Blurts & Spasms

In answer to Quora question: "Why does life involve solving so many problems? Why did the universe develop in such a way that we constantly have to be solving problems?"

Thanks for the A2A.

Would you like a simple answer, or a complicated one?

One really simple answer: Life on Earth - and within human societies and relationships - has always been this complex. We're just becoming more aware of it both individually and collectively.

One still relatively simple answer: No other species currently offers us competition for the same resources, nor do any of the environments on Earth currently present much difficulty for our survival. And yet we are biologically designed, in terms of evolutionary fitness, to compete with other species and survive in challenging environments. So what do we humans do? We create situations where we end up competing with ourselves and the complexity of our inventions to generate the same "environmental tensions" and inter-species competition that the natural world used to provide us. Without those tensions, after all, we would become bored, depressed, obsessive and compulsively self-destructive both as individuals and as a species.

One slightly more complex answer: Our consciousness is an awe-inspiring gift that we have yet to learn how to fully utilize or appreciate. In the meantime, we're doing some really cool stuff with that consciousness (the arts, philosophy, mathematics, deepening compassion, subtler and more nuanced insights, unconditional affection, big science, big questions, etc.) and some really nasty and unfortunate stuff with that consciousness (nuclear bombs, environmental destruction, hatred and conflict, black-and-white reasoning, control behaviors, over-stressed urban lifestyles, etc.). Over time, we will either learn how to de-energize the destructive uses of consciousness and expand its constructive uses, or we will irrevocably ruin our own planet and civilization. If we can achieve the former, perhaps this will mean that our gift of consciousness will contribute to the evolution of something much greater than ourselves.

I suspect that the most complete answer involves a portion of all of these ideas...combined with many more perspectives. In the meantime, we can at least acknowledge that how we use our consciousness has far-reaching impacts, and train ourselves toward the greatest good for the greatest majority for the greatest duration. Or not. We could also just hitch a ride on someone else's thought stream, or immerse our consciousness in the commercialistic spectacle that numbs us to our better selves.

My 2 cents.