by a spirit. The spirit doing it in our human brainis our intellect which is conscious to us as our mental self.
Written texts can be read and thus, contain optical information. Spoken texts and music can be heard and thus, contain acoustic information. Optical information arriving in our eyes and acoustic information arriving in our ears are transferred there into electrical signals and sent into our brain. There they are subconsciously processed by our intellect and stored as electrical patterns in our neurons. Thus, like in computers, our intellect works in our brain with information in its own electric signal language. It compares incoming electric pattern with electric patterns stored in the past. When they are similar, then our intellect knows what it means.
Different kinds of information are permanently flowing into us. Most of it is subconsciously processed in our brain. Only when thinking our spirit is actively working with the information stored in our memories. We can only understand and process information received by our sensory organs, but we cannot realize what happens with them in our head. Our spirit is responsible for the fact that it functions. We only know from scientific investigations that information processing and transfer in our nervous system is done with electrical signals in our brain.
Different spiritsare active in different systems working with information. They all have their own language, their own information channels and their own data media. Since information is something mental, also data processing is something mental. Processing of information is work and therefore, needs energy. The spirit, processing information in living systems, is supplied by chemical energy. The spirit, working in technical systems, is supplied by electrical energy. The secrets of information transfer from generation to generation and the mechanism how genetic information is stored and processed in somatic cells has been disclosed in the last few decades, parallel to the information processing in computers, which has been made possible technically by ingenious scientists only some decades ago. Recentgenetic and computer knowledge has changed our world and helps us to understand what’s going on mentally in our brain.
Information processing generally follows physical and mathematical laws. How it is processed in computers, as well as how it is processed in our brain and in living cellsis very similar (but not identical) and can be summarized as follows:
– A genetic spirit is biochemically active in the somatic cells of all organisms. It processes the genetic information following natural laws according to its very own special mechanism. It is responsible for the reproduction of living cells. The genetic information is written and stored chemically using a molecular language with four different molecules[4] on the DNA molecular wires. Since the very beginning of life which started with the primeval cell the genetic spirit is active in all living cells according to the same mechanism. The genetic spirit is part of the spirit processing the natural laws in animate and inanimate nature. Genetic information is passed on in time during the lifetime of the respective organism. It thus survives the death of all cells.
– A primeval spirit is active in the brains of all animals. It developed originally out of the genetic spirit in multicellular organisms to facilitate information between different cells belonging to the same organism. In all highly developed organisms it processes the information coming from the sensory organsand stores it predominantly subconsciously in the neuronal structures of the brain. It forms experiences and memories according to its very own special biochemical mechanism.The language of the sense information is given by electrical impulses, transferred through the nerves to the brain. There it is stored in neuronal structures using a binary code.
– Our human thinking spirit is active in our brain. It developed out of the primeval spirit active in all animals and processes the language information and stores it in the neuronal structures of our brain. Thus, it forms our consciousness, our intellect and our knowledge in its own very special way. The human language consists of words. We can hear and speak them as well as read and write them. Our knowledge assimilated during our life is processed by our thinking spirit, which we call our intellect and our mental self. It only survives our death, if it has been documented in time visually or electronically during our lifetime. Still much more knowledge of the entire mankind is stored in pictures, writings and in most recent time also in electronic media. It survives eternal times, if it is eternally copied or communicated.
– An electromagnetic spirit is active in technical systems like computers and automats. It processes electric and magnetic information in its own special way according to the laws of electronics, mathematics and physics. The language of computers is given by electrical impulses, transferred along electrical wires into the computer storage media. There it is stored in electrical or optical devices using a binary code. In contrast to information stored in genes or neurons, which survives only in living cells and thus need permanently energy, information in technical storage media survives without any energy like information written in books or on stones.
Concerning the immortality[5] of the genetic information
The genetic spirit, unfolding itself in our somatic cells already hadan almost eternal life on earth. Starting with the primeval cell it was able to reproduce itself with the genetic information and live again and again, developing highly complex multicellular systems like plants, animals and humans. Only the genetic spirit, which has written this information on the DNA molecules, is able to understand and use its language, reproducing living cells again and again. The cells of our human body thus represent the result of a billion years old development, without any interruption of life.
In this sense the genetic spirit exists since primeval times and stays alive with its information in all living cells of all organisms, constantly renewing life in plants animals and humans on this planet. In contrast to the spirit of our human brains, which looses its information completely when dying, the genetic spirit survives the death of all organisms without loosing any memories. The genetic spirit is the same in all organisms. However, it works with different genetic information in all different living species of nature, generating different organisms, but all developed evolutionarily out of the first primeval cell.
