components are missing, or if the processes themselves are interrupted in some fashion, then life ceases. For the very simplest life-forms, the replication process may well be the ultimate end in itself. Thus, their fullest meaning of life is to exist, and through that existence to cause more of their kind to exist. We’re hard pressed to say that this is not also the basic meaning of life for more complex species as well. The question of whether a meaning of life should be attached to the grown organism or to its origin is examined in depth by Richard Dawkins in The Selfish Gene. Actually, the question can be extended to any aspect of the organism during its development. Beyond the basics, a meaning of life will have to be found elsewhere than, for example, in the need for the individual to exist and reproduce through a hosting organism.

Through DNA’s blueprint facility, a construction pattern is passed from one generation to the next. If the pattern is changed, then the new generation is different from the old generation. This feature can be used to extract a history of sorts regarding the changes among different generations of a species or between one species and its precursor species. Specifically, relatively minute changes within certain sections of the genome of a species when compared to similar sections in the genome of a precursor species can give an indication of the time lapse since the divergence of the two species. With an assignment of a value of good to the quantity of a specific living entity (or collection of similar entities) then it is indeed good for a particular common genome to propagate and bad if it terminates. Continued propagation translates into more living material and termination of propagation translates into less. This could be innocently rendered as the purpose of living entities at its most basic level.

Once we move beyond the simplest forms of life, purpose becomes a more abstract concept to apply and to interpret. To some extent, the more simplistic purpose still applies; we see at least the tinge of this logic applied in the highest and most esoteric levels of sentient life. Through complex groups of people, for example, evolutionary principles to a large extent play out just as they do with simpler life forms. With such groups, however, the mechanisms of change and selection are also more complex than those found for simple and/or single organisms. But similarly, the social structures that are effected through the grouping of individuals are largely about ensuring that they propagate to the superiority of other similar structures at best, and at the very least survive in the face of these other structures. However, it seems likely that this isn’t the complete story of the interaction of complex groups, as we’ll consider a little later on.

Mutation and Genetics

The principle of evolution involves two distinct phases: first, the introduction of an organism with new characteristics into an environment and second, the process of natural selection through which the efficacy of the new organism, or, perhaps more appropriately, its new characteristics within the environment are judged to be beneficial. Just what constitutes beneficial will be considered in the following section. For the moment, in considering the first of these phases, that is, the introduction of a new organism into an environment, we find two generally accepted mechanisms for change. Living organisms can be significantly altered in form through a change process call mutation. A mutation is a change in the base-pair sequencing within a DNA molecule. Any such change can impact the subsequent production of proteins. This might result in the production of altered proteins or changes in the operational instructions regarding the amount, location and functional purpose of the proteins produced. If the change occurs in the germ cells or zygote that are so central in the earliest stages of reproduction and the mutation is not lethal, then the resultant change will be propagated throughout the entire new individual. Genetic variability is also introduced into organisms as a result of genetic recombination, also called chromosomal

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