Search This Blog

Tuesday, September 30, 2014

Forever is a Long Time

That's still one of the great unsolved mysteries, isn't it. How did life evolve from non-life? You've got all those atoms randomly bumping into each other, forming all kinds of chemicals that are not alive. Then, at some point, one or more of those chemical structures becomes a living thing. I can see how one living thing can evolve into other living things, but I don't know how non-living chemicals can evolve into living creatures. Do they even have a theory about that? It seems to me that there are only two ways it could have happened: either accidently or on purpose. If it happened on purpose, then there must have been an intelligent being who made it happen. If it happened by accident, there may or may not have been an intelligent being who decided to let it happen that way. Humans, being somewhat intelligent themselves, assumed, until relatively recently, that there must be Someone out there who is smarter than they are who got the ball rolling. I tend to support that theory myself but, to be fair, it's also quite possible that it happened the other way, by random chance. Neither theory, however, answers the original question, which was how did it happen, not who made it happen.

I don't know what to think about all those alternate universes. Call me "old fashioned", but it seems to me that one universe ought to be enough for anybody. Then again, if there were other universes running parallel to ours, we wouldn't know about them, would we. I know that some people have postulated these other universes with math or something, but that's not the same thing as actually going to one of them and snapping a few photos to show the folks back home.

If you think about it, belief in alternate universes is not that much different from belief in supernatural realms like Heaven and Hell. You have this other plane of existence that is inaccessible to us, but we are asked to believe in it's existence. Well, the difference is that certain individuals claim to have communicated with, or even visited, Heaven but, to my knowledge, nobody claims to have done so with any of the alternate universes. Come to think of it, I don't think anybody has ever made those claims about Hell either. Going to Hell and back is certainly a figure of speech, but I don't think anybody claims to have actually done it. Another difference is that we are supposed to go to Heaven or Hell when we die, but not to an alternate universe. Still, it seems to me that, if you're willing to accept the possible existence of one, you should be willing to accept the possible existence of the other. We can't go there on vacation, we can't phone or email anybody who lives there, we can't see it on Google Earth, but we are expected to believe the testimony of other people that it indeed exists.

Even if neither of these ethereal realms exist today, that doesn't mean they couldn't have existed in the past, or couldn't exist in the future. For it is written: "Of what can it be said, 'See, this is new'? It has all been before, in the ages lost to memory." In that case, though, words like "past" and "future" may not apply. If time itself didn't exist before the Big Bang, can we assume that it won't exist after the Big Bang has petered out? Can there be existence without time, or time without existence? Kind of makes you wonder, doesn't it.

I think lots of animals have leaned how to deal with humans. Dogs and horses immediately come to mind, but I'm not so sure about cats. I think they expect us to deal with them. I'm only talking here about animals that routinely interact with humans. In a manner of speaking,  many wild animals deal with humans too if, by "deal" you mean "coexist in the same habitat". Of course there are some species that have not adapted to living around us. Some of them have become extinct, but others are doing reasonably well in the areas we have reserved for their use, or haven't gotten around to occupying ourselves yet. Even most humans have learned how to get along with other humans. There are exceptions of course, like those ISIS guys. I looked them up on Wiki over the weekend. What a bunch of jerks!

No comments:

Post a Comment