the quest for freedom from the forces of physics (including religious and metaphysical ponderings and such) is a superfluous activity carried out by physical entities (humans, in the special case continually under scrutiny), but existence of these entities is physical

or is it not purely so? are we more than our physical selves? anyway, that's a more fundamental question, and far too fundamental to submit itself to an intellectual discussion. it is one that is only addressed via experience, and possibly hard to convey. we return to the present discussion.

the quest for freedom from the forces of physics is an activity, carried out by biological physical entities, that is entirely superfluous for biological and physical existence. but this ritualistic activity is only performed by such biological physical entities, whose operability is only a gift of physical nature, the very thing against which this rebellion is carried out. It is maintained, without further discussion at present, that life, in general, and humankind, the flagship of which, is the most sophisticated fruit of causal physical nature.

The glaring contradiction: The outcome of increasingly sophisticated physical operations is an effort to overcome these same. Why?

I don't mean to raise question against the value, validity, or importance of this quest, but to only bring this contradiction into light. We can most swiftly arrive at answers only by addressing this contradiction. The answer is not Religion. The various (but vastly identical) religions of man provide non-physical, abstract, self-fulfilling, unverifiable answers to these questions and contradictions, and, when scrutinized, go even further to coalesce into a circular structure that is almost deliberately tautological. Only if you're a true believer will you know God, and then you'll realize how important it is to know God, and you'll become a good person. If you want be a good person, then become a true believer. These religions simultaneously claim to glorify the superiority of man over his limiting physical nature, while providing answers that cause this thirst for freedom to subside by promising it in the afterlife; they impair their very object of glorification.

So leaving religion to the side (a desperate request), we return to the paradigm being exposed here: Physics, itself, inducing the Strife Against Physics. The questions that this raises are the following:

1. Is there some self-motivated energy that, first, through the emergence of matter, then, through the emergence of life, then, through the emergence of man, is striving to somehow express itself? Is this the same energy that we sometimes sense and identify as Beauty?
2. Is it appropriate for the agents of this energy, the knights of this (un-?)holy quest, to maintain some degree of humility and bow an acknowledgment to their physical nature, in light of the fact that without it, their battle would have no horses, no swords and shields, and maybe not even a battlefield? We fight in the enemy's country; we must respect and heed the terrain.