Page Content (OCR)
As our experience of the destruction of worlds increased, we were increas- ingly dismayed by the wastefulness and seeming aimlessness of the universe. One of the depressing things about the last 300 years of science, Davies lamented, is the way it has tended to marginalize, even trivialize, hiaman beings, thus alienating them from the universe in which they live.* Science has convinced many of us that we exist in a cosmos that is not centered on our species, its expectations, or its fate. To discover an ultimate purpose that links us to the universe, Hoyle and Wickramasinghe observed, humans have traditionally turned to religion. That choice may have become less credible in modern Western society; our emergence from tangible chemical evolution removes the supernatural quality from our origin and our destiny.* The erosion of tradition and the widespread decline of inherited reli- gious belief leaves us without a telos (an end to which we strive), argued anthropologist Charles Lindholm. Bereft of a sacred project, a sanctified notion of our potential, we have only a demystified image of a frail and fallible humanity. Surrounded by a disenchanted cosmos, many suffer from what Eric Fromm called The Anxiety of Meaninglessness.* One of the drivers behind our search for other intelligent beings is our desire to find or attribute purpose to our existence. We have an innate yearn- ing to be identified as part of some ill-defined grander scheme of things.° We may ultimately recognize that only intelligent life can provide purpose. Not just superior extraterrestrials, but us. 347 The Human Role —Olaf Stapledon, 1937! —Steven Weinberg, 1977? A Search for Purpose