Spirituality: John Haught, God After Einstein

 Along with the capacity to strive comes the prospect of either succeeding or failing. Unlike purely physical or chemical processes, living beings aim to succeed in one way or another, but their aiming for success is not always rewarded. As often as not, living beings fail to achieve their goals. Ultimately, all living beings fail to survive, and the prospect of this final failure makes life especially dramatic. The prospect of failure brings an element of pathos into the universe and introduces a dramatic motif into the cosmic story that becomes increasingly explicit as life becomes more complex.”

“  . . . . . In the story of life, even in the earliest stirring of some cells and organisms, the cosmos had become conative (striving) long before it became cognitive, Cognition itself is a highly advanced form of striving.”