To reach the closest star to Earth, second to the sun, which is Proxima Centauri, we would have to have launched one of the fastest manned rockets we know today, at ~100.000 years ago, when we were still barbarians, and then we would still only arrive today!
And if you know that the amount of stars that we can observe today in our universe is 7 × 1022 which is a thousand times a billion times a billion stars, it really rocks our mind, doesn't it ?
This should give us a bit an insight in how tiny we are!
And I must admit that I, personally, sometimes experience difficulties to even imagine how small we are compared to the vastness of our own earth!
On another aspect, it shouldn't be too difficult to imagine that if there should be a God or if there should be other life far more evolved than us, it could be possible that our intelligence towards God or towards superintelligent aliens has the same ratio as an amoeba* has towards us, or even far worse.
* one of the smallest life an earth, 1 cell big
This should give us a bit an insight in how insignificant we are.
These were the thoughts when a colleague of mine, a very conscious and realistic moslim, reminded me of our tinyness. Nonetheless, at the same time, I had the feeling that lately we talk about our insignificance and tinyness more and more in modern society, while we tend to forget to also see a bit the other side of it. Let me elaborate:
In all that space between the closest star next to our sun and ourselves, we can find almost nothing, nada, niks, but emptiness. It's so empty!!
And there where there Ãs some mass, in the clouds, in suns or stars, in & on planets you can't almost find nothing but hydrogen and increasinlgy smaller numbers of heavier elements. Compared to all that emptiness and the "non-variety" of matter in space, we sure have an enormous variety of matter on Earth.
And that's only talking about matter! Let's consider how small the chance that amino-acids (the basic molecules of all life as we know it) come into existence, even smaller the chance that these amino-acids combine into proteins, then further into groups of living matter, into cells, then into plants, then again into animals and not forgetting that out of the multiplication of the multiplications of that all, the chance that some form of intelligence* and consciousness arises!!!
Feew, if we count that into acount we are at the same time so rare and so significant! In that tiny size on the surface of the Earth, an unimaginable small amount of space in such a big space**!!
Let's not forget that either! We might be small and insignificant compared to size and super-beings, but I think we should value ourselves great and significant at the same time!
*And, again, I must admit I believe we are only at the crescent of leaving our animal existence behind and if you observe how much war and other disasters we are responsible for, you might wonder if we haven't become less conscious and if we really are intelligent at all!?)
** For the critics: Let's just assume maybe just one thousandth of the probable space between us and the next intelligent being. It still is imaginably huge.
It can be confusing, but I think we are Huge and Tiny at the same time and we shouldn't forget both of them! We should remember both and act towards the meaning of both.
And if you know that the amount of stars that we can observe today in our universe is 7 × 1022 which is a thousand times a billion times a billion stars, it really rocks our mind, doesn't it ?
This should give us a bit an insight in how tiny we are!
And I must admit that I, personally, sometimes experience difficulties to even imagine how small we are compared to the vastness of our own earth!
On another aspect, it shouldn't be too difficult to imagine that if there should be a God or if there should be other life far more evolved than us, it could be possible that our intelligence towards God or towards superintelligent aliens has the same ratio as an amoeba* has towards us, or even far worse.
* one of the smallest life an earth, 1 cell big
This should give us a bit an insight in how insignificant we are.
These were the thoughts when a colleague of mine, a very conscious and realistic moslim, reminded me of our tinyness. Nonetheless, at the same time, I had the feeling that lately we talk about our insignificance and tinyness more and more in modern society, while we tend to forget to also see a bit the other side of it. Let me elaborate:
In all that space between the closest star next to our sun and ourselves, we can find almost nothing, nada, niks, but emptiness. It's so empty!!
And there where there Ãs some mass, in the clouds, in suns or stars, in & on planets you can't almost find nothing but hydrogen and increasinlgy smaller numbers of heavier elements. Compared to all that emptiness and the "non-variety" of matter in space, we sure have an enormous variety of matter on Earth.
And that's only talking about matter! Let's consider how small the chance that amino-acids (the basic molecules of all life as we know it) come into existence, even smaller the chance that these amino-acids combine into proteins, then further into groups of living matter, into cells, then into plants, then again into animals and not forgetting that out of the multiplication of the multiplications of that all, the chance that some form of intelligence* and consciousness arises!!!
Feew, if we count that into acount we are at the same time so rare and so significant! In that tiny size on the surface of the Earth, an unimaginable small amount of space in such a big space**!!
Let's not forget that either! We might be small and insignificant compared to size and super-beings, but I think we should value ourselves great and significant at the same time!
*And, again, I must admit I believe we are only at the crescent of leaving our animal existence behind and if you observe how much war and other disasters we are responsible for, you might wonder if we haven't become less conscious and if we really are intelligent at all!?)
** For the critics: Let's just assume maybe just one thousandth of the probable space between us and the next intelligent being. It still is imaginably huge.
It can be confusing, but I think we are Huge and Tiny at the same time and we shouldn't forget both of them! We should remember both and act towards the meaning of both.
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