Is life important? Maybe it is to you and me but I was asking a more general question. Is life in any form important at all, other than to those bearing it?
What has been the life-span of life on Earth? Roughly three and a half billion years. The Earth had existed a billion years without it. Before that, there was a just a large gas cloud composed of trillions and trillions of microscopic dust particles that coalesced to form the Sun and the Solar System. Before that for at least 9 billion years the Universe had existed without life as we know it (that's almost twice as long as life has existed here on Earth).
SO, it is clear that Universe did not need life in any fundamental sense.
That brings us to the next question: Is life of any import at all?
There was matter, there was gas, there was water and this primordial soup, this primordial broth somehow got ignited (possible by an errant and a very naughty lightning strike). Complex molecules, possibly lipids (fats, oils) formed in this primordial soup and they organized themselves into tiny spheres due to their surface tension. More molecules aggregated together and reacted to form a preliminary metabolic unit. The biggest kicker came when these particles arranged themselves in a manner that allowed them to replicate.
These 'non-living' replicating assembly of complex molecules was the precursor of all life on Earth today. I know there are people who would tie a pillow over their heads and shove it in their behinds on hearing it, but I do need to mention the 'E-word' here. SO, here goes... Then E-Evolution happened. The process which transformed that single replicating quasi-life molecule into the 'mighty and yet fallible' dinosaurs and which in turn evolved into the 'shitty and sure to fall in future' humans.
But while it is all too complex to grapple with for some simple in the head pseudo-religious creation-espousing gouchos, it simple doesn't matter in the end. Because IT doesn't give a shit. Because wish as hard as we may and hallucinate all we can about all the ETs and UFOs out there, we are either alone in this whole wide Universe or we are never meant to find out otherwise (which actually means the same thing). Enunciated very eloquently by Fermi and Hart is a very simple question at the crux of the matter
'Where are they?'
Also known as the 'silentium universi' or 'The Great Silence', it asks that if alien life exists in the Universe, Where the f*#k is it? Why has it not contacted us yet? Surely, many might have lived much longer than us and have had eons to evolve and conquer the problems of interstellar travel. So, why are they not knocking on our doors? There can be many wishful answers but the most pragmatic and uninteresting killjoy of an answer remains the one we choose to comfortably ignore (call it a case of selective dyslexia) - there is no one out there. We are all there is to it. Or that the spatial and temporal distances involved are sadly insurmountable and we may never meet our distant cousins on a different Earth revolving around a different Sun.
What an awful waste of space and time in Universe if we are the only ones in it? That's a pretentious question. IT simply doesn't give a shit. The life that started three and a half billion years ago will simply go out in another four billion years (it would probably be much sooner than that) when the Sun, in its death throes engulfs all the inner planets within its expanding self.
We might evolve enough to leave Earth and sail away in a generational ship with life extenders for a habitable planet far far away. Then we would be 'them'. We would become the aliens.
The downshot of all this is that life in a broader sense is not special. I and you do not and will not contribute to change anything. We started as a freak sideshow and long after we are gone, no one will be the wiser that we ever existed.
How bleak and how boring?
How depressing is that? The truth tends to be that away...bitter and boring.
So, let us liven up things a bit. Throw in a soul, throw in a few afterlife variants, throw in the concept of redemption and a Judgement Day and last but not the least throw in a 'fanatstique GOD' and we make things a lot more interesting for us.
That also gives us hope, morality and discipline and justice... (I will elaborate soon)
Bye for now
P.S - I am an atheist who believes in the necessity of religion.
Images Courtesy: Wikimedia Commons
What has been the life-span of life on Earth? Roughly three and a half billion years. The Earth had existed a billion years without it. Before that, there was a just a large gas cloud composed of trillions and trillions of microscopic dust particles that coalesced to form the Sun and the Solar System. Before that for at least 9 billion years the Universe had existed without life as we know it (that's almost twice as long as life has existed here on Earth).
SO, it is clear that Universe did not need life in any fundamental sense.
That brings us to the next question: Is life of any import at all?
There was matter, there was gas, there was water and this primordial soup, this primordial broth somehow got ignited (possible by an errant and a very naughty lightning strike). Complex molecules, possibly lipids (fats, oils) formed in this primordial soup and they organized themselves into tiny spheres due to their surface tension. More molecules aggregated together and reacted to form a preliminary metabolic unit. The biggest kicker came when these particles arranged themselves in a manner that allowed them to replicate.
These 'non-living' replicating assembly of complex molecules was the precursor of all life on Earth today. I know there are people who would tie a pillow over their heads and shove it in their behinds on hearing it, but I do need to mention the 'E-word' here. SO, here goes... Then E-Evolution happened. The process which transformed that single replicating quasi-life molecule into the 'mighty and yet fallible' dinosaurs and which in turn evolved into the 'shitty and sure to fall in future' humans.
But while it is all too complex to grapple with for some simple in the head pseudo-religious creation-espousing gouchos, it simple doesn't matter in the end. Because IT doesn't give a shit. Because wish as hard as we may and hallucinate all we can about all the ETs and UFOs out there, we are either alone in this whole wide Universe or we are never meant to find out otherwise (which actually means the same thing). Enunciated very eloquently by Fermi and Hart is a very simple question at the crux of the matter
'Where are they?'
Also known as the 'silentium universi' or 'The Great Silence', it asks that if alien life exists in the Universe, Where the f*#k is it? Why has it not contacted us yet? Surely, many might have lived much longer than us and have had eons to evolve and conquer the problems of interstellar travel. So, why are they not knocking on our doors? There can be many wishful answers but the most pragmatic and uninteresting killjoy of an answer remains the one we choose to comfortably ignore (call it a case of selective dyslexia) - there is no one out there. We are all there is to it. Or that the spatial and temporal distances involved are sadly insurmountable and we may never meet our distant cousins on a different Earth revolving around a different Sun.
What an awful waste of space and time in Universe if we are the only ones in it? That's a pretentious question. IT simply doesn't give a shit. The life that started three and a half billion years ago will simply go out in another four billion years (it would probably be much sooner than that) when the Sun, in its death throes engulfs all the inner planets within its expanding self.
The downshot of all this is that life in a broader sense is not special. I and you do not and will not contribute to change anything. We started as a freak sideshow and long after we are gone, no one will be the wiser that we ever existed.
How bleak and how boring?
How depressing is that? The truth tends to be that away...bitter and boring.
So, let us liven up things a bit. Throw in a soul, throw in a few afterlife variants, throw in the concept of redemption and a Judgement Day and last but not the least throw in a 'fanatstique GOD' and we make things a lot more interesting for us.
Bye for now
P.S - I am an atheist who believes in the necessity of religion.
Images Courtesy: Wikimedia Commons
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