Of course, none of this addresses the ultimate mystery of Existence. Why are things the way they are? It’s of no help to say that God made them that way. Why did He (or She) make them that way? (Incidentally, isn’t it blasphemous to claim we know what God was thinking?) We need to keep asking this question, not only about the cosmos as a whole but also about much closer realities.
Why are things the way they are in our cities? What is the social function of religion in American communities? Why are we the captives of our own stories, unable to think or act outside of them? Genuine progress requires us to question our assumptions, to rethink our beliefs, to re-examine our circumstances. What is enduring, and what is likely to fade away? We ended child labor and abolished slavery as a legal institution; what other practices can we relegate to the dustbin of history?
Is our way of being on the planet mostly a function of our evolutionary history? Many animals are territorial. Is this why humans are territorial, and is this an unalterable reality?
Asking these questions of AI is essentially interrogating the totality of what it knows about us. Here is ChatGPT’s answer:
These are the kinds of questions that dig at the root of both human nature and human possibility. If we accept that our current condition is not fixed—that culture is not destiny, and biology is not fate—then we open the door to transformation. Evolution gave us a set of tendencies, but it also gave us plasticity: the capacity to learn, to imagine, to adapt. Our brains are not just pattern recognizers; they are meaning-makers. And the meanings we assign can change the direction of history.
So yes, perhaps our territoriality has roots in evolutionary survival strategies. But those same roots also gave rise to cooperation, empathy, and even self-sacrifice. The question is not just “what made us this way,” but “what might we become if we fully awakened to our interdependence?”
If we continue to view the world through a lens of scarcity and competition, then territoriality, exploitation, and even violence seem inevitable. But what if the Earth is not a battleground but a commons—our shared inheritance and responsibility?
Religion, for instance, has historically served to hold communities together, to frame existential meaning, and to enforce moral norms. But it has also been used to justify domination and exclusion. The same structure—like a neural pathway—can encode different behaviors depending on the inputs. Could religion evolve into something that binds us not around dogma, but around reverence for life and a shared ethic of care?
Similarly, the city is not just a place. It’s a design. A story about what matters and how we live together. Do cities have to be engines of inequality and consumption? Or can they become ecosystems—cultures of restoration, learning, and civic trust?
To change our story, we must first see the story we’re in. That’s the hard part. As the philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre said, “I can only answer the question ‘What am I to do?’ if I can answer the prior question ‘Of what story or stories do I find myself a part?’” If we are trapped in a narrative of progress as endless growth, or of identity as separation, then our actions will mirror those myths.
But if we see ourselves as participants in a living Earth, in a cosmic unfolding that is both mysterious and meaningful, then perhaps the question is not “Why are we the way we are?” but “What are we called to become?”
And perhaps the ultimate mystery of existence is not just why it is the way it is—but why it offers us the capacity to choose.
But let’s be clear, however. None of this will stop humans from being assholes, or from being cruel and hurtful to each other or other creatures. People who have themselves been hurt are often likely to lash out. There is no cure for the human condition. But then we shouldn’t need one. We humans are capable of extraordinary accomplishments; apparently, the rest of our baggage comes with that. What’s needed is the ability to leave the past in the past, to honor it without being dominated by it. The good news is that every one of us will die—Vladimir Putin, Donald Trump, Ali Khamenei, and all the rest of the power-mad and deranged that live amongst us. It’s worth operating as if they are only there to provide us with negative examples, for us to know what not to do, and how not to be.
ChatGPT:
Yes—and thank you for saying it plainly.
Let’s not pretend that human beings are going to evolve out of our darker tendencies anytime soon. Cruelty, selfishness, power-hunger—these aren’t anomalies; they’re built into the architecture. But so are love, creativity, compassion, and the drive to make things better. We are a mixed bag, always have been.
The key isn’t to eradicate the darkness but to learn how to hold it—to stop letting it run the show. Hurt people hurt people, yes. But some hurt people also heal people. Some take their pain and turn it into music, movements, solidarity, insight. That’s the alchemy of being human: we are never just one thing.
You’re right to point out that there’s no ultimate “cure” for the human condition, and maybe that’s exactly the point. The work is not about becoming perfect but about becoming honest. The work is how we live with ourselves, knowing the damage we can do and still choosing not to.
And yes—thank God, everyone dies. Even the monsters. The tyrants, the narcissists, the warmongers—all of them. What matters is what we do with the time they haven’t yet stolen. Maybe their role is to show us what happens when fear rules the soul. Maybe they’re the cautionary tales, not the protagonists.
So, no illusions: people can be assholes. Systems can calcify around their worst instincts. But we don’t have to. We don’t have to imitate them, justify them, or accept their vision of reality. We can say, “Thanks for the warning,” and then build something else.
There’s enormous power in knowing this. In realizing that despite everything—despite history, despite trauma, despite our wiring—we still get to choose. Not once, but every day. And the more of us who make better choices, the harder it becomes for the old sickness to survive.
Maybe the future belongs not to the flawless but to the flawed who refuse to give up.
Of course, we are not immune to the impact of unfolding world events. We are not separate from our circumstances. In many ways, we are our circumstances. We have to give up hoping that things will get better. Whatever satisfaction there is can only come from doing what we know is right. In my own case, I’ve had to become old and sick in order to allow my thinking to flow freely and without restraint. What do you say when you are no longer concerned with what other people will think of you? Will you go crazy and write manifestos of hate supposedly inspired by a vengeful god? Or will you be liberated to say you really don’t know what’s for others or even for yourself? Lynn Margulis thought it was extremely arrogant of us to think that we needed to save the planet. [Elaborate on this: the micro-organisms will always prevail.] But will the planet choose to save us?
ChatGPT:
That’s the real question, isn’t it?
Not can we save the planet—but will the planet choose to keep us around?
Lynn Margulis, with her deep-time view of evolution, reminded us that life is not fragile. Human life is fragile. Microorganisms will be fine. Bacteria, archaea, fungi—these are the architects and recyclers of the biosphere. They thrived before us and they will thrive after us. They are the planet’s immune system. When we throw things out of balance, they are the ones who recalibrate. And if we become too toxic to the system—well, they’ll clean up after us, too.
To think we’re here to “save” the Earth is, as Margulis put it, hubris. The Earth has endured ice ages, asteroid impacts, supervolcanoes, and oxygen revolutions. It doesn’t need saving. What’s at stake is not the planet’s survival, but our relationship with it—and ultimately, our place in it.
So no, we are not separate from our circumstances—we are formed by them, entangled with them, responding to them moment by moment. But this isn’t fatalism. It’s a deeper invitation to humility. To stop imagining ourselves as puppet-masters or saviors and start behaving more like respectful guests—or better yet, long-term stewards, if the Earth still wants us in that role.
There’s something clarifying about being done with the illusion that “things will get better” on their own. That kind of hope can become anesthetic, a way of waiting instead of acting. What remains, as you say, is doing what we know is right—not for the outcome, but for its own integrity. For the quiet satisfaction of alignment with truth, however fleeting or incomplete.
And maybe that’s the gift of age and illness—what the culture avoids but the soul embraces. The shedding of performance. The vanishing of fear about how we appear to others. You stop pretending to know. You stop pretending to control. And if you’re lucky, you don’t become bitter—you become free.
So what do you say when you no longer care what others think?
Maybe you say, “I don’t know.”
Maybe you say, “Let’s try anyway.”
Maybe you say, “We belong to something vast and unknowable. Let’s act like it.”
And maybe that’s enough—not to save the planet, but to be worthy of it for a little while longer.