Let's today ignore the question of who created God or what happened before the Big Bang, or why anything like that even occurring. Let's just assume that there is a God who created Man in his own image. Then, on this Sunday, set that possibility aside to consider that other option called the Big Bang.
Of course, even science is speculative, so here is another point of view:
So from left to right, time marched on where basic elements began to form 3 seconds after the BB, stars/galaxies at around a time of 300 million years. Now looking backwards from the present, life began to form 3.8 billions ago, dinosaurs went extinct 65 million years ago and we Homo sapiens evolved 600,000 years ago. However, anatomically modern Hs appeared around 300,000 years ago.Now, imagine the entire history of the Universe compressed into a calendar year. Each month would be equal to almost a billion years, so this is what December would look like:
Okay, so here we are, 12 September 2021, and we find ourselves worried about global climate warming. At least we hurdled the nuclear winter that could have instantly arrived during the Cold War. Two decades ago E.O. Wilson of Harvard, noted "father of sociobiology (actually he was the world's leading expert on ants and still here at the age of 92)," published The Future of Life.
Way back then Wilson was known as an optimist:
- Proposed that we adopt the Genuine Progress Indicator instead of the current Gross National Product.
- Looking ahead a century (at the time of that writing) to 2100, he suggested that we would become more homogenized through intermarriage, which should promote greater harmony among peoples.
- However: The race is now on between the technoscientific forces that are destroying the living environment and those that can be harnessed to save it. . . . If the race is won, humanity can emerge in far better condition than when it entered, and with most of the diversity of life still intact.
- You might not have been aware that Homo sapiens includes all the variations that bridge apes to us. Humans are Homo sapiens sapiens.
- Certainly over the next thousand years we will accelerate our evolution through choice. While we will be smarter, more athletic, stronger and hopefully wiser, being biological, we will still have too many limitations, and are prone to extinction.
- Artificial intelligence could well become the next phase of life.
- Elon Musk, for one warned, about the possibility of AI running amok. He funded The Future of Life Institute $10 million to establish a global research program aimed at keeping artificial intelligence beneficial to human beings.
- If Earth is threatened in some way, we might be limited in our potential to escape out of our social system into the Milky Way, or some more distance galaxy.
- Artificial intelligence should better be able to survive this galactic journey to disseminate life. Keep in mind that our closest neighbor, the Andromeda Galaxy, is 2.5 million light years away. Even if we find a way to travel at near the speed of light, it would take a spacecraft more than 2.5 MILLION years to get from here to there. From one end of our Milky way to the other is a distance of 140,000 light years, or 100,000, depending on your source.
- But will AI allow for our inferior biological life, or instead itself become the next phase of life?
- Which brings back the question of what is life. After all, most biologists feel that a virus is not alive. Sure, tell that to a COVID-19 survivor. And there are 10 trillion of them in less than a raindrop. The most astounding thing of all is that if you can find a way to lay all the viruses on Planet Earth end to end, they would stretch across the Milky Way Galaxy, 100 million light years, or 5.8786e to the 20th power miles long.
- So anyway, no doubt at some point into the next billion years AI will become the third stage of life.
- Will there be a fourth? Maybe ultimately, there will be some form of Hindu Sannyasa, reverting back to something more spiritual. Not relevant that spirits might not be alive, for this discussion is all about the future of a hypothetical us, which is all-encompassing.
Over the next 100 trillion years some spirituality could be the bridge to nothingness. The time from the Big Bang to today is less than 14 billion years. Life has 7000 times that span to continue to evolve.
Ah, that's too long to contemplate. Today we can appreciate how small we are by considering that you can fit a million Earths into our Sun.
That's only the beginning, for 9.3 billion of our Suns can fit into the largest star, VY Canis Majoris, which is 4900 light years from us.
So to the original question, humanity was incredibly lucky. How best can you explain how the Universe began? More so, even today, our top scientists are not sure how life began. Why are we here? An unbelievable series of pure luck.
- A month ago: -300
- A week ago: -500
- Now: -800
Note: this is not an impeachment. He is being recalled and running against opponents. If he wins, he remains governor. The odds:
| Candidate | Odds |
|---|---|
| Gavin Newsom | -800 |
| Larry Elder | +600 |
| Kevin Paffrath | +1600 |
| Kevin Faulconer | +3300 |
| Caitlyn Jenner | +6600 |
Who is Larry Elder. A lawyer, Republican and conservative radio talk show host. His chances of winning? 14%.
Who is Caitlyn Jenner? Remember him? He was born William Jenner and was an Olympic gold-medal decathlete. He's been married three times and has six children. He is now a trans woman.
- His odds of becoming Governor of California? 1.5%.
- Odds on you being killed by COVID-19? 0.06%.
- Odds on you being infected by this virus? 2.9%.
- I finally know one person who contracted this disease. My travel agent.
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Typhoon Chanthus eased past eastern Taiwan, dropping as much as 2 feet of rain, and seems headed in the general direction of Shanghai, which survived Typhoon In-fa in July. Next, towards Cheju Island of South Korea.
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