Although Homo sapiens started thinking from more than 150,000 years ago, the recorded history of the species is too low – only for the past 10,000 years.
Even so, the intellectual growth of humankind as a species is confined to an even smaller period, the past 4000 years only! It was during the past 4 millennia that the full scope of humans’ purpose, in reality, was understood to be – the motive to explore and realise everything.
The need to understand the reality around them prompted humans to involve in various researches, and the results of their observations were given out in the form of ideas and principles. Philosophers like Thiruvalluvar, Socrates, Plato and scientists like Ptolemy and Aryabhatta are very much heard of, and their ideas about reality and life were very much discussed on.
What was observed by such intellectuals was that life as a process has a purpose to exist. Any life form that was born, be it an ant or an elephant, has a reason to live on this planet. The humankind, being able to think, was considered much superior to other life forms, since unlike other beings, humans were able to reshape the reality they were part of, and naturally, they became more responsible (Did they?).
The ability to think and reason enabled man to upgrade himself by effectively utilising the resources around him. This reasoning along with the thought process made humans to understand the purpose of life through understanding the reality they were a part of. The realisation that to understand the purpose of existence is the very purpose of life struck humankind in different ways and at different times.
This search for the ‘why’ required the search for ‘what’ and ‘how’. And in turn, humans started observing reality, closely.
