Similar analogies with societal purpose exist for cosmic purpose regarding a sense of control and the source of creativity resulting from commitment to one’s chosen profession, though control is less prominent when cosmic purpose is the end and creativity is more essential. The fourth personal benefit, consolidation of virtue, is perhaps more elusive – there seems little ethical significance to pure mathematics for instance. 
However protection of the environment and of innocent wildlife species entails virtue as we discussed at length in an earlier section.1 Contentment via cosmic purpose is a mixed bag; the pure scientist may be frustrated in the slow process of discovery, but the rocket scientist must feel tremendous satisfaction, even elation, in being a part of a successful launch.
Fulfillment and authenticity are at the two extremes of personal benefit in the case of cosmic purpose . Self-fulfillment obviously is so contingent on a level of success that this benefit is intricately tied to a focus on the success factors detailed in the earlier blogs. For the environmentalist who sees little progress, one must, like in the case of suffering, find meaning in the endurance of failure and feeling one’s efforts are worthy of the purpose one pursues. On the other hand, authenticity seems more assured; one simply does not choose one of the cosmic roles unless it seems to be the genuine purpose of one’s life, partly because of the difficulties involved, but also because of the intangible nature of the likely outcomes. For example, the choice to become a pure mathematician is made only when once recognizes it as the authentic role one should or must choose. This is much less likely to apply to the choice to become an attorney, physician, or educator.
We end with legacy where cosmic purpose offers the ultimate form. Euclid’s book of geometry is one for all time. There is little chance that Galileo’s devotion to astronomy will ever be forgotten or considered inconsequential. His development of the working telescope and his demonstration of the sun-centered solar system are legacies that are eternal. Theodore Roosevelt’s initiation of the national park system is a legacy far greater than his work to end the Sino-Russian War even though it led to his Nobel Peace Prize or his support for the Panama Canal with its waning significance as ships become too large to navigate it. Immortality through legacy is one of the great draws of many cosmic purposes.
—————————————————
1See posts on this site 3/31/21 through 5/4 2021.
Like societal purpose, cosmic purpose can fulfill the need for subsistence of oneself and one’s dependents. However there is a meaningful difference in that personal compensation for one’s work in the cosmic realm is contingent not on a direct monetary value such as one finds in a business or a practical profession, but on the good will and shared vision of a government, an institution, or an individual benefactor. An intermediate source of funding serves as a filter to affirm the likely cosmic value of one’s efforts. A good example is NASA’s funding for the remarkable New Horizon’s mission to Pluto by the skilled team of dedicated scientists who of course also received for their work salaries support.
Starting with identity, the role one chooses for making a difference in the progress of science, the preservation of Nature and the Earth, or in humanity’s extraterrestrial future serve in defining one’s image of oneself in the world, even in the universe, just as much as their profession defines identity for the professor or the concert pianist in society. As before, one’s lifelong devotion to a cosmic purpose becomes integral to the very sense of self.
The fifth factor in successful cosmic purpose is realistic expectations. Here I cite the example of Marie Curie, double Nobel laureate and discoverer of radioactivity and the element radium. When she left the comfort of her parent’s home in Poland for the Latin quarter of Paris in the 1890s, she sought purpose not in the social sphere, but in physics. Quoting from her biography (written by her daughter, Eve), “From childhood the Polish girl had carried the curiosity and daring of an explorer with her…In her walks in the woods she always chose the wild trail or the unfrequented road.”8 For her doctoral thesis Mdm. Curie decided to build on the work of Henri Becquerel who had found uranium emitted rays of an unknown nature that made an impression on a photographic plate.
The last of our success factors is intention or deciding on a specific goal and formulating a plan for its accomplishment. Johann Kepler (1571-1630) was convinced at age 22 that Copernicus was correct that the sun was the center of the planetary system. Forsaking a career in divinity, he accepted a university post in mathematics and devoted his life to science. “What Kepler aimed at throughout his whole life was to find a law binding the members of the solar system together as regards the distribution of their orbits through space…”9 In his first great work Prodomus Dissertationum Cosmographicarum continens Mysterium Cosmographicum, he made convincing arguments against the Ptolemaic system in favor of the Copernican. When trigonometry failed to explain planetary motion, he chanced upon geometry as his platform, but saw that he required better data than that available to Copernicus. He next traveled to the observatory of Tycho Brahe with whom he collaborated until the latter’s death. With Tycho’s precise measurements and ten years of painstaking calculations, he learned that the planets including Earth follow an oval or elliptical path not a circular one as had been assumed by all prior astronomers and that the speed of movement varies by the distance from the sun. From this decade of pointed work he formulated the three laws that finally explained the nature of planetary orbits still accepted to this day.
The third success factor is flexibility. Here I propose Thomas Kuhn as an excellent example. He began with an academic career in physics initially researching radar at Harvard during World War II. His doctoral thesis concerned an application of quantum mechanics to solid state physics. Until 1956, he taught a class in science for undergraduates in the humanities from which he developed an interest in the history of science. In 1961, he took up a post in the philosophy department at the University of California Berekely, where he transitioned from the history of science to the philosophy of science and his publication of The Structure of Scientific Revolutions in 1962. In this influential and controversial work, he argued the development of science is driven in normal periods by adherence to a ‘paradigm.’ The functions of the paradigm are to delineate problems for scientists to work and provide the tools for their solution. When the accepted paradigm fails to account for increasing numbers of aberrances called ‘anomalies,’ a crisis ensues and a scientific revolution follows wherein the existing paradigm is superseded by an alternative which is not fully commensurable with the science developed under the earlier paradigm.4 Like Michelangelo who accepted cultural purpose in painting not sculpting for Pope Sixtus IV, Kuhn achieved cosmic purpose, not by sticking to his comfort zone in physics, but by being flexible enough to find his perfect niche.
The fourth success factor is enjoyment, that is, success is more likely if one chooses work one enjoys that can also serve as cosmic purpose. Consider John James Audubon, who combined his love of nature, painting, and travel into an enduring cosmic purpose. In his Mississippi River Journal he writes, “Ever since Boy[hood] I have had an astonishing desire to see much of the World & particularly to Acquire a true knowledge of the birds of North America.”5 The famous Henry Clay wrote a letter of introduction in August 1820 stating, “I have the satisfaction of a personal acquaintance with Mr. John J. Audubon…being about to take a journey through the southwestern portion of the country with the laudable object connected with its natural history, I have great pleasure in recommending him…”6 Imagine Audubon leaving Cincinnati on a flatboat in the first quarter of the 19th century in his words, “…without any Money My Talents are to be My Support and My anthusiasm [sic] My Guide in My Difficulties, the whole of which I am ready to exert to keep and to surmount -.”7 
Anyone who has seen the work of Audubon, not just his paintings of birds, but also his work on mammals (Quadripeds), his observations on Native Americans, and his scientific journals, cannot help but perceive his great cosmic purpose and the rationale for his name being nearly synonymous in our time for wildlife conservation.
“It is the old lesson – a worthy purpose, patient energy for its accomplishment, a resoluteness undaunted by difficulties, and then success.” – William Morley Punshon, 19th century English Wesleyan minister.
When Zubrin grew concerned with NASA delays, he established the Mars Society, an international organization advocating a human mission to Mars using private funding. He alsoworked with Lockheed Martin and Martin-Marietta developing advanced concepts for interplanetary missions and drafted ideas for a potential single-stage-to-orbit spacecraft. His inventions include the nuclear salt-water rocket and the magnetic sail. He was featured in a 2007 CBC documentary special, The Passionate Eye, dubbed “The Mars Underground” and in 2016 was one of several scientists and engineers interviewed in the
Zubrin may not be the best example of the second success factor, patience. A better example would be Kenya’s Wangari Muta Maathai, the 2004 Nobel Peace Prize winner, an environmentalist and human rights activist. She founded the Green Belt Movement in 1977 to plant trees across Kenya in part to alleviate poverty and end conflict. She once said. “The more you degrade the environment, the more you dig deeper into poverty.” She mobilized Kenyans, particularly women, to plant more than 30 million trees, and inspired the United Nations to launch a campaign that has led to the planting of 11 billion trees worldwide.3 No one can expect to see dramatic results from planting trees in a short time frame; but the compelling purpose is undeniable. One is reminded of the ancient Greek proverb, “Society grows great when old men plant trees whose shade they know they shall never sit in.”
In the pursuit of the highest possible purpose, we come upon the paramount of factors, our beliefs on the destiny of the earth and of the universe. The Earth has suffered 5 prior mass extinctions and many more less severe ones. As Carl Sagan and Michio Kaku have argued, given the apparent rarity of life and intelligent beings in the cosmos as we know it, and our unique position as the terrestrial creature that can arrange off-planet travel, a cosmic purpose for our species is to preserve lifeforms including our own perhaps by colonizing another planet (most likely Mars). Thinking still further out, Fred Adams and Greg Laughlin in their intriguing book, The Five Ages of the Universe remind us stellar research shows that in a few billion years Earth will be uninhabitable due to solar expansion into a red giant and life in our solar system will be untenable after the Sun’s death in perhaps 5 billion years. By their calculations, an accidental galactic colonization of the Milky Way would require about 3 trillion years, but an intelligent one would take only about a billion years. A tangible cosmic purpose is to be a part, no matter how small, of that multigenerational effort to facilitate life’s spread in the universe.
Preservation of the most minor of species is of great import given that each is the result of nearly 4 billion years of evolution. Issues of quantity and proportion are much like we discussed for cultural purpose, though with cosmic purpose, quantity is likely to be few or one and purpose will nearly always be shared with others. Measurability and likelihood of success are lower in cosmic purpose especially since any effects on Nature may be temporary no matter how apparently successful (revitalizing a species off the endangered list is no guarantee of its eventual survival). All cosmic purposes have lower likelihood of success than most cultural ones; and this must be accepted at the outset.
“The moral shift from anthropocentricity to biocentricity is not psychologically impossible for human moral agents to accomplish… Nothing prevents us from exercising our powers of autonomy and rationality in bringing the world as it is gradually closer to the world as it ought to be.” – Paul W. Taylor, Respect for Nature (closing paragraphs).
Significant limitations should be infrequent for the healthy, though as I know from personal experience, one is less giving of one’s time as the candle burns lower. Moreover major contributions in pure science and mathematics typically emerge from a younger brain.1 Other decision factors regarding physical health and mental aptitudes are not fundamentally different then in the case of cultural purpose.2
“A superior intelligence has guided the development of man in a definite direction, and for a special purpose.” – Alfred Russell Wallace.1
There is of course a middle ground, the one I prefer myself, one ought to have both a societal purpose
“The desire to know something of our neighbors in the immense depths of space does not spring from idle curiosity nor thirst for knowledge, but from a deeper cause, and it is a feeling firmly rooted in the heart of every human being capable of thinking at all.” – Nikola Tesla.
In this case, individuals adopt a cause such as battling climate change, environmentalism, rare species preservation, even extraterrestrial colonization. Alternatively pure scientists and mathematicians usually serve two roles – research towards incremental progress and influence through their function as educators and experts.
