According to Google AI:
The three most profound and existential questions for Homo sapiens center on our origin, our purpose, and our ultimate destiny. These questions have driven human philosophy, science, and religion since the dawn of consciousness.
Things to think about:
- Philosopher Marin Heidegger asked, why is there something rather than nothing?
- One of the most mind-blowing facts is that Cleopatra lived much closer in time to the launch of the iPhone than to the construction of the Great Pyramid of Giza.
- Cleopatra died in 30BC, while the Great Pyramid was built around 2560 BC, a gap of just over 2500 years.
- From her birth to the iPhone was only around 2000 years.
Day vs. Year: A day on Venus (one full rotation on its axis) takes 243 Earth days, while a year on Venus (one orbit around the Sun) takes only 225 Earth days.- More cosmic perspective: There are more trees on Earth than stars in the Milky Way—about 3 trillion trees compared to roughly 100 to 400 billion stars. However, since farming began, we have halved the number of trees in the world.
- I can go on and on.
- Is there an afterlife?
- 57% to 80% of adults believe.
- Survey asked people in 22 countries.
- Ranged from 95% in Indonesia to 21% in Japan.
- A Gallup survey of 61 countries got the 57% low.
- USA? 56%, just below the world average.
- Older people believed more in an afterlife.
- 2025 Pew poll.
The numbers are not all the same.- Indonesia is 85% for both reports.
- But the 56% of the USA is 70% in the Pew survey.
- In the Pew, Sweden was lowest at 38%. The 21% of Japan is 47% in the Pew.
- Why are some so different?
Most pollsters don't ask most countries of the Middle East.- Turkey is #2 in both above polls at 84%, but what about the other Muslim countries?
- According to Google AI, citing other sources like World Values Survey.
- Bangladesh 98.8%
- Turkiye should be 91.8%.
- Pakistan 89.3%
Existential question #2: Is the universe finite? Multiverses are popular in some physics circles, but of course there is no answer.
#3: Are we alone in the universe?- I happen to be a kind of expert in this field, for I spent a summer at the NASA Ames Research Center on the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence.
- Then again, that was half a century ago.
- But there has been no progress.
- Enrico Fermi famously asked, Where is everybody, referring in 150 to extraterrestrials. For the record, then president Barack Obama also asked, but jokingly, Where are the aliens?
- Absolutely no sign detected yet.
I think there must be life somewhere out there.- The Universe is nearly 14 billion years old.
- Life on Earth began less than 4 billion years ago, evolving to us today, only 300,000 years old.
- There are 1 septillion stars (1, followed by 24 zeros) stars out there.
- You would think life of some kind also appeared elsewhere.
- I have a sense about our future. This will come at the end of this posting.
#4: Is there a Higher power?- More people in the world believe in a God than an afterlife
- While belief has been eroding over time in Western nations, nothing much has changed in the Muslim world.
Pew Research Center indicated that U.S. adults who believe in God has dropped from 73% in 2007 to only 54% today. Canada dropped from 80% in the mid-70s to less than 50% today. In the coming decade, while 4300 churches have already closed recently, of the existing 27,000 faith buildings, 9,000 more are expected to permanently close. Those already out of service have been converted to restaurants and other uses.- #5: Is our existence just a product of a sequence of random events or is this all meant to be? This depends on your beliefs.
Finally: WHY ARE WE HERE? WHERE WILL WE GO? That was a posting on 12September2021.
- To quote from that posting.
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.
- Another quote:
Into the next millennium, genetic engineering will re-shape Homo sapiens sapiens and artificial intelligence will begin to dominate:
Yes, we are now Homo sapiens sapiens.- While genetic engineering could well improve us humans over time, we have too many limitations, and are prone to extinction. For one, there is no way that H. s. sapiens will travel long distances to colonize the Universe.
Artificial Intelligence could well become the next phase of intelligence on Planet Earth.- If our planet is somehow threatened, existentially, how do we escape?
- Whether it be nuclear warfare or an uncontrollable bio-pandemic, for we seem powerless to attain world peace, technological progress will eventually overcome our ineptitude.
Some say in a decade, but certainly over a billion years, AI will become the next stage of intelligence.- For sure, our Sun will enter its Red Giant Phase in about 5 billion years and swell, making life on Earth impossible.
The vastness of space will be a problem for biological life. 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.- Keep in mind that our Universe will probably be good for another 100 trillion years. Some exotic form of future AI will surely dominate for most of those years.
From The New York Times this morning:
Rolling away: An annual melon race in Xalapa is not only one of Mexico’s most colorful traditions but also one of its most random. See more photos.
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