Dear College of Science Faculty and Staff,
We worry about events in Maine, events in the Middle East, in Ukraine and elsewhere. I deeply hope that your loved ones are safe. Please remember that we are a Diverse College where Everyone Belongs.With regard to dealing with troubling events, but really over many years, I have been puzzled by the scholarly search for The Meaning of Life. Particularly, I have not understood why this quest is always and only framed in reference to people. As a Biologist, human and non-human life has always been unified for me.One reason for focus on the Meaning of Life, I think, is that life is a struggle at some level for almost everyone - a mix of joy, despair, happiness, sadness, gratitude and worry. And this has led philosophers to try and explain away the bad, sometimes terrible parts of life, by exacting a Meaning for it all.A related reason for the quest to frame a Meaning of Life, I believe, is the notion that people have often been considered the ‘highest’ life forms, suggesting that human life must have a commensurately high purpose. Even after evolutionary connections were uncovered, this notion persisted (as in the Tree of Humanity shown). In fact, present evolutionary diagrams look nothing like Haeckel’s. If you look at Figure 1 in this paper, you will be hard-pressed to find where humans lie in the more current Tree of Life shown. It turns out that we are now classified in the Supergroup Opsthikonta, including all multicellular animals and fungi. (I learned this while writing, so no worries if the name is new to you also!) Most life on earth is single-celled, and bacteria and archaea (which look like bacteria but are different) make up >75% of all the species on earth, with the Opsthikonts and humans making up a miniscule fraction. And more, at some scale we look very similar to other animals, all with eyes, mouth, heart, and kidneys, even if we humans have some larger brain regions.Noting that humans are part of the vast connectedness of life, it seems useful to consider the meaning of life in a more unified way. My egalitarian view, a philosophy, is that all living creatures share an opportunity: the ‘opportunity to participate in life’. The opportunity is variable. In some cases, life is over quickly, or is very hard, there is more food, or more safety. But there is no species barrier here. If we want a described Meaning of Life, I think it’s the opportunity to participate, that is there for everything living. The opportunity can be modulated – by sharing or caring. People can make opportunities, and our goal in the College of Science and at Northeastern University, is that every College member is “empowered with equitable opportunities and access to resources”. We can try to make the best of our opportunity, but simply by living, each of us is participating. The notion that we participate without trying takes the pressure off, and as I remind students, life is not a race, and there is no winner. Participating does not require that we must be high achievers, nor be ‘best’ at something, although it’s generally satisfying to try hard to do something you consider worthwhile, while not being overwhelmed by what is not in your control. Each of us in the College of Science is doing work that is important and interesting, and that is a wonderful opportunity to participate. Thank you for your participation in our crucial work to promote the Good Power of Science in education and research. Please take care of yourselves, and one another.