Death is nothing to us, since when we are, death has not come, and when death has come, we are not.

- Epicurus, "Letter to Menoeceus", 124-125
 

You can only regret your own death in advance. by Iain Mackay

When it comes to the fundamental drivers that motivate our otherwise lazy bodies, the need to have children is top of the list. Once a person has a child, life is different, easier, lighter, even though the daily grind may be harder. The prospect of not having a child brings with it the anxiety that accompanies the realization that a person is going to cease to exist, and society isn't very open about the negative effects on a persons psyche when they haven't been able to procreate. A child is the light at the end of the tunnel, when we can't have a child or choose not to have a child we are ending a genetic line that has existed for millions of years, and in that we are the first to fail to procreate. It's a fact because our parents bore us and their parents bore them and so on down through the ages. The only thing we are here to do in this life is to reproduce ourselves, so no matter how well a person does in their life or career or business, or anything, it is all for nothing if they don't create a child. The benefit of all their toil, their life's work, will go toward continuing the line of a foreign DNA, which in the harsh reality of nature is genetic suicide. Look at the way the world and governments run, almost all countries except China encourage their people to have families, and for good reason, because what greater asset can you create than life. A human individual can be relied upon to perform future tasks, all towards the greater good of the whole. People who choose not to have a family, are a drain on the economy, and give nothing back to the community. All of these concepts are only now coming to light, and that's because I believe people are starting to see the futility of our situation, that being stuck on a planet from which there is no escape, and that is ultimately doomed. No wonder people turn to religion, or at least creationism. It gives them a future, and therefore a purpose to continue. But if one looks at all that is life, there are many happy activities that can be pursued other than raising a family. However as one gets older, these will mean little and will offer little reward, if there are no children or grand children to continue the line. So choosing not to have a child is a big choice, and yet it is one that more an more people are choosing. Religion, almost all religious activity encourages child rearing, so most religious people will successfully reproduce, and continue their and their forebears existence, albeit increasingly diluted. I believe our existence on this planet is the result of evolution and that we are the current result of a chemical reaction that occurred on this planet millions of years ago.

Our existence is limited to our own ability to self destruct in the short term, or the next major asteroid impact, which would surely wipe us out. I know this is a sad prospect, and is therefore an ideology most people choose not to follow. Most people choose to embrace some kind of faith, at some level they believe there is a greater purpose. I believe our existence on the surface of this planet is in total indifference to the lifeless matter below us, and all around us in space. I believe our existence is a happy coincidence, a breathing space in nature that allowed life to spark on this planet. We are the result of every other living thing on this planet, and if you don't believe that, look at what you eat, it was once also alive, and gave its life for your continued existence. This is how nature has operated for billions of years, and will continue to operate probably until conditions on this planet can no longer sustain life. That probably won't happen until the sun goes out, so life on this planet could well witness that event 7 or 8 billion years hence, and human beings will re-evolve and self destruct or be wiped out over and over in that time. Ultimately there is nothing the human race can do to ensure its infinite existence, because the there is no escape from the planet earth. Even if we could travel at the speed of light, we would never catch up with the edge of our universe's expansion. The fait of the universe as a whole, is also limited, so no matter what we achieve, and how far we are able to travel, we will never out live it. So in short the human race is ultimately doomed, and the likely hood is we will destroy ourselves long before nature does the job for us. Its important to understand that there is absolutely no control here, its chaos. Life will abide by the laws of nature. I suggest that the only way to survive and evolve is to somehow escape not only this solar system, but also this entire universe. The only way we could do that, is to evolve into a machine. At the rate we're going our machines will soon be smarter than us, and in many ways they already are. But there's a big difference between smart and intelligent, we have to develop machines that have the will to self evolve, and show us how to build the next generation, because Moore's law suggests in just twenty years a desk top computer will have the same processing power as the human brain. We'll need machines that are made by other machines to do things like write the code, or assemble atoms. Our machines are the brain child of an animal, all that remains to be seen is how fast machines can assume control of this planet. Could our purpose be to create a machine life form that can carry on in our shoes, and travel to other parts of the universe, or even other universe's, in ways that our fragile bodies could never withstand, such as a data stream projected across the vacuum of space.