Before You Die
You have a chance to live
I’ll use you as a reference, but I’ll also be addressing myself.
It’s not any of the motivational writings you have read. It’s a dive into facts from highly regarded concepts.
So before you die, there are aspects you have to consider.
Whether you’re aware of it or not, you have to make a choice.
You have a chance to live.
Let me unpack that statement.
You
When I say you, I mean everything that constitutes you.
It’s a lot.
You are an individual in common parlance. In reality, the concept of the individual is hazy.
What does the individual encompass?
Does it involve the bacteria that have infected my throat or the food poisoning taking me to the washroom every other minute?
When does it begin? Is it after fertilization or after implantation?
The individual is a difficult concept to dissect. However, when someone calls your name you will respond.
I’m referring to that person who responds.
I previously described what an organism is, according to the theory of Organismal Selection. An organism is any entity that exists and has a tendency to avoid annihilation.
Annihilation, as we understand it, is death. If you’re reading this, you’re trying to avoid death.
Just like that, you have made a choice.
Organisms select. Nature does not. Nature only annihilates.
So before you die, you have a set of choices that eventually take you to your place of death.
I describe an organism as an entity that is organizationally closed and thermodynamically open. Here’s an example to illustrate my point.
The cell has a membrane with structures inside it. The processes ongoing inside the cell help make the membrane. It constitutes a boundary.
The cell is structurally closed.
At the same time, it needs energy from its surroundings to continue existing. It needs to make a choice. We’re here yet again.
It selects what goes in and what comes out. It has to allow some components in for it to generate the needed energy to survive.
Recall that organisms have a tendency to try to avoid death. In this regard, they are thermodynamically open.
We can also use the example of organs. Let’s use the pumping organ.
The heart has an organizationally closed structure that is thermodynamically open.
It has cardiac cells. They are not found in any other part of the body. It is organizationally closed.
It also receives blood. The same blood feeds its cells, It is therefore thermodynamically open.
When you die, your heart can be taken to another human being and jump-started. It exists and it tries to avoid annihilation. By this standard, the heart is an organism.
Do you now see how the concept of the individual can get hazy?
So before you die, you have a chance to live.
Have a chance
Jacques Monod is famous for saying that evolution is chance caught on a wing.
He was referring to the neglected yet relevant importance of chance in living. You could have gone wrong in so many ways even before you were born.
It seems like the path is usually so well grooved, it seems highly unlikely that you’d have been born with a permanent deformity.
There are those who have these inborn defects. But most do not. So you were lucky.
You were given a chance.
But even those who have the defects are still alive. Organisms try to avoid death. They did not let defects stop them from living.
They took the chance and ran with it.
When you choose, you gamble.
You never know, for certain, if it will be your last choice.
When you climb that bus or board that airplane, it could be your very last. Not necessarily through crashing. But you might have an embolus, and silently pass on.
I like to think of organisms in a spectrum. It exists between 0 and 1.
On the right, 0 defines non-existence and on the left, 1 also means non-existence but after existing in the space between 0 and 1.
Between 0 and 1 are fractions. If you have a die, and you toss, it, chances are it will land on any of its six faces with a probability of 1/6.
It’s a chance.
Because you exist between 0 and 1, you have a chance to live.
To live
Living is a concept I don’t like to dive so much into. It has uncertain edges.
What is life?
That is the question.
I have yet to find a satisfactory answer.
Schroedinger tried to answer it but ended up with a book where the question was more relevant than the answer he chased.
When Jesus says I am the way, the truth, and the life, he doesn’t also answer this question.
Mystics, philosophers, and wide-ranging scientists have tried to answer it. I will not chase this lofty goal.
It’s why I stick to organisms. It’s more interesting since it has the potential for a more definite answer. Plus, we have a structure we can rely on.
First, it has to exist. Second, it has to avoid annihilation. Third, it must be structurally closed and thermodynamically open.
These are much simpler than the different definitions of life.
For instance, how can you confidently say you are alive yet your largest organ, the skin, is principally made of dead cells?
The redwood tree can live for thousands of years. However, over 99% of its bulk is made up of dead cells. Is the tree alive? It has indeterminate growth, meaning it will always continue to grow.
But if it consists largely of dead cells, is it alive?
These are questions that I don’t want to get into, at the moment. But I like to listen to what others have found by getting into that rabbit hole.
As for me, I stick to organisms as entities trying to avoid annihilation. Annihilation means cessation of existence. I don’t have to know if the entity is alive or not, only if it satisfies the criteria for detecting organisms.
And organisms try to avoid annihilation.
The simplest way is to look at it as existence and cessation of existence.
Before you cease to exist, you do exist.
If you’re into life and death, it can be rephrased to:
Before you die, live.
As Nyashinski says in his song:
Kitu unataka si utry
He urges you to try to chase what you’re after.
So before you die, try.
At least twice.
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