Amoebas to God...and Beyond

The other night as I was trying to get to sleep, I was thinking about a book I read a year or so ago called The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins. In it, he says that the reason humans seem so suited to their environment here on Earth is because we have evolved through time to fill this particular niche. But this niche is one of an infinite number of niches, and there are few others that humans would feel well designed to exist within. He goes on to say that, through our senses, we perceive the world a particular way because we have evolved to see and feel our world in this particular way. A rat or an insect or a cow views the world in a different way because evolution has given it a different viewpoint.

This idea, which makes sense to me, got me thinking about how I would view the world if, say, I was an ant, or even a virus or a paramecium. I assume that none of these creatures have any self awareness about the lives they lead. I suspect they're simply born, live their lives doing the things ants and viruses do, and then they're dead. They simply are until they aren't anymore. To the best of my knowledge, the same holds true for most higher level animals as well. We love our dogs and cats, and I think most of us would agree that our pets appear to possess emotions as well. But they also seem to lack a sense of self-awareness. They just do what they do. As far as I can tell, dogs and cats don't fret much more about what they're going to do with their lives than ants and viruses. As far as we know, humans are the only creature on Earth who are self-aware and have the capacity to make purposeful decisions about how to spend the time we're allotted to live, although I do suspect that certain animals like dolphins, elephants and chimps are probably a lot closer to having this ability than we suspect.

But my point is that humans appear to be the only species on Earth who possess the ability to not only shape our lives, but to also shape the world on which we live. As far as humans know, we are the most highly functioning creature in all the Universe. Many of us are even arrogant enough to believe that the entire Universe was created for our benefit. But I wonder how creatures like ants and viruses perceive the world. If they had the capacity for self-awareness and consciousness, would they believe they were masters of the Universe based on the incomplete observations of the world their limited viewpoints provided them? Would an ant be able to see a human for what it was, or would it believe it was some natural force that tended to wreak havoc on its ant existence? Would an ant go on to believe that in all the universe, as far as it could tell, there was nothing superior to an ant? An ant would likely believe it ruled the world, and quite possibly God Himself created all the universe for his benefit.

So perhaps we're not so different than this hypothetical ant in our observations of our world and the universe as a whole. Of course one could counter that ants don't have telescopes or microscopes or any of the science that humans have developed to understand our surroundings more accurately, but I think it's also true that just as an ant is limited in its understanding because of its antness, humans are similarly limited by their humanness. We can't comprehend what is beyond our comprehension. For example, if no one could see, how would people have any conception of sight? Doesn't it seem possible that some other sense exists out there somewhere that we cannot comprehend simply because we have no reference from which to understand it? When I was in college, I remember a professor once saying that it is impossible for anyone to imagine something that is totally different from everything we know because we cannot imagine anything that is foreign to our point of reference. We can imagine amalgams of things, but not of entirely new things.

Similarly, if there is something as much more advanced than us as we are to an ant, how would we have the ability to conceive of that thing's existence? To go a step further, perhaps that being which would seem godlike to us is still only another rung on the hierarchy. Perhaps there is something above it, and in turn another being still above that one. Perhaps it continues on ad infinitum like one of those Russian nesting dolls. Perhaps this applies in both directions as well. Maybe the lowest form of life we can conceive of--some single celled amoeba or something, is not the lowest sort of life form that exists. It is only the lowest that we are able to detect from our limited perspectives as humans.

Of course, all of these thoughts simply evoke more thoughts such as what is at the top of this theoretical hierarchy? Is it God after all? If so, it would likely mean that He was so far beyond our comprehension that we could not even begin to conceive of Him with the limited capacities of our human senses, and it seems laughable that this being would have even the slightest concern about our human affairs--no more than we would have for paramecium probably. Perhaps this being would possess the knowledge of why all this existence was put into motion in the first place. Maybe such a thing would be as simple as two plus two for Him, and He would be contemplating other mysteries that we could not even imagine to conceive of. And even writing about the simple-minded questions that I seek answers to as a human betrays my limited perspective as I can only contemplate questions through the limited means of my human perspective and intelligence.

It also occurs to me that pondering questions for which no answers exist is a bit pointless. Maybe I'd be better served to get to sleep so I could be a bit more alert in the morning times. But then I realize that even thinking this is a symptom of being human, and like any other creature here on Earth, I can do nothing but be what I am until I am no more.