Abstract: The article solves the meaning of the life problem.
I am finally in the position to put all pieces together in the big puzzle and can solve the ultimate problem in a short way using elementary arguments only. The argument easily leading to the solution proceeds with the following steps:
Step 1. Major changes on the Earth’s climate are caused by several mechanisms. One main mechanism is that climatic warming is triggered by a change in insolation and a positive feedback loop made by global temperature and atmospheric CO2 enhance the change causing melting of glaciers. Another mechanism contribution to is the Bond cycle, where melt water from glaciers decreases salinity of the Arctic sea and the Gulf stream weakens causing cooling of the Northern latitudes and decreasing melt water, which leads to another cycle. A different mechanism is cooling as a result of a comet impact or prolonged volcano activity. To some extent these climatic cycles are understood and the insolation changes are a result of gravitational effects of other planets on the Earth’s orbit (the obliquity and eccentricity cycles) or of the precession of the Earth’s axis.
Step 2. An increase in insolation triggered the end of the Last Glacial Maximum. The warming period was interrupted in 10.800 BC when the Earth was hit by a comet resulting to cooling phase of the Younger Dryas. The end of the Younger Dryas in 9,600 BC was associated with floods. These two catastrophic events: the comet burning of 1/10th of the Earth in 10.800 BC and the floods in 9,600 BC resulted in a new religion of gods of the sky, who tried twice to destroy the humanity. An important part of this religion was observing the stars and calculating the end of the times, by which was meant the end of an era. Early astronomers observed changes in the celestial North Pole, i.e., the precession of equinoxes, and the positions of the planets. These observations give the essential information for determining changes in insolation (Milankowich cycles). Early astronomers also followed comets and considered them as predictions of a catastrophe, which is understandable considering the comet of 10,800 BC. Thus, early astronomical religion was quite correct. Time on the Earth is indeed divided into eras separated by catastrophes and the ending time of the eras can be estimated by observing the celestial North Pole (or the Zodiac), the positions of the planets, and comets. There are such cycles that early astrologers could not observe, like the wobbling of the solar system around the plane of the Milky Way. This periodic movement with the period of some 51 million years can be responsible for mass extinctions in sea animals because cosmic radiation that the Earth receives varies during this cycle. The cycle is too long to be of importance to humans, but it is relevant to the life on the Earth.
Step 3. A large climatic change on the Earth has often caused mass extinctions of species. After a mass extinction new species and even new classes of species have emerged in a evolutionally short time. This short period when new species develop is followed by a much longer period when species change only slowly. The long rather stable period ends to a new mass extinction, usually in a climatic catastrophe. This process can be described as a catastrophe followed by a creation phase, which is followed by a competitive phase. Natural selection is not important in the creation phase, because as so many animals and plants have died in the mass extinction, the survivors can multiply easily, the level of competition for resources is low and natural selection pressure is low. We can also assume that the mutation rate is higher than normal during the creation phase. This is because the environment has changed and natural protection mechanisms which normally discard mutations (random mutations or insertions of viral/bacterial DNA) do not work well in the new environment. Thus, world eras can be divided into three phases: a creation phase, a competition phase and a catastrophe, after which the cycle repeats. Such a division corresponds closely to a three god system in early religions: a creator god, a maintainer god and a destructor god, which is explicit in Hinduism and present in many old religions. These three gods are usually seen as aspects of only one god, the god of the time, or the god of the eras.
Step 4. Thus early gods-of-the-night sky religion was essentially correct: time is divided into eras, eras end to catastrophes, there is a creation phase, the ends of the eras can be found by observing stars and planets. Science accepts climatic changes, mass extinctions, Milankowitch cycles and comet impacts, and fast creation of new species after a mass extinction, so everything so far is scientifically confirmed. This god religion also included believing in the existence of a soul and that gods save some beings from the catastrophe. These beliefs are not commonly accepted by science, but that seems to be because of historical reasons: science has long been opposing a literary interpretation of religious texts. Yet, they may have a literary interpretation, yet not the naive literary interpretation.
Mass extinctions have a curious feature that species start disappearing before the catastrophe. As an example, the class of dinosauri disappeared after a mass extinction 65 million years ago and much points to the reason for this mass extinction having been a comet impact. Yet, dinosaur species started becoming extinct before the impact and no single impact should have destroyed all species of a dominant class. It is much easier to understand this extinction if we assume that a dinosaur had a soul or mind in a similar way as we do. In fact, if humans are not exceptional, all life has this feature to some extent. Live creatures try to stay alive: there is the wish to stay alive. But dinosaur species lost this spirit. Why would it not be so that there were souls that could be born as dinosaur, but preferred to be born as birds or mammals? It would be like selecting clothes. Some clothes go out of fashion, while some clothes are always fashionable. Sharks still exist. It is always cool to be a shark, but old fashioned to be a dinosaur.
The concept of a soul is much older than the religion of gods. It goes back to earlier human species to maybe some 500,000 years before present (ybp) and derives from the immediate observation that we have a mind and from the immediate question where the mind comes from and where it goes after the death. Around 35,000 ybp modern humans noticed that some plants caused hallucinations and a similar effect could be reached through trance techniques, leading to a belief that a shaman could move to the other world. Therefore there had to be another world. Today these concepts are not appreciated, but as said, it is simply because of a historical reason and philosophical standpoint, not for any scientific reasons. Adding a soul to the evolution model does not make it less scientific: indeed, it is less scientific at the present as it cannot explain the experience of a mind. It would make sense that souls from a more real world are developing this material world by constructing from simple forms of life more complicated ones. They already have reached the level of conscious beings and created intelligent creatures like us. Achieving these results with random mutations and natural selection would have been a real miracle and only a strong religious believer in the evolution theory and Atheism can accept it without a reasonable doubt. (Fortunately there are physical arguments in favor of another world, such as the concept of time flowing forward. Time should not be flowing anywhere if there is no external time and external time implies an external world. Another one is that this universe has a beginning.)
Can we get to the divine guidance that saves some beings from a catastrophe? It is a natural conclusion if we assume that souls are the driving force of evolution, that is, they develop life on the physical world towards some goal. Thus, they have to select beings that advance the goal. Unfortunately, this quite reasonable scientific idea became unpopular when one small people rewrote old myths to show their group as the people of the promise. Humans have had their time of ruling the world, and they did survive several catastrophes. There was a catastrophe around 70,000 years ago that could have wiped out humans, but a small group survived. The two catastrophes in 10,800 BC and 9.600 BC were never so complete that they could have exterminated all humans, and one in 6,200 BC, when the Doggerland sank to the Atlantic Ocean, was apparently a relatively slow change and humans managed to escape. Doggerland apparently sank when a North American glacier melt water lake broke and more water poured to the Atlantic Ocean. It may be related to the myth of Atlantis. The end of the ice age started many myths, one being the giants: ice left errand boulders to Northern Europe, naturally they were understood to have been thrown by giants.
It then we agree to accept a soul and that souls have existence outside this material world and that they actively guide evolution after catastrophes (but not in other times), then in some way it is possible to be warned of a coming catastrophe. Adding this concept we have a complete set of religious beliefs of early civilization and this set is no less scientific than the present one in our culture.
We are now living at the end of an era. I do not mean the climatic change, though global warming is a fact. This present climatic change was probably started as from a 2000 year warming cycle, which there has been since the last ice age and which probably is a Bond cycle (glacier melt water changing sea streams). In this cycle CO2 rises if temperature rises because warmer oceans release more CO2 but in earlier warm peaks of this cycle (like in the first century) atmospheric CO2 did not raise as much as today. Thus, the present high level of CO2 is dues to human CO2 activities. As it is likely that human CO2 releases cannot be stopped, glaciers probably will melt and in some 500 years we may have a serious catastrophe. But that is irrelevant to the conclusion that this time is an end of an era. It is enough to look at the development in the last 150 years. It is a new world already. There is also a mass extinction of species going on right now. What species will survive to the new era? Some people think that the question is what ethnic groups survive and they believe that they are the people of the promise. However, this is unlikely. What is more likely to happen is that humans create a new being with gene technology and nanotechnology, and this new being is the new species. It will be the new clothes for souls and the old clothes will go out of fashion. The positive thing is that souls are not changing: they are the only real ones and they eternal in our time scales. Species go to extinction, but that is normal development. This also solves the moral justice problem: why there is no justice in this world? As this is not the real world, it does not matter that there is no justice in this world, and no injustice done in this world needs to be compensated as it is not in fact real.
So I solved this old problem. It took me roughly one hour. The solution is not original as the problem was correctly solved thousands of years ago and many time since then. I got the same answer, how otherwise, but I made it a bit differently. I targeted to one A4 as bosses never read more than one A4. It became a bit longer, but it should still be in the limits.