Human memories in the neuronal structures are likewise real like the information on the DNA, but they cannot be passed on into the brains of following generations. This is because they are processed differently and because the brains first have to be developed together with the new human body out of an egg cell. Human memories cannot be stored in genes and transferred to the next cells like genetic information. But like the genetic spirit working according to the same biochemical principles identical in all organisms, also the thinking spirit is working identicallyaccording to the same mechanism in all human brains. However, in contrast to the almost absolutely identical genetic information all human brains work with different human memories and experiences and consequently generate different mental selves.
What makes sense?
Equipment, machines, knowledge, experiences, all mental and physical matter then make sense for us, wheneverthey are useful for us to reach certain goals or to satisfy certain desires. A reasonable, logically justified operational sequence of events then makes sense, when it is linked to a clearly recognizable motive, intention, purpose or goal. The sense of an action remains hidden for us, as long as we are unable to identify a reasonable intention.
In order to clarify the sense hidden in nature and all of life, we have to find out what has been achieved during the evolution process to the advantage of life. What serves nature, makes sense for nature. What serves life, makes sense for life. What serves us, makes sense for us. If we are able to identify the logic of the course of events and the logic of the interconnections in nature, as well as what goals are achieved by the laws of nature, we should be able to comprehend the sense hidden in nature and life. Thus, the important question is: What are the essential characteristics of the development of life and are they revealing a sense by showing us clear goals in order to improve the quality ofnature and the quality of life?
Today it is generally accepted (1) that all living organisms observed in the nature of today developed itself evolutionary out of the first primeval cell in the course of about three and a half billion years,(2) that living nature, including all micro- and macro-organisms, all plants, animals and humans are reproduced on the basis of genetic information, and finally (3) that the Homo erectus appeared about two million years ago and the Homo sapiens about 200,000 years ago. On a one day compressed time scale of the evolution, these times correspond to only fifty and five seconds, respectively. In this picture, thinking beings developed literally in the last few seconds of the day.
All information used by the genetic spirit to develop us physically and mentally again and again is written on the DNA molecular wires of a tiny single egg cell.Genetic information is the basis of our personal, physical and mental life. The genetic information regulates the development, the function and the interaction of our body with our limbs, our musculature and the individual organs. It ensures the correct development of our body including our spirit. It supplies our organs with programs and information, which enable them to regulate and steer our body automatically.Today it is still effective in each of our specialized somatic cells. We result from one egg cell by cell division and our body is constantly renewed by cell division. Until high age our somatic cells are regenerated several times. Because highly complex multi-cellular organisms are unable to divide themselves into two new organisms, the evolution has developed a different mechanism for plants, animals and humans, to preserve life.Life of complex organisms is constantly passed on with the genetic information contained in a single seed or egg cell originating from sexual recombination.
In the reproduction process the genetic information which provides for a better adjustment to the prevailing living conditions is preferred by the selection mechanism. It contains new and important information concerning the improvement of the structure and the functions of certain organisms. Inferior information and those with disadvantageous effects are lost in the evolution process. Only the respective superior genetic information survives all times. In addition the sexual reproduction is the only effective way to improve living organisms by preferentially passing on superior genetic information to following generations. The evolutionary development of life leading finally to us has only been possible with repetitivelife cycles of being born and dying again and again.
Living nature pursues an important goal with the natural laws of evolution that reads: high physical and mental quality by permanent improvement and perfection. The mechanisms of the evolution guaranteed at least in the past that all life forms changed during long periods of time continuously to its advantage from simple primitive organisms to complex, highly developed intelligent species. As a consequence of selection and continuous collection of information improving the genetic knowledge, the change is aligned to higher perfection, superiority and intelligence. This goal is reached by the mechanism of reproduction and “the survival of the fittest” by a preferential selection of an advantageous special slightly changed genotype.
Today, we can summarize Darwin’s realizations as follows: By the laws of evolution a clear objective is given for the development of life in a certain natural environment. Thus, the genetic spirit working with more and more high-quality information becomes more and more intelligent and consequently is able to develop more and more perfect and intelligent life forms.
