Finished Watching "Universe"

I finished watching the four-dvd set of "Universe," a ten to twelve hour-long documentary about the origins, composition, and nature of the Universe.

Everyone is familiar with the story of Adam and Eve as related in Genesis. It's all wrong, of course, like much else in the Bible. The documentary never quite says so in words, but the implication is there for anyone with a mind to think.

The actual story of the Universe is that everything, including our bodies, originated from a singularity, a single point in space. During the Big Bang, the singularity began expanding like a balloon. The expansion never ended. Today, all matter is accelerating. The Universe is not static, but is increasing in size as it expands. Every object in space-time is in a state of motion. Eventually, the velocity will become too great, and matter itself will disintegrate.

This implies that there was a finite beginning, and will be a finite end, to the Universe as we know it. We do not, however, know what caused the Big Bang, the singularity, or what happened prior to the Big Bang. It may be that the Universe is in a constant state of contraction followed by expansion. This notion appeals to me on an intuitive level because it reminds me of a bullfrog puffing up with air, croaking and then beginning again. It also supplies a neat answer to the ticklish question of what happened before the Big Bang.

Helium was the original element, and during the Big Bang, hydrogen formed and continues to form inside of stars, along with other elements created from helium by the extreme heat and pressure of stars. Apparently, all the elements of the Periodic Table derive from helium, including hydrogen, gold, and oxygen. The substance of the human body derives ultimately from stars; we are stardust, as is much of the planet. Hydrogen is the most common element in the Universe, helium the second-most common.

What bothers me about documentaries like this are the scary implications. One gets a strong sense of the insignificance of humankind, and of planet Earth, when contemplating the vastness of the Universe. I believe I remember hearing that there were 125 billion stars in the Milky Way alone, and our galaxy is just one of many, and our planet is a relatively young one. The implication is that there is probably intelligent life at many other locations around the cosmos. We just have not encountered it yet. Sooner or later, these alien civilizations will receive the radio signals that we began beaming into space in the 1930's. The prospect of a planet as wonderful as ours may be quite tempting. I am sure that any race more advanced than ours would want our planet for their own, and make quick work of us, one way or the other. To them, we would seem about as advanced as ants. The only thing really protecting us, or rather buying us some time, is the vast distance between our world and everywhere else.

Oh, another worrisome thought is that the Andromeda galaxy, twice the size of our own, is on a collision course with the Milky Way. Maybe the Republicans should muster up a "Coalition of the Willing" to fight against the Andromeda galaxy. How much aid should we give to Poland, so that they will send a lab tech over to NASA to help with the counter-measures? And how, exactly, do we stop the Andromeda galaxy?

The footage, in part computer-generated, but with some actual footage from NASA spacecraft, reminded me that everything in the Universe of a substantial size--whether a star, planet, or moon--seems to be round. This is probably due to gravity. For this reason, the perfect symbol for a religion would probably incorporate a circle somewhere. The symbol for Wicca comes to mind, or possibly Taoism.

I don't understand life. Why does life exist? How did it begin? Why should it be necessary? No world religions provide satisfactory answers to this question. Instead, world religions appeal to the selfish ego, telling man what he wants to hear: that he is the central most concern of a loving God who watches over and protects him. A comforting and consoling thought, but false, because dreadful things, as we all know, happen quite easily. And we also know that once a person dies, they stay dead. The dead do not visit us. If they did, we would certainly be busy entertaining them, because there are more dead than living.

From what we know, life is unnecessary in the ordinary running of the cosmos. The cosmos takes care of itself without any help from life. Why should molecules join together and, over the course of evolution, develop a certain brand of self-awareness?

One idea that has occurred to me is that life may create the universe, rather than the other way around. Our thoughts and actions may influence the nature of matter, time, and space, in some way that we don't understand. I've read about similar themes in articles concerning quantum mechanics. But I don't know. This sounds suspiciously New Age to me. But the Universe is not a place where things tend to happen for no reason. Why should life be a thing separate and distinct from non-life? Maybe reality is more like television, and less like reality as we perceive it. The Universe could be unreal. Maybe a virtual reality is closer to the truth--sort of like "The Matrix."

How self-aware are we, anyway? Maybe we are more like robots than like actual thinkers, as we prefer to believe. Much of what we say or do could be predicted, could it not? I have always been of the opinion that human beings are nothing more than elegant computer programs, predictable in every way, shape, and form. Moods can be programmed into a computer. You simply assign values to variables that influence programmatic behavior. Ideas can be programmed into a computer, as can beliefs, opinions, degrees of certainty, and degrees of ambivalence. It's just a matter of time, probably about thirty years, before AI develops a computer that thinks as well as humans do about all subjects. All indications point to a world where computers will be superior to humans. This means all workers will be obsolete and expendable. War will result--the haves versus the have-nots. The very rich will decide that the poor need to die, that the rich will have more space and end the harms caused by pollution to "their" environment. This means me, you, our neighbors and about 99.8% of all humans will be liquidated, because they can be replaced by droid-slaves, which work for free, never complain, and are better than we are.

The future looks like a scary place. I'm kind of glad that I don't have to be there. By the time AI gets good enough to pose a risk, I'll have used up all my time on this world already and be food for worms. But for younger people, they have a future of increasing temperatures, declining wages, increased violence, increased warfare, widespread radioactivity from nuclear war, and severe weather.

In the short term, I would like to know whether there is life on Europa, which orbits Jupiter, or Titan, which orbits Saturn. Of the two, Europa seems the most promising. Although the surface is cold and radioactive, beneath the surface there may be oceans of liquid water. It is very interesting that planet Earth is not the only large body, even in our tiny solar system, with large amounts of water. If water is as widespread a phenomena elsewhere as it is here, then the chances of life improve considerably.