Hello everybody,
I hope you're having/had a nice day. My topic of discussion today is so vast, I could not even find a suitable title for it. Prof. Stephen Hawking recently made the following statement about the future of life on earth:
I hope you're having/had a nice day. My topic of discussion today is so vast, I could not even find a suitable title for it. Prof. Stephen Hawking recently made the following statement about the future of life on earth:
Although the chance of a disaster to planet Earth in a given year may be quite low, it adds up over time, and becomes a near certainty in the next thousand or ten thousand years.What!? We can be "nearly certain" that there will be no life on earth in ten thousand years? We have recorded history about what happened 10,000 years before today. 10,000 years in the future, there is a possibility that there may exist no one to read about even the greatest achievement of mankind that we've witnessed in our lifetimes. What is the meaning of all our achievements? People strive all their lives to accomplish something that they'll be remembered for even after they die. There is an expiry date for that too! 10,000 years. Coming to think of it, we have no idea about the genius who invented fire, the wheel etc. it really does not matter whether you accomplish something or not. You maybe the most influential person in the world today. 10,000 years from now, you and everyone who thought you were influential and everyone who knew them will be dead. Some people say, we leave our work behind after we die. True to some extent. We still use fire, the wheel etc. but 10,000 years from now, no one will even use our inventions! Doesn't life seem pointless if we think about 10,000 year goals?
My next question is - Is life really that rare? There are 9 (or 8) planets and at least 168 "full size" moons in our solar system. There are about 300 billion stars in our very own galaxy. A best estimate of number of galaxies in our observable universe is 100 billion! Each of these 100 billion galaxies have at least a hundred billion stars and each of these stars have planets, moons etc. And all this is just the observable part of the universe. We have no idea what exists beyond! They are so far away, light from regions beyond hasn't reached earth yet! What is the probability that no other forms of life exists anywhere else in this massive universe? There could be life forms that live in space, on stars, on moons! And there is the question about quasars and blackholes that lie within this observable universe but are on the boundaries of human comprehension! Prof. Stephen Hawking recently also mentioned that black holes are not "eternal prisons" that we thought they were; things can get out of them maybe to another dimension! Another dimension!? These are things that science fiction is made of! We have so little knowledge about this dimension, there could exist other dimensions!? Mind boggling! We think humans are a successful race, we've achieved so much etc. It is impossible for a single person to know everything that every other human knows and yet, the entire human race collectively knows so little about the universe. We know so little about what we don't know about the universe. Hence we call it the "observable universe" Because there exist things that we don't know that we don't know about! (I know, I'm starting to get confused myself! but that last sentence does make sense)
There is so much variety in lifeforms on earth. From the single celled amoebae and paramecium to humans to blue whales, there exist so many differences. And we all have essentially the same environment. The same amount of heat (distance from the sun (the same sun)), the same atmosphere, chemical composition etc. Imagine what kinds of life forms could exist elsewhere in the universe! Unimaginable. What is even the definition of "intelligence"? We humans have reached some sort of an agreement about its definition. But even here on earth, the word intelligence makes sense only to humans. Other creatures may or may not consider us to be intelligent. We think we are hundreds of times cleverer than our pets, but if they thought so, they would probably have had all sorts of complexes! Now imagine what other lifeforms from other parts of the universe could think about intelligence? Is there even a thing such as intelligence?
I need to stop here. My brain is starting to hurt. Now I need to resume with my normal life and convince myself that it is very important for me to go to a class and listen to another human talk about yet another human's work. How interesting!
Until next time,
Bye! :D
