So what does it mean to be human anyway?

Here we sit on our pale blue dot, in a unnoteworthy solar system, in an average galaxy, part of a typical cluster, made invisible by the sheer scale of the Universe.

In an absolute sense, we are just DNA replication machines. precious little to set us apart from the other DNA machines on the planet. We lack some specifics, but there is nothing so far that can not be explained about us by this framework.

Scientific inquiry supports this notion and fills it in a little every day with each passing discovery in Physics, Cosmology. and Biology ETC. . But the illusion of self and free will is so strong and pervasive that we rebel against this reality.
We fear death when in truth it is probably the least of our worries.
We attach such importance to love. We recoil from treachery and abhor cruelty. We pray to Gods for immortality and watch Netflix. We write exquisitely complex symphonies and rut like the primates we are, competing for breeding rights. Our behaviors have grown more complex, yet remain fundamentally the same as those practiced by our ancestors on the African savannah we fled.

We may be the only creatures in this vast cosmos that contemplate these things. We now know the universe is teeming with rocky worlds and liquid water. Surely life exists elsewhere? So why no sign of it? Either it's only happened here this once, or the vast distances in space and time have made contact impossible. Insurmountable barriers fashioned from harsh cosmic radiation and buttressed by a cost in resources and lifetimes to great to ever marshal a solution, stand between us and the universe. This is a difference with no distinction for us, The effect is eternal isolation.

Does any of it matter? What is it that transcends our petty wants, meaningless aspirations, laughable shortlived achievements?

What does it mean to be human? Does the question even matter?

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