'Life' is no doubt one of the greatest mysteries with its cause and nature certainly one of the grandest of all questions. We can define life in many ways but there are some fundamental facets that we all agree are consistent with life as we know it. Such as life requires some basic biological functions and the ability to reproduce itself in some manner. This is a grand over simplification of all of this but certainly the basics of life is something we are all familiar with.The natural world allows for just about anything to exist but life is in many ways the most grand of absurdity. How in the universe could some random chemicals just start moving into order, countless eons ago, that would continue evolve into the level of complexity of the human brain and perhaps beyond? There are many faiths that suggest that the miracle of life was created by a supernatural being and while there is no proof that this did not happen there is less that it did. Either way, it is a wonder that we do know many things about but still have many questions to answer.
A thought that I have is that with everything in nature, save for life, things seems to be dominated by the second law of thermodynamics known as entropy. This is demonstrated when things that are in order naturally move from order to disorder and is a part of our natural world. An example of entropy is simply when you see a glass fall and shatter. That movement from the orderly structure of the glass into a broken glass is in a very simple sense entropy and again the second law of thermodynamics. Interestingly, life seems to be one of, if not the only, natural force that resists entropy by creating order into the highest magnitude of life, form and function that would not nor could otherwise exist.
When life is first created the level of resistance to entropy is very strong but we age, and all the things we create which is a byproduct of life ages, the entropic force starts to grow stronger and the force of life slips away. It is a constant balance and fight that exists in our world every day but not often thought about. No matter what level of care we give any product of life eventually entropy will overtake life. However, for a period of time our 'life force' gives us resistance and while this may be a spiritually based concept leaves some room for thought of what that 'life force' may be.
I see all life as an equal representation of that life force of which we are only a facet and not the reason for life. Many times it seems that when we ask about the meaning of life we really want to know the meaning of our life and personally I think this is a egoic perspective as we are likely not that special. Rather, I favor the question of what is life in general and why does life exist at all. Due to the much higher level of order we have within the human brain perhaps there is more life energy involved but 'special' just doesn't seem to be anything other than our way to feed our ego and our collective ego.
Another thought about life is that we are literally made of star dust, mostly created from ancient super nova stars, and within our bodies exists a fairly balanced percentage of elements as they exist within the universe. From Carbon being one of the more common elements to heavy elements such as iron (makes your blood red) in far more rare percentages. Additionally, our ego creates a sense of duality that makes us feel that we are some how separated from the physical world but we are a product of specifically the earth. In other words, and stealing a reference from Alan Watts, just as the apple tree apples the earth peoples. We are the offspring of life that is mother earth, which by many measures, is a life form of its own.
Also, being a life form created from the stuff of the universe, in many ways we are a product of the universe that has become 'self aware'. Through various forms of life it is like the universe is experiencing itself through our eyes, ears, other senses and also even our thoughts, dreams and our wonder of mysteries of existence. Building on that if there is a creator and a creative force that exists within the universe instead of the creator being 'out there' and us 'in here' perhaps all life are individual expressions of the creator attempting to experience its own creation through our eyes.
In many ways 'we' give the universe meaning by our observations, definitions and other ways we break things down into digestible aspects that our consciousness can absorb. After all imagine what the universe would look like without any life at all? It would have no beauty... no mystery... what would light be... or distance? Everything we know and understand about reality is in many ways the universe, through consciousness and life, attempting to more about itself.
It would be the ultimate Schrödinger's cat box experiment that is filled with an infinite degree of quantum potential but without life there would be nothing to observe it when it was opened and to thus collapse the wave function into something or nothing. The universe may well simply remain endlessly in a state of quantum potential and that may very well be the purpose of our existence.
Furthermore, your eyes may not only be just the window to your soul but perhaps the creators as well.
