Wednesday, January 23, 2013
Monday, January 14, 2013
Thursday, January 3, 2013
On the Fate of Man
I assume that alien life absolutely exists.
Humans know for sure about the existence of at least 100 billion galaxies, although this number is probably far greater in reality. That number is just what we can SEE in the observable universe. A single galaxy can contain up to a trillion suns (1014) and many more planets. These numbers are beyond the understanding of a human mind, and the distances involved are still more incomprehensible. This is the known universe as science has explained it to us, and the vision which we draw from it is quite clear. Statistically, we are presented with an image of the cosmos as teeming with unknown alien life across uncountable strange worlds.
The real question is how common life could actually be. I personally think that our planet is likely nothing special. Although intelligent life may be relatively rare, it may be that life is virtually everywhere. What does life really need? I often hear people musing about how it is the sun that gave the world life, which is a pretty true statement. A truer statement however, would be to say that the sun sustains the life on this world. Assuming that there is no god, life must have arisen spontaneously from natural circumstances (the validity of which we aren't arguing right now). All that is required for an organism to survive is something from which to draw energy. An example of this would be the anaerobic bacteria which break down natural substances and reduce them to something with less energy. Alien life in the sense that we traditionally mean it, would require an 'open' system into which a constant flow of solar energy can trickle into. The harnessing of this energy, as on our planet, can allow for the 'resetting' of these natural substances (carbon dioxide returning to oxygen in photosynthesis) and the propagation of life. By a broader definition however, almost any planet would likely develop some form of life given enough time. This life would very quickly destroy itself however, as all available resources are used up and like a candle in a closed jar, it extinguishes itself.
Earlier today i was watching a chain of ants carrying food from a rubbish bag to their colony. I fucking hate ants, but always admire how well they exploit their single survival strategy. "The plan is, collect as much shit as possible and then when we have too much, that just means we can expand out further. Long live the colony!" It struck me that this was a fantastic microcosm of the essential mentality of capitalist human society, we just live on a very different timescale from the ants. Where they live for about 90 days, we are lucky enough to have 90 years sometimes. Taking this little analogy a little further, i then noted that this same strategy is also exactly the same as that of the mold which you see eating a sandwich. Again, this is another timescale entirely, and we can observe them consuming until nothing is left and the whole bacterial colony dies.
After thinking about this for some time, i came to the conclusion that this was very likely the ultimate fate of humanity, at least as long as we remain on our current path. In the same way that the people believed in a flat earth because the curvature of the Earth is so slight, the slow destruction of the earth at our hands is quite invisible to our eyes.
Humans know for sure about the existence of at least 100 billion galaxies, although this number is probably far greater in reality. That number is just what we can SEE in the observable universe. A single galaxy can contain up to a trillion suns (1014) and many more planets. These numbers are beyond the understanding of a human mind, and the distances involved are still more incomprehensible. This is the known universe as science has explained it to us, and the vision which we draw from it is quite clear. Statistically, we are presented with an image of the cosmos as teeming with unknown alien life across uncountable strange worlds.
100,000,000,000 of these...
The real question is how common life could actually be. I personally think that our planet is likely nothing special. Although intelligent life may be relatively rare, it may be that life is virtually everywhere. What does life really need? I often hear people musing about how it is the sun that gave the world life, which is a pretty true statement. A truer statement however, would be to say that the sun sustains the life on this world. Assuming that there is no god, life must have arisen spontaneously from natural circumstances (the validity of which we aren't arguing right now). All that is required for an organism to survive is something from which to draw energy. An example of this would be the anaerobic bacteria which break down natural substances and reduce them to something with less energy. Alien life in the sense that we traditionally mean it, would require an 'open' system into which a constant flow of solar energy can trickle into. The harnessing of this energy, as on our planet, can allow for the 'resetting' of these natural substances (carbon dioxide returning to oxygen in photosynthesis) and the propagation of life. By a broader definition however, almost any planet would likely develop some form of life given enough time. This life would very quickly destroy itself however, as all available resources are used up and like a candle in a closed jar, it extinguishes itself.
Earlier today i was watching a chain of ants carrying food from a rubbish bag to their colony. I fucking hate ants, but always admire how well they exploit their single survival strategy. "The plan is, collect as much shit as possible and then when we have too much, that just means we can expand out further. Long live the colony!" It struck me that this was a fantastic microcosm of the essential mentality of capitalist human society, we just live on a very different timescale from the ants. Where they live for about 90 days, we are lucky enough to have 90 years sometimes. Taking this little analogy a little further, i then noted that this same strategy is also exactly the same as that of the mold which you see eating a sandwich. Again, this is another timescale entirely, and we can observe them consuming until nothing is left and the whole bacterial colony dies.
After thinking about this for some time, i came to the conclusion that this was very likely the ultimate fate of humanity, at least as long as we remain on our current path. In the same way that the people believed in a flat earth because the curvature of the Earth is so slight, the slow destruction of the earth at our hands is quite invisible to our eyes.
LA, Looking like some nasty grey shit on a petri dish
Although life is very likely everywhere throughout space, it is probably also very temporary. Billions of dim embers fading slowly into existence across the cosmos before being snuffed out just as quickly. The majority of them never even given a chance to ignite into consciousness, yet we were. We very well may end up simply destroying ourselves like other civilizations have doubtless done before us, but then i suppose we could choose not to. To close this ramble, two quotes from Carl Sagan.
“We make our world significant by the courage of our questions and the depth of our answers.”
“Here we face a critical branch point in history, what we do with our
world, right now, will propagate down through the centuries and
powerfully affect the destiny of our descendants.”
Wednesday, January 2, 2013
Nothing is certain.
I fear that I may die someday. Still deeds to do, still words to say.
I fear I'll never find that girl, with eyes pale blue, hair golden curls.
A heart to feel mine, just as hers. To know my soul, these thoughts unfurl.
I fear I'll never find that girl, with eyes pale blue, hair golden curls.
A heart to feel mine, just as hers. To know my soul, these thoughts unfurl.
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