I belong to some of these philosophy pages on facebook. About 3 years ago when I first started joining them and about 100 times since someone will pose the question " What is the meaning of life" My first reaction was a chuckle and I kind of reflected back to my high school days because I had not thought about it since then, but for some reason this time it stuck in my head the way a song does sometimes and I kept thinking about it. The only thing that made any sense if we do have a purpose is that our purpose is to recharge the CO2 in the atmosphere so that long after we are gone evolution can go on until something else challenges it. There is some logic behind it and admittedly some of my logic could be faulty logic.
Here is a condensed version of my logic on this. Volcanoes were a major source of CO2, Volcanic activity has been steadily decreasing. Carbon levels have been very slowly but steadily decreasing, Below 200 parts per million bad things start to happen the bio mass gets smaller. At the pre-industrial rate of decline carbon levels would have eventually dropped below a threshold that could sustain major life forms. If humans last another million or even 2 million years the only thing that we would be leaving behind that had a very significant affect on life forms would be the CO2. Therefore it appears to be our primary purpose.
Is my theory [regarding the purpose of human life on earth] as outlandish as it first appears to be?
So, are you saying that our extraction of carbon that’s been sequestered for millions of years in the form of oil, and releasing billions of tons of carbon into the atmosphere, thus causing global warming, is in the long run a good thing? Not necessarily for us as a species, but for the long-term progression of evolution in general?
Interesting theory if I understand it correctly. I’ll definitely keep an eye on this thread to see what your responses will be.
As to whether that’s our ultimate purpose or the “meaning of life”, I personally don’t think there’s any ultimate ‘meaning’ or purpose, I think life just is.
Under this kind of definition of the “purpose” of life, what is fundamental is not the carbon cycle. Life is all about free energy.
I strongly recommend this book by Nick Lane. He’s making a specific case for the origin of complex life around hydrothermal vents, but his background discussion of what life really is in a physical sense is excellent.
We have whatever meaning we make for ourselves. And while increasing CO2 levels is certainly something that humans are doing, very, very few of us have made that an actual goal.
Unless you think that someone else has a plan for us, but that’s theology. And most of the world’s religions would take offense at the notion that our purpose is just to enable some other species to evolve.
It is kind of interesting that Global warming would position Siberia to become the bread basket of the world.
Cite? I think it’s a little more complex than the supposition that places that are currently too cold are going to be in great shape.
We’ll also be leaving behind a huge quantity of bits of plastic. And of course the Anthropocene Extinction. So that’s a false premise.
And your theory that what life on this planet needs now is the release of more carbon is a false premise.
Plus which it’s a false premise that whatever we happen to be doing must be our “purpose”.
Attempting to build any logical argument on top of one false premise, let alone three of them, stands zero chance of producing anything useful.
I don’t think I ever said that we should we release more carbon. I just stated that if we do have a purpose that was the only one I could identify. I also believe we could do a much better job of carbon mitigation in the biosphere. All of the money and efforts are going into getting rid of carbon fuels when we don’t stand a ghost chance in hell of accomplishing anything close to that in the foreseeable future.
Yes, exactly.
To be specific:
Volcanoes were never a major source of CO2.
Volcanic activity has not been steadily decreasing.
Carbon levels have not been very slowly but steadily decreasing.
The planet doesn’t care about human activities, only humans do. The planet works on geologic time, humans aren’t meaningful. Humans are no different from other animals; they have no purpose or influence on the fate of the planet. Humans have no possible way to predict the next million years, let alone the next five billion, especially based on a sample size of 200 years.
IMO, our primary purpose is correcting people who are wrong on the Internet. That’s the most fun, at least.
But humans are qualitatively different from other animals in our cultural acquisition of knowledge and cooperative development of technology. If we don’t destroy ourselves, the future of our planet - and potentially our entire galaxy - may be subject to control by human-derived technology, not dominated by the natural processes that shaped the past over geologic time.
If human life has a purpose, I can’t believe it’s as mundane as CO2 or keeping evolution going.
We have awareness, the ability to understand the history of the universe, the past, the future, delve into the literal moment of creation, and ponder the ultimate fate of everything trillions of years from now. All known life other than us hasn’t been able to ponder anything beyond their next meal, next copulation, and hiding from the next predator.
If there’s a purpose to us, it must relate to the only thing that makes us different than every other life on the planet. Me, I don’t think there is a purpose, but that is way different than the purpose being mundane.
The Kardashev scale is philosophy rather than science and has uses only in science fiction.
Since we’re not even a Kardashev Type 1 civilization yet, it’s posturing about possible futures based on not even one data point.
When you stopped you think about it all the knowledge we have we’ll go right down the tubes with us and maybe a million years or so, but it took all of our smarts to become so energy hungry and to harvest all this energy. All that will be left behind of any consequence will be the CO2 and it does have a very important job it performs
Plant life has been around for 500 million years and has survived multiple ups and downs of CO2, including all the glaciations.
Nothing we’re doing will even change the next glacial period in geologic terms. That can be predicted with much more science than any extrapolation of human activity.
Humans are a pimple on the skin of the planet. What we do affects us, but we’re not much. If the Earth has survived five major extinctions of up to 90% of all species, ain’t nothing we do that will come close.
I refer you to the theory expounded in ‘The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy’.
Earth is ‘mostly harmless’ and will soon be completely demolished to build a hyperspace bypass. 
Like if that was not already an old contrarian argument that was found to be faulty many times already. Reason being that economical research points to not doing anything as being more expensive for all.
I never suggested not doing anything about it. I think environmentalism has the capacity to become the great unifier in this world
Seen it too, the problem for me is that most of the ones out there pointing at the costs are also unwilling to spend on the needed efforts to mitigate the bad effects of climate change. Mitigation efforts that are getting more expensive as time goes by.
I believe this is an over-simplification: Global warming may thaw Siberia, but it won’t make the soils fertile. Peat is no humus, burned peat is acidic and bad for plant growth, it lacks phosphorus and does not retain water very well.
And speaking of purposes and bread baskets: man does not live by bread alone. Is your theory falsifiable? Does it make any testable hypothesis? Because to me it looks like it has all the marks of a just-so-story. To steal a phrase from someone who knows a lot more than me about many things that interest me I would say your theory is not even wrong.
I honestly don’t think we have a purpose but the question was posed to me “what if we had a purpose what would it be?” Someone above said that pre-industrial carbon levels have not been trending downward, everything I read suggests they have been, the last million or so years they have been relatively stable. Can someone give me something more significant than our carbon contribution a million years after we are gone? Someone above also said that volcanic activity was not a major source of carbon dioxide, along with asteroids hitting earth. Both of these activities have slowed down. I think it is very falsifiable and relatively easy to pick apart and look at objectively.
Assuming CO2 predictions are as dire as we are led to believe, why are we not looking more closely at the biosphere for mitigation? A lot of scientists are looking very closely at bacterial solutions to nitrogen replacement in the soil that would not harm the environment. They need more funding. Higher carbon levels also allow trees and plants to store and use water more efficiently. The big problem now seems to be the carbon nitrogen cycle has been thrown out of wack and will talk a long time to get back into balance without a little help. Logistically speaking if one percent of humanity was dedicated to restoring the environment they could achieve the goals needed.