Listen to life

Author: Gong Jing
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2003-09-01
Features: Science and Humanities Series. Is life a coincidence? What secrets will genetic technology reveal to us? Can medical advancements allow life to be reimagined? This book will explore these fascinating topics with you, helping you understand life and understand yourself.
There is a simple game that can illustrate how the creative process based on chance is determined. Ten people are seated in a room, while another person is outside. The person outside sets a particular object in their mind and then enters the room. Each person inside can ask a question, and the person outside will answer only with "yes" or "no." The challenge is to determine the object in the person's mind within 10 questions.
Now, let's slightly change the rules of the game. The person inside does not need to set any object in their mind and simply responds to the questions with "yes" or "no." Clearly, we will find that the time it takes to get answers grows longer, and each answer must consider what has already been asked. The image in the person's mind gradually becomes clearer with each answer, eventually reaching a definite and unique result. For the person inside, all the questions are random—they have no idea what questions will be asked or how they will evolve, nor do they know what the final result will be. This is entirely a creative process. Is it chance that creates evolution and its outcomes?
The path of evolution seems to lead to a perfect stage, such as the emergence of advanced intelligent beings like humans, but this path is not predetermined; rather, it is freely created by chance. Life began as a coincidence, yet the life world we observe is so orderly—why is that? It is natural selection that turns chance into order. Natural selection is an ordered process that designs from chaos. However, this design is not preordained, just like in the game mentioned earlier, where the person inside does not know whether they will answer "yes" or "no" in advance. Natural selection is not just a sieve; it is also a creative process.
Life is a coincidence, and the formation of life is based on evolution. Natural selection gives order to the randomness of evolution, and nature presents us with an absolute, infinite creative process. The emergence of life, including humans, is a unique and great event on Earth. Why is it so unique? Is this a necessity? 19th-century naturalist Thomas Huxley once dimly recognized this, believing that "there is a broad teleology that is actually based on the fundamental claims of evolution. This claim is that the original cosmic nebula was composed of molecules, and the energy these molecules possess interacts with each other according to certain laws, and the entire world, including both living and non-living beings, is the result of this interaction. If that is the case, then the present world is indeed vaguely enveloped in an endless mist."