Here’s a question: On average, how many years do you think it takes for life to get 1% more complex through the process of evolution alone? Be bold. Err on that shit being slow. My own conservative estimate is one million years. If that were true and life originated 4.5 billion years ago as we know it did, then there would have been the opportunity for life to increase in complexity by 1% an entire 4.5B/1M = 4,500 times. Could several thousand inconsequential single-percentage increases, if compounded, really transform the most primitive, microscopic life into modern animals among which are humans? On the surface, this seems so implausible that one can be forgiven for believing divine intervention played a part.
The notion of life originated when matter developed the trio of capacities of forming a membrane, converting energy into motion, and subdividing into distinct molecular clusters with similar internal processes. Some of these molecular clusters randomly did “dumb” things like move away from sources of energy; and some, randomly, did “smart” things like move toward sources of energy. Some rarely subdivided; some subdivided like rabbits. Clearly, those that stayed alive longer and subdivided faster would become more numerous in population and would consume more of the finite sources of energy around.
Pretend with me for a moment that you are a third-party observer, watching this happen over the course of, say, 4.5 billion years. Collections of atoms stumble upon the conditions required for self-replicating. Self-contained molecular clusters exist and increase in complexity by 1% per one million years through the process of natural selection at the atomic level. You’d watch the phenomenon whereby the atomic structures that self-replicate more efficiently become ever more numerous.
After 100 million years of waiting, you find these microscopic, self-contained molecules are 1.01100 = 2.8 times as complex as they were in the beginning, barely a noticeable difference.
You wait another two billion years. Now these cells are 1.012000 = 439 million times more complex. They’re clearly not alive in any conventional sense—specifically, they’re now primitive single-cells, which, in fact, did take two billion years to develop. These organisms proactively seek sources of energy, they manage to store energy internally and they merge and mate with one another. But you would not call these sentient, conscious beings. They’re chemical compounds reacting to stimuli algorithmically per the laws of physics and chemistry contained inside them.
You wait another billion years. Now life is 1.013000 = 9.2 trillion times more complex than the first forms of life. And it’s starting to get legit. You still need a microscope to see them, but you’re seeing some legitimate multicellular germs now. Socializing, fraternizing, dividing into autonomous units, causing all kinds of trouble on the ocean’s floor. They’re still not conscious or self-aware. But still, what you see under the microscope has much advanced since the old days.
You take one more billion-year nap and check back in. Now, these guys are 1.014000 = 190 quadrillion times more complex. At this point, their ability to detect and interact with light has become nuanced. They can distinguish violet from orange from pink. They’re little sea creatures! You realize that these plus-sized organisms are the natural result of compounding complexity but that nothing is fundamentally different. They are responding to stimuli in complex but predictable ways and lack consciousness.
You take your final siesta and arrive at today, 4.5 billion years in the future from your first detection of life. Now, life takes the form of humans and delta-variants of coronaviruses and everything in between. These organisms’ internal processes are now genuinely intriguing. They can now detect surface texture, they can recognize familiar “faces,” they can distinguish between frequencies of air vibrations as “sound." Obviously, these randomly mutating membrane-encapsulated chemical compounds are still not categorically different from the randomly mutating chemical compounds of yesteryear; they’re just the result of painfully slow, compounding growth in complexity. They still aren’t “conscious,” “self-aware,” or “self-directed" any more than a cell is. But their information processing abilities are now absurdly advanced.
You learn that they refer to their own information processing as “thoughts," so you take the liberty of invading their privacy and listening in to such “thoughts." You find, to your great surprise, that these deterministic information processing organic units believe that there is meaning to their existence, that they are “conscious," “living," and “self-directed" in some different sense than the earliest non-living molecular clusters were. Almost all of them strongly disbelieve their existence is directly attributable to exponential growth in complexity of non-living chemical compounds and attribute it to some guy in the sky like, well, you.
Let’s recap: We’ve established that the first forms of life were not alive in any way. We’ve established that they probably get more complex, even if very slowly, to the tune of 1% per million years. We’ve established that at that rate, in the amount of time “living” molecules have been around, they could have gotten 27 quintillion times more complex in their abilities. We think it’s very believable that humans are around that amount more complex than the first forms of life. And we think that if you were an external observer watching this, you would find it amusing that these membrane-encapsulated multicellular think they’re “alive.” It is reasonable that you would find humor in these beings’ confusion about the supposed meaning of life.
You would descend from the sky and say unto them:
“Hello, my children. Do you want to know the meaning of life?”
After tepid applause from the earthlings, you’d say, like a hacky performer, “I can’t hear you!! I said, ‘Do you want to know the one, the true, the real meaning of life!???’”
Recognizing the significance of what is being offered to them, all of humanity would erupt into cheers.
And you would reveal to them the following:
“The meaning of life is that life can originate from decidedly non-living clumps of clay. Life is an obscure property of matter that allows molecules to band together, to convert a source of energy into movement, and to use that movement to find other molecular clusters with whom to mate. The purpose, the point, the one true reason for the existence of life is this…there isn’t any; how could there be? Life is an accidental configuration of matter and human life is late-stage evolution—compound growth run amuck. To the extent you have a creator, She is but a triumvirate: random mutation, exponentiation, and time.”