Human Life is Superset of Natural Life

Natural life means living solely dependent on Nature on whatever it provides for survival of life or its destruction. A huge number of forms of life exist with sole dependence on the Nature, to survive on food available naturally whenever atmospheric conditions of temperature, pressure, moisture, etc are congenial to life, and get destroyed if the food becomes unavailable or the atmospheric conditions becomes intolerable.

Life has a naturally built-in protective mechanism composed of 'instincts' like those of Survival - running to safety on facing danger, Procreation - producing sexually or asexually own forms of life for continuing the species on the Earth, and Adaptation - changing the self for improving chances of survival through adapting to prevailing conditions. The last instinct causes process of evolution through which different species of life evolved under different situations.

The process of adaptation is much slower than that of destruction of life due to inclement environment. Since changes in atmospheric conditions are fast and many time unpredictable, mass-scale destruction of life takes place very often. To safeguard against destruction of a species on the Earth, the Nature adopts the strategy of producing life forms of every species in huge numbers, so as to save at least a few from mass-scale destruction to keep the existing life-forms in existence. Thus, natural life undergoes mass-scale production and destruction.  

Up to this point, life remains natural but this didn't prove enough. Process of evolution caused development of intellect in some forms of life under some specific situations. The first use of intellect has been walking on two legs to make two arms free for working. Thus, there evolved the human form of life. Working with arms and hands made humans gradually more and more independent from the Nature, which we call the human life.

Next step towards modern human life was seeded by some humans deciding to settle at fixed places for years after years. This spurred a series of activities towards development of modern human civilization. Production of foods through agriculture, protective clothes for covering body, and construction of shelters for safety from dangers of aggressive atmospheric conditions and wild forms of life were the first three steps humans took for becoming independent from extremities of the Nature. This way of life is the beginning of the modern human life.

Objective of being independent from Nature was not to oppose or tame the Nature, but making changes in the self keeping in tune with natural conditions. Therefore, the Nature in its own laws remains part and parcel of human life. Humanity makes only a negligibly tiny fragment of the Cosmos governed by the laws of Nature. Hence, to keep the cosmic activities undisturbed, laws of nature must remain undisturbed. This is why I call the human life as superset of natural life.  

How Natural Evolution and Artificial Design Differ

Natural Evolution

Nature never has any preset design for anything but allows evolution of living organisms in accordance to their prevailing circumstances with the purpose of adaptation. Converse to this, human intellect first conceives a design for something in accordance to prevailing conditions of usage and then constructs it accordingly. So, the inducing factors behind an evolution and construction are different. The constructed things may be made for any type of existing or future, natural or fictitious conditions while the evolution works only for prevailing circumstance. However these may be artificially created.

In evolution, the thing adjusts to circumstances by itself, hence is applicable to living-beings only while a designed thing is non-living though it may imitate animation. Here in this article, I am to examine the two processes for their contribution to evolution and development of human civilization, naturally and artificially.

Artificial Design

Circumstantial and Conditioned

Evolution takes place depending on circumstances while for a construction, conditions of usage are studied and the design is prepared accordingly. Circumstances are that prevail at the particular time and place, therefore evolution is subject to particular time and place. For this reason, a number of living organisms may evolve into different things at different times and at different places.

For a design, human intellect does not limit itself to particular circumstances at a place or time but may perceive quite differing conditions for the usage of the thing, prepares design accordingly and then constructs the thing as per the preconceived design. Therefore, evolution is circumstantial while the design is conditioned.

Living and non-living Things

Evolution process generally takes place on its own in a living organism through its response to the prevailing circumstances. Such things can’t be designed and constructed, at least with the knowledge we have till date. The form and structure of a living organism, for this reason, does not remain stable over time but keep on evolving to adapt to the prevailing circumstances.

However, with imposition of artificially imposed conditions on a living organism, it may be made to respond to these and evolve accordingly. This is the process how human intellect has been forced to evolve over time to the high level it is today. Artificially imposed norms of human civilization on the intellect have been forcing it to keep on evolving gradually and regularly since the time when humans decided to settle at fixed places and develop themselves in to civilized societies. The process of evolution continues through generations of living organisms due to passage of genetic information from one generation to the next. The process of evolution is usually slow needing time through some generations of the organism.

Non-living passive things may be designed to suit any perceived conditions and then constructed. Since, these have no capability of responding on their own to given circumstances, their forms and structures remain stable and there are no natural generation links hence information inheritance.

Evolved Design

It is not that human intellect can’t evolve anything as nature keeps on evolving living organisms. I began constructing my home without any design or pre-conceived notion. It began with the existence of a 8-feet diameter underground chamber constructed by my father as a gobar-gas plant long back. I made a passage for the chamber and with some finishing touches, it works as my bedroom, cozy during winters and cool during summers. Above this, I began constructing my home by working for about 2 hours a day laying bricks for raising walls and then covering walls with roofs.

I call this home as evolved to met my needs gradually. It has taken years and is still incomplete and evolving. But this evolution is not on its own, it needs to be engineered by me artificially. Therefore, technically it is not an evolution but a slow process of realization of needs and then designing constructing.