What is Our Purpose?

Is it to seek Happiness? 

To seek Wealth, Power and Status; or merely like all the other species - to procreate in order to extend our species further into the future?

I am sure you have an opinion, as I do.

But before I get to that, there is one fact related to our species that needs to be mentioned. “Of all the human species that have lived on the earth, only Homo sapiens managed to colonize the entire globe” [1]. Marean's Hypothesis for this is there were two innovations that contributed: 1) Advanced projectile weapons, and 2) A genetically determined natural tendency for cooperation with unrelated individuals. It is the second of these two concepts that I would like to explore further to see if perhaps we can hone in on our real Purpose as a species.

 The Homo genus - humans - managed to live, procreate, and survive for some 2.7 million years on this planet. That surely would be Sustainability. Were we to imagine the hunters banding together in small groups for self-protection and in an effort to capture prey that was faster, bigger, and sometimes almost as smart, then we would certainly see Cooperation. Could it be otherwise? Oh sure, there would certainly be some Lone Wolf Hunters going out on their own, but as a few families began to form very small communities, the group needed more meat to add to the fruit vegetables and nuts that the Gatherers brought in, and so hunting parties evolved.

There is evidence to suggest the food was Shared fairly equitably[2], although the tribes' Leader and other respected Hunters would likely end up with the best or perhaps the first choice of what was available.

Let's take a moment and see what we have here so far: - a Small group of people, working Cooperatively together to survive.   They had the luxury of easily moving to where more food was available, if necessary. Neighboring tribes might show up for a feast, at which point the host Tribal Chief would try to impress by giving away much to his visitors.

So now add Sharing to Small, Cooperative, and Sustainable and you would likely find some Happiness [5].

Extending our species' evolution is inherent in our genes according to Evolutionary Genetics[3], so let's check that off as another Purpose.

My own personal favorite Purpose is one shared, I am sure, by Elon Musk - Space X[4] and that is to explore the universe.

I intentionally neglected to mention Wealth, and what is attainable and attributable through it - Power, Status, and of course Luxury. It is my belief that the human species must acknowledge it is but one of millions of other species on this planet, and we depend on many of those other species for our very survival. When we finally come to our senses, we will be in a position to respect the ecosystems and then live Sustainably on our planet.

At that point our Purpose would be to act as Custodians or Shepherds, looking after the common areas between our small communities. Places where we could live Cooperating (it's part of our genetic makeup, but for the past ten to twelve thousand years we have let Competition overtake it) with each other and Sharing the resources of this planet in an equitable manner for everyone.

So do you agree with my suggestions for our human Purpose?

No?, then what do you think our Purpose really is?
 

 

 

[1] Summary of article by Curtis W Marean Scientific American Aug 2015 

[2] Marshall Sahlins – Stone Age Economics (1972, 2003, 2107) forward David Graeber 

[3] https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/evolutionary-genetics   

[4] Elon Musk – SpaceX Trip to Mars   

[5] Article: Were we Happier in the Stone Age? By Author of Sapiens – A brief History of Human Kind  - Yuval Noah >p>Harari 

World Happiness By Roketjack at en.wikipedia [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

prehistoric man By Gilbert, Frank [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

prehistoric scene - cuba By User:Escla (Own work) [CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons