Yes, it’s a big universe. More than a hundred billion galaxies, and that’s just a low-end estimate. Galaxies contain hundreds of billions of stars. And we now know that many stars have attendant planets, some possibly Earth-like. Back on Earth, people number over seven billion. Easy to get lost in all that, easy to feel insignificant, except you can think about it, and thinking about the Big IT makes you significant.
Maybe consciousness exists elsewhere in the universe. We know that it exists here; you are proof. I’m beginning to think that all this universe stuff is just for you. Take away all other consciousness, and you are still there, conscious, thinking. Pretty significant, I’d say.
Of course, there are those who would argue that my teleological take on things is just a bit too illogical, too reminiscent of ancient thinking, too “religious.” It might be, but still I can’t stop wondering about you and your grasp of Everything and your ability to express Everything. Without you—say the rest of us fell out of the universe—the universe would have no chance for any meaning. Just stuff interacting by the rules of Newtonian and quantum physics; meaningless except for what you impart to the universe. Regardless of those who argue that the universe is meaningless—their statements are, of course, contradictory because they have meaning within the universe—I know that you, and you alone, provide meaning. As others have noted, humans, made of the stuff of the universe, are the universe conscious of itself. And you, that special consciousness that can exist and see meaning or give meaning, make me think that this whole Whole is just for you.
Maybe consciousness exists elsewhere in the universe. We know that it exists here; you are proof. I’m beginning to think that all this universe stuff is just for you. Take away all other consciousness, and you are still there, conscious, thinking. Pretty significant, I’d say.
Of course, there are those who would argue that my teleological take on things is just a bit too illogical, too reminiscent of ancient thinking, too “religious.” It might be, but still I can’t stop wondering about you and your grasp of Everything and your ability to express Everything. Without you—say the rest of us fell out of the universe—the universe would have no chance for any meaning. Just stuff interacting by the rules of Newtonian and quantum physics; meaningless except for what you impart to the universe. Regardless of those who argue that the universe is meaningless—their statements are, of course, contradictory because they have meaning within the universe—I know that you, and you alone, provide meaning. As others have noted, humans, made