29 December 2009

To live at all is miracle enough

We are going to die, and that makes us the lucky ones. Most people are never going to die because they are never going to be born. The potential people who could have been here in my place but who will in fact never see the light of day outnumber the sand grains of Arabia. Certainly those unborn ghosts include greater poets than Keats, scientists greater than Newton. We know this because the set of possible people allowed by our DNA so massively exceeds the set of actual people. In the teeth of these stupefying odds it is you and I, in our ordinariness, that are here. Richard Dawkins
thanks, a.p.

3 comments:

adamf said...

Oddly, I like this quote although I'm not sure exactly what to make of it. How are we more lucky than nothing?

George said...

It opens the door for purpose vs. randomness. Implications are large.

limes said...

George, how so?