Contingency or Coincidence?—Part 2

In fact, I like to speculate about what our world might be like, if a given major event had not occurred. For example, what if that contingent asteroid 65 million years ago had not blasted into Earth? At the time, the dinosaurs ruled the planet, and they had successfully done so for more than a hundred million years. (Try to wrap your head around that time frame: that's some 500 times longer than we humans have been a species!) At thatsmall mammals—from which we humans evolved—scurried around in the dark, trying to keep from being trampled upon or eaten by the big lizards. In the aftermath of the collision, the dinosaurs died out and the age of mammals began. How would life on Earth have been different, if that asteroid had missed the planet? Might today's dominant species be an intelligent lizard, rather than Homo sapiens?

In 2000 Al Gore lost the US presidential election... but he really didn't. Some nefarious activities by George Bush's brother Jeb, Florida's governor at the time, managed to prevent thousands of Floridians from voting—most of whom, since they were either black or poor, would have voted for Gore. George Bush would thus have been relegated to history's trash bin. By coincidence (well, actually with the aid of a biased US Supreme Court), Bush became president. Had Gore won, it's doubtful that the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan would have happened. It's also likely that the US would have assumed a leadership role in dealing with global warming, rather than deny that it is happening. Surely history would have taken another path, had Gore become president.

Let's look at a third alternative possibility. Certain contingent events hundreds of years ago placed European countries in a position to dominate the planet—both economically and militarily. As Jared Diamond demonstrated so well in his book Guns, Germs, and Steel, the Europeans gained the upper hand, when competing with all other societies on the planet. Europeans defeated and controlled peoples in the Americas, the Middle and Far Easts, and Africa. The European way came to dominate. But how radically different would today's world appear if, for example, Africans had held the upper hand? Or if the Aztecs had been stronger than the conquistadors? What if the mighty Islamic empire of the Middle East had won its rivalry with the West in the 1400s? Play history over again and the world would be a very different place.

I find this a fascinating game to play. Of course, there is no way to realistically guess how these and countless other contingencies may have altered the world of today. In a similar manner, I cannot begin to speculate who I might be if my parents had never married. I simply would not be!

This kind of musing is fun for me, but has no real point to it, other than reminding me that it didn't have to be this way. There was no destiny or cosmic intent involved in how things played out. Our future is not fixed by fate. Things simply happen, and they don't happen because they were supposed to. There is no plan. The future remains unknown and even random. The world wasn't destined to be what it is. May I let go the need to want to see some purpose that determined it all and simply accept and be thankful for what is.