Homo contingens
Homo contingens refers to questions arising from our particularity.
We live in the interim between the contingency of birth and the certainty of death... We are very lucky to be here!
We appear to be randomly tossed into a specific period and place. We do not choose our particular geographic, historic, linguistic, cultural or socio-economic backdrop.
Many lives are lived in full. Many more are stunted; condemned to ignorance and marginality by wretched material circumstance. Other lives fail to reach their full potential simply because they are cut short by war, injustice, accident or other dreadful exigence.
What are the biological factors that make any given human conception highly improbable?
What is the role of contingency in the unfolding of individual lifetimes?
Why do fate and destiny persist as resonant and relevant concepts?