Storage and processing of information form the basis of our physical and mental life. The sensual information combined with the language information during our lifetime forms the basis of our spiritual or mental life, which seems for us much more important than our physical life.What we hear and read is processed in our brain. However, we do not know how this information is converted in our head into electrical signals and sent to our brain via the nerves, where they are translated back into words, which we hear internally when thinking.Without feeling anything, the data and information processing is carried out by our primeval spirit automatically. It is called primeval, because it is active in all animals which have sensory organs. However, the information processing, when reading texts as well as when listening or speaking with people, is done by our thinking spirit, which works with words, numbers and pictures, when thinking.
The genetic spirit working with genetic information has two major tasks: First, it is the generation process of an organism out of an egg cell or a seed by continuous duplication of the somatic cells. In this way, first an embryo is generated step by step, ending up finally with the complete organism. Together with the individual somatic cells the genetic information is perfectly multiplied million fold during the lifetime of an organism, until it becomes old and dies. Second, it is the perfect reproduction of all life forms. This is done during the lifetime of the individual species by producing egg cells or seeds with almost the same genetic information of the animal or plant. With this process nature overcomes the natural death of all organisms.
The genetic spirit processing the data of the genetic information in the individual cells of all organisms is intelligent, because it is able to permanently collect new realizations and using the most useful information it is able to improve the genetic information. By the mechanisms of evolution it creates continuously more perfect and more intelligent forms of life. The intelligence of the genetic spirit hides all secrets of life and unfolds itself in all living cells.
Eternal life based on genetic information
The genetic information is our inheritance of the past. We inherited it from our parents and they inherited it likewise from their parents etc. In the same way we pass this enormous genetic data set to our descendants. Without any doubt the genetic information survives our death, like it survived the death of all of our ancestors. In the same way the intelligence of the genetic spirit active in every single individual cell of all organismsalready survived billions of years and even has the potential to survive further billions of years. This intelligence is active in living cells according to unchanged physicochemical regularities, generating fully automatic again and again physical and mental life on the basis of the genetic information. Consequently, not only our body but also our spirit and our intellect originate from the genetic intelligence already hidden in the first primeval cell.
In principle our genes could tell us exactly, who we are and whose life developed in our body, but the genes don’t speak our language and our thinking spirit cannot read the molecularly written genetic information which is only understood by the genetic spirit. This is the reason why we are unable to remember anything of earlier lives.
The phenomenon of life still hides several big secrets.
– First, nobody knows until this very day, how life was able to develop from apparent dead matter more than three billion years ago. Thus, we don’ know what was able to generate the first living cell, and which laws of nature were responsible for that? What we only know is: Life started at that time with the first primeval living cell, which is the origin of all life on earth.
– Second, already the first living cell had a genetic data set and a genetic spirit, forming the basis of the first living cell and of all future life. Nobody knows the laws of nature responsible for that. Already the first living cell had a large set of information, obviously knowing all essential basics of life.
– Third, even the structure and the function of the first living cell were highly complex. A living cell is comparable to a small chemical factory, working fully automatically and continuously. Nobody knows the origin of thisintelligence, which might be hidden in the laws of nature, which might beable to create it.
The biogenesis, generating life from apparent dead matter, still has not been disclosed to us by natural sciences. The formula of life, making biogenesis possible, is certainly the most divine feature of living organisms. Even the successful research of the last decades, filling big libraries with information concerning chemistry, biology and genetics, up to now, has not been able to disclose the secrets of life. This is why we are still dependent on assumptions, how the primeval cell, representing a highly complex system, was able to develop out of a chemical soup billions of years ago.
Single-cell organisms are the first and simplest of all organisms. As long as they find food, they cannot die, since they duplicate themselves constantly by cell division. Thus, from one old cell two identical new cells are generated. In this way out of one life two independent but absolute identical new lives are generated. This clearly shows that the basic principle of eternal life already had its origin in the first living cell. Starting from there it was transferred and multiplied genetically during the evolution forming the entire living nature. After billions of years we are finally only a tiny member of an infinite chain of life, reaching from the far past into the far future.In the picture of the life tree, we are only a tiny branch, representing a very special development.
Our knowledge about our mortality, coupled with the missing memory of earlier lives and the inconceivability of simultaneous lives in other humans (e.g. single egg twins) coupled to our faith, does not make it easy to imagine an everlasting life by continuous rebirth. Lacking better knowledge our faith lets us believe instead that we might have a soul life after death. This is the reason why we falsely believe that nothing of us existed before us and that we have only one single life. All traditional religions ignore the conclusions derived from the basic principle of eternal life embodied inour somatic cells, although there is no doubt about the fact that our life is passed on to following generations by constant duplication of our genetic information. On one hand we are aware of the immortality of the genetic information, caring for the constant passing on of life on earth, and on the other hand there is our inherited faith in a resurrection of the dead.
Living nature is in conformity with the universal spiritactive eternally with the laws of nature. Since we know them, they allow us to understand what happens in our world. Their logic is incorruptible, absolutely precise and perfect. Everything in the past was developed logically and precisely according to their rules. With them, nature has found solutions for all problems again and again in the course of time.
The natural logic of the procedures in nature is the basis of our thinking and of our behavior. Thus, nature appears to us natural and meaningful. Since we are part of nature, it clearly defines the sense of our life. What makes sense for nature, also makes sense for life and thus for us.Nature has used its intelligence, creativity and perfection to improve its life. Analogously, the sense of our life is to use our intelligence, creativity and perfection to improve our physical and mental life. Consequently, the natural sense of our life is to use all our physical and mental abilities to our advantage.The more our life fits harmoniously into all physical and mental aspects of nature, the more it makes sense.
The resources of nature form the basis for the quality of our life. Today, we have an important change of paradigms, since we are extensively using the laws of nature in technique and technology. With them we are able to exploit nature. This has never been possible before to such a high extent. Nature served us in the past and we now are running the risk of destroying it.
Nothing makes more sense than the logic of nature
Everything in conformity with nature and its laws appears natural, logical, meaningful and reasonable. Nature developed after its own regularities to an unbelievably high perfection. It produced perfect biological living organisms in the course of billions of years. It developed evolutionary natural systems, using an intelligent genetic spirit continuously supplementing and improving the genetic information in favor of the organisms. It developed a subconscious spirit processing the sense information in the brains of animals and humans. Finally, it created a consciousness and an intellect in our brains which we are using to our advantage.
For us, nature represents the measure of all things. Everything in our life, not in conformity with nature, is unnatural, artificial, illogical and unreasonable. It does not fit into our experiences and thus seems senseless and automatically gives us an uncomfortable feeling.
Our traditional religious conceptions, myths, fantasy movies and science fiction stories, follow a different logic with different regularities in different worlds. With our fantasy we are able to adapt to this changed logic and to easily imagine the consequences resulting from it also. Consequently, many of these stories appear conclusive and reasonable within their own fabulous worlds with their own fabulous creatures and their own rules, clearly recognized and classified by us as unreal imaginary creation of our mind.
Nature and its regularities as well as its interconnections with the human society, determine our whole thinking, our logic and consequently the sense of our actions. Very often, we are not in the position to compare the happenings in our civilized and technical world directly with those in nature because they seem abstract or artificial. Then, our intellect is demanded which allows us to recognize logical interconnections with the laws of nature, which determine what happens in technology, politics and society. With them, we are also able to understand and judge whether and how something or a certain procedure leads to success or failure and therefore makes sense or not.
What is in conformity with nature is logical, meaningful and thus makes sense, because nature also evolutionarily created our intellect. We immediately realize it subconsciously. Whatever is not compatible with the logic of nature produces contradictions and withstands no conclusive argumentation. Nonsense in technology, society, economics, etc. results from erroneous actions caused by lack of logics, lack of knowledge, lack of information, etc. Knowing the most important regularities of economics, technology and society help us a lot to use them meaningfully to our advantage and to the benefit of mankind.
What makes sense for our personal life?
The sense and purpose of our personal has been defined in the past essentially based on philosophical and religious aspects. Anticipating a soul life after death based on religions, definitely gives our personal life on earth a very specific sense. Knowing that life is reproduced on earth again and again, and thus knowing that we are reproduced in our children and grandchildren changes this sense substantially. Religions and natural sciences give us different answers to the sense of our life and thus give us different guideline for our personal life and lead to different ethical and moral standards as well as value systems.
Everything that is in conformity with nature, effectively serves our physical and mental advancement and consequently makes sense. It serves a reasonable purpose in the evolution of life connected with appropriate natural goals and features like creativity and activity. Only we, as thinking and ahead-planning living beings, are privileged to align our actions goal-oriented in view of the future. We all want to reach something in our life. We all have our own personal goals in life and developour personal desire conceptions concerning our life and our life's work. They are dependent on our family, on our children and grand children as well as on our conception of the world, our philosophy of life and naturally also on our conception of what might happen after our personal life. All our efforts are driven by the desire to fulfill ourselves according to our conceptions. If somebody has no satisfying aims in life, he is living in a life crisis. He is unable to motivate himself and feels unhappy.
To arrange its own individual life in a meaningful way is a request of the respective human spirit which unfolds its own more or less highly imaginative power. This purely mental demand for satisfaction of the personal desire conceptions of a fulfilled future and a fulfilled life, serves the satisfaction of the human spirit. It is completely similar to the purely physical demand for continuous satisfaction of the senses. Both our bodies and our spirit want to be satisfied not only for one instant, but continuously and lifelong.
Our purposes in life should be effective far beyond our own life, since we live on in all consecutive generations, owing to the imperishable genetic information. They should ensure that nature is not destroyed, that the basis of life on our planet is guaranteed, that future generations do not have to live on a dumping ground and that our children and grandchildren are able to lead a life in harmony with naturefor thousands of years. Only those purposes in life, which have a positive effect in nature, are natural and reasonable. Somebody, thinking self-interested and acting egoistically, whose imaginary spiritual salvation is more important than the physical life of following generations, likewise risks to pursue unnatural and thus senseless purposes in his life.
The sense of our personal life is derived from the sense of life in nature according to evolutionary principles. In conformity with nature it makes much sense …
… to constantly improve our physical and mental abilities by training in order to secure a worthwhile life.
… to arrange our life corresponding to the demands of our body and our spirit. We should be able to be happy and to enjoy life.
… to create a family and care for new generations. Only then is life ensured in the long term.
… to care effectively for a natural basis of life since only in this way, the variety of nature is preserved.
… to secure better living conditions for following generations since it is our own future which we are already shaping today.
When knowing that our genetic data set is passed on almost unchanged to our children and grandchildren, we think differently about our purposes in our life. Then, the sense of our life, above all, surely is to improve life conditions not only in our current life, but also in all our future lives in thousands of years until eternity. Like all generations before us and after us, we think and live in the same perfect human body of a permanently adapted series that is steered to a large extent, subconsciously, by the same biological computer in our brain. With this genetically embodied intelligence, nature has inserted a goal-orientation into our body and our mind towards further perfection, answering clearly our questions about the sense of our life.
The scientific realizations of the development of nature and humans should be the most important base of our considerations, concerning the sense of our life. They lead to a conception of the world and of men, taking into account the consequences of the immortal genetic information, reviving live in nature eternally. Finally, not only our body, but also our mind is a product of the genetic information. It already existed in our ancestors a long time ago and it awakes again and again to new life in our descendants. Our aims in life therefore should be aligned exclusively with a better life for our descendants on this planet because we are reviving in them with our genetic information again and again. They should predominantly serve to preserve our environment, to maintain our nature and to care for our descendants during our life.
Nature strives for ideal living conditions for all organisms. This natural impulse is implemented in all products of evolution. We support it by our life's work when caring about a better life for our descendants. We love the beautiful things in our life, the strong, the perfect, the healthy and the superior, not only concerning our body but also concerning our spirit. Nobody wants to be stupid. We want to know everything and experience more and more. A perfect body and a brilliant intellect help us to lead a more pleasant life. It makes us more attractive and gives us an advantage in the choice of our life partner. What we like in our personal life, we are trying to realize instinctively for our descendants. It lies in our nature to strive for improvements for ourselves and for our descendants. It is a natural instinct which is embodied in our genotype as an important component of life.
What defines the natural sense of life?
The natural development plan of the genotype is responsible for everything happening in nature.
– It determines how a baby develops to an infant, then to a child and an adult and finally to an old man or woman.
– It specifies exactly the development of our spirit and our consciousness.
– It specifies the development of our intellect, our emotions, ourwill and life attitude according to our personal experiences.
– It specifies how the inherited physical and mental potential might be used to develop our personality in a way that it is superior to our competitors.
Like natural life improved continuously during millions of years according to the given natural environment, our personal individual life also improves physically and mentally in our given social environment during our personal life. Thus, the most reasonable sense of our individual life is to constantly improve the quality of our life. What cannot be reached in our own life should at least be achieved in following generations.
The natural sense of the individual human life is to strive for perfection and superiority on the basis of our inherited possibilities.
We are living in a social environment, cooperating with many humans, in a family, in a society, in a state. Like nature follows certain rules, there are certain allocations of responsibilities and objectives in a human society, defining the tasks and the roles of each individual member. This is the reason why a definition of the sense of our own life needs a clear understanding of our role in human society, primarily given by our family.
Since humans have existed, they grew up in a family and form partnerships. This is a completely substantial natural component of human life. Everybody develops his own conceptions of his life in his family. We like to share mourning, joy and happiness with other people. Joy, satisfaction and happiness are closely linked to the sense of life. They are generated by success, but only if the level of expectation has not been too high. This is valid in the family and at work. Emotions motivate and support us to achieve the objective within a society and within a company. Thus, our feelings as well as our physical and mental forces can be shaped consciously. Ambitious objectives increase the driving power, but they also increase the risk to fail. Adapting the goals in a way that they are attainable makes it easier to be satisfied.
In living nature, everything is always in motion, according to genetic programs. Our organs never rest, we are constantly breathing, our blood permanently supplies our cells with chemical energy and even our spirit is active when sleeping. Humans need action defined by targets and motives to be effective. In addition, we have to evaluate our problems in order to focus on important actions and to leave the unimportant.
People live in the present and thus primarily have easily comprehensible short term goals. The well-being of the own body has the highest priority. Ensuring a high quality life from the very beginning to the final end is only manageable within a family. Somebody has to care for us after being born, as an infant and when we need help at old age. Families always helped to master life, to arrange it pleasantly and to survive in danger. To generate life and to survive later on, we definitely need a family. From the cradle to the grave each member of a family has his definite roles and responsibilities, changing completely depending on the respective phase oflife. Thus, the family is the most essential component of our life.
The natural sense of our family life is to pass on our genotype to our children and to ensure a better life for them by putting an environment at their disposal, which potentially makes them physically and mentally more and more perfect. Playing an important role in our family and caring for our descendants are important components defining the natural sense of our life. Nothing makes more sense than to care for the future lives of our own genotype.
Reflecting rationally the sense of life from a scientific point of view, we have to keep in mind the whole living nature. We are dependent on the living nature as well as on the resources of our planet. It is like a life community in which each person, plant, animal and matter plays a certain role. Because we form a unity with everything, the whole nature determines the sense of our life.
As we have seen natural sciences and religion supply us with different senses of life. Apart from many undisputed advantages, traditional religions have a significant problem because their sense of life is based on a future hypothetical eternal soul life. However, being aware of an eternal life already on earth due to the invariably passed on genetic information, a second eternal life in transcendent worlds seems to be very doubtful.
The sense of life based on natural sciences, can be summarized as follows:
– The natural sense of life is preservation of life. This is accomplished by passing on genetic information and by improving life and living conditions in the world.
– Life only makes sense if it is worthwhile living. This very humanly sounding insight is embodied in the whole living nature. Even plants and primitive creatures without consciousness prosper better, the better the life conditions are. Worthwhile life is automatically propagated and reproduced.
– Life makes much sense if it is enjoyed. Our sensory impressions supply us with many good reasons which let us enjoy our life. The physical and mental well-being is a crucial driving force. Therefore, also our spirit should feel well. Our family, our friends, our social, economic and domestic environment should always be able to let us feel satisfied and happy.
Some hundred years ago, the world looked completely different than today and it will surely change enormously even more in the next centuries. Knowing that we live on in our descendants, we certainly want everything better, more perfect and more beautiful than ever before. It happened a lot in the evolution process in order to develop marvelous living beings like humans with their extraordinary spirit. About three billion bits of information had to be incorporated into our genes within about three billion years of the evolution of life. These facts were unknown in former times. Today, they tell us clearly that we always existed in the past.
It needed an almost eternally long time to develop the various kinds of life in a natural equilibrium. However, with the human speciesnature generated beings, which – due to their language and their intellect, are clearly superior to all other forms of life. Today, mankind dominates the whole living nature around the globe. We have been able to change landscapes, forests, agriculture and wild life enormously. In addition, we are exploiting the mineral and energy resources of our planet. Within a short time we have effectively and irreversibly disturbed the equilibrium of nature and threatened the future of all life. The natural sense of life is the improvement of life, derived from the natural evolution of life. With our technological possibilities we are severely destroying life and threatening the quality of life of future generations. To avoid this, the major goal of our personal life should be the protection of the basis of life for future generations.
Dr. Hans Laurenz Sixl, born in 1941, is professor of physics. He worked at the Universities of Stuttgart and Frankfurt as well as visiting professor in Durham (UK) and Tokyo (J). As research director in the chemical industry between 1986 and 2001 he was a member of the executive committee of the German Physical Society. He has published more than 100 scientific papers.
[1]The word eternal is used in this paper in the sense of millions or billions of years
[2]Desoxyribonucleid acid
[3]Compact Disc
[4]Adenine, cytosine, guanine, thymine
[5] Immortality within time periods of the order of million or billion years
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