Children, Reproduction & Informational Continuity

For people who do not believe in souls or supernatural survival, reproduction can still carry profound meaning. A child is not an immortal extension of a parent, but a new person who continues part of an informational history that began long before either of them existed.

More than genes

Parents transmit biological information through DNA. But human inheritance does not stop there. Children also receive language, knowledge, habits, stories, skills, values, culture and countless patterns of interaction. They receive information from parents, relatives, teachers, friends and society, then modify and combine it into something new.

A child is therefore neither a copy nor simply a vehicle for parental genes. A child is a new informational individual: information inherited, information becoming, and eventually information transmitted onward.

Reproduction without supernaturalism

Religions have often connected reproduction to divine purpose, souls and eternal life. None of those assumptions is necessary to recognize the extraordinary significance of creating and raising another human being. Through reproduction and parenting, biological and cultural information can cross generations while being recombined, tested and transformed.

This does not make reproduction an obligation, nor does it imply that a life without children is less meaningful. Teaching, creating, caring, discovering, mentoring and influencing other people are also powerful forms of informational transmission. Reproduction is distinctive because biological inheritance and cultural transmission converge in the development of a new autonomous person.

Reproduction for atheists and non-theists

Secular discussions of reproduction often concentrate, understandably, on autonomy, contraception and reproductive choice. There is room for another conversation as well: why might an atheist or non-theist positively value having and raising children?

The Informational Self offers one answer. We are temporary living participants in a much older informational process. Having a child is one way—not the only way—of participating in its continuation.

We are information inherited.
We are information becoming.
We are information transmitted.