"To nature, there is nothing special about life, and definitely nothing special about one particular life-form: humans. Everything is following natural physical laws. If there are observations that something isn’t following physical laws, then we haven’t yet understood the laws that it is most assuredly following. What does it mean for life to be simply following physical laws and processes? Well, that’s up to the individual. It certainly means we don’t have free will. It means that no human is better than any other human or better than any other life form, or even better than a rock. It means nothing to a rock. To humans, which may be the only life form with the physical abilities to wonder what this means, it means that there is no better way to live that the way we are living at any point. Unless, as individuals, we define what better actually means. If it means more money, then, for most humans, there are better ways to live. If it means less damage to the rest of nature, then there are definitely better ways to live. But it all depends on what each individual wants out of life… It can be humbling (though that depends on one’s brain chemistry) to understand that we are just physical things. However, it can also lead to a total acceptance of the collapse of civilisation, since it isn’t anything special. Civilisation will end. The Earth will end. The Solar System will end, as will our galaxy, the Milky Way, and countless other galaxies… [and] there is nothing spiritual about life, about humans. There is nothing special about humans, about this time. We are simply following a path laid out by physical laws, as is evolution… [and] that’s a shame. It would be great to think that my essence could go on for ever, and still able to think rational thoughts, just to see how all this develops."