On Finitude
As a child, I was fascinated by astronomy. When I was about eight years old, I read that the sun was going to burn out someday. I was desolate. I knew enough to know that the world without the sun would be unimaginably cold and dark. How could I bear such circumstances? (The book did explain that this catastrophe wouldn’t happen for another 5.5 billion years, which sounded like a very long time. But I hadn’t yet grasped the concept of billions of years, any more than I yet understood that I wouldn’t always be alive, on the earth I found so pleasant. Eternity was my own existential default.)
I was reminded of this episode a few days ago, when I came upon an article headed (how could I not click?), “Enjoy It While You Can: Dropping Oxygen Will Eventually Suffocate Most Life on Earth.” Thinking this projected catastrophe had a timeline of a decade or so, I experienced the same crushing, sinking feeling I had at eight. Then I read the second sentence: “This probably won’t happen for another billion years or so.”
Equilibrium restored. I have a better grasp of both time and mortality, personal and collective, than I had when I was eight. It’s unlikely that I, or anyone I know, will still be around in a billion years.
That’s true no matter what we do or don’t do about climate change, as Dyke pointed out to me some months ago. Evolution, which necessarily includes extinction, is the way of the world. It brought us here, and it will take us out. Even if we manage to avoid orchestrating the demise of our own species over the next century, eventually evolution will ensure that nothing remotely resembling a human being (or a kangaroo, a palm tree, or a flounder) will roam the earth. We will be fossils, like trilobites. Even if we manage to emigrate to some other planet (which, despite my love of sci-fi, I believe is unlikely), we will evolve into something unrecognizable, so that our successors will view us as equally alien and remote as dinosaurs now seem to us.
I’m all for the continuation of our species, for as long as we can manage it. Despite our flaws—even those that seem to be marching us inexorably toward annihilation—humanity is my home team. It’s in my DNA to identify with Homo sapiens, and I can’t help but love us. I fear and resent the threats we pose to our own existence, as we degrade critical elements of our biosphere and the various systems that keep our planet habitable. I would like for us (and gorillas, giraffes, songbirds, bees, octopi, etc.) to continue on eternally, and I’ll do what I can to help us keep going. But, despite our best efforts, and even if we do everything right, Homo sapiens will someday disappear.
No one can say, exactly, when we will follow the path of the millions of species that have come and gone before us. No one can say how much longer we will survive, or whether we will self-destruct before evolution or some natural disaster takes us out. The timeline and the mechanisms are unknown, but we are not, as a species, eternal. Earth is not, as a planet, eternal. The sun is not, as a star, eternal.
My point?
The sun will burn out, and someday so will we. Extinction is not so different from individual mortality. Death is undeniably sad, and few people embrace the idea of inevitability of their own demise, but mortality is a fact. So is the transience of everything we know of in the universe. Death and extinction are unavoidable, and even necessary, processes. Facing that fact takes guts.
Our efforts to extend our lives aren’t foolish even though death is inevitable. Maintaining a healthy lifestyle isn’t absurd just because our bodies will someday give out. We should of course do what we can to protect our health, and to stay healthy as long as we can. We will enjoy life longer and endure less suffering. The same is true for us as a species. We must strive for health but accept that we, like everything else, are transitory. And, at least in theory, accepting the inexorable reduces at least some of its sting.