Developing A Universal Religion/Life And Exploiting

Leaving until later a discussion of the many advantages that might be gained by doing so, Chapter Nine concluded by suggesting we adopt as a “meta-purpose” the idea of supporting life’s journey to its consequence of becoming an omnipotent entity. But, as it did so, it emphasized that this whole notion might only be a possibility, and cautioned against building edifices upon faulty assumptions.

However, there may well be a reason why life, very probably not a direct descendant of life on this planet, but life, somewhere, will eventually come to possess omnipotent abilities. What we may now think to be simply a fantasy may actually occur—eventually. This chapter looks for and attempts to provide a possible reason why this might be so by reviewing what we know about life’s behaviour, then speculating about how it came to be this way.

Speculations usually have little merit beyond suggesting lines of further inquiry, but this one, to the extent that it has any validity, provides something more. It warns us to be wary of human nature, particularly as we accumulate knowledge. Thus Chapter Ten serves two purposes—it offers a theory that might explain why life seems to become ever more complex and proficient, and it reminds us that increasing powers bring increasing opportunities for “bad” as well as for “good” behaviour.


 * 1) /The Behaviour Of Living Things/
 * 2) /Energy And Life/
 * 3) /Life's Beginning/
 * 4) /Exploiting/
 * 5) /Complexity, Intelligence And Evolution/
 * /Summary/