Are we necessary beings or not?

Signal said:
For starters, 'that which cannot be otherwise'.
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If the universe has always existed and conscious self-aware life forms have always been generative and evolvative (coined word) then the presence of intelligent life would have always been fact and it could be no other way. I can see how, in a sense, that could mean it is necessary but then it would be no more remarkable than the dust on wyddyr's key board, (assuming that has always been there :)).
 
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Signal said:
God is sometimes said to be a necessary being, while humans are said to be entities that can also fail to be, in other words, we are not necessary beings.

Is our existence optional?
Are we necessary beings or not?


Please discuss.
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Philosophical necessity is a state which could not logically fail to be true. There was a time when no life existed, so life is not necessary in that sense (it creates no paradoxes to imagine a lifeless universe). If modern physics is correct, this era of stars and planets is short snippet of the history of the universe that is to come, and no life will exist through most of it ... once this "Stelliferous Era" ends, life will end with it (or very shortly thereafter). As there is no paradox in that scenario, again, life seems not to be "necessary."

Even if there is a "fate" that has led us to this point, I don't see that any individual is logically necessary either. If my parents failed to meet, I would not exist. There's no paradox there and one can readily imagine that the world would go on turning. So I am not "necessary".

I suppose, if there is such a "fate" and if the fate was itself were "necessary", then I too would be necessary, but I can readily imagine a random, "unfated" universe and can discern no logical conflicts that would arise if that were our reality, so I do not see any overarching fate.
 
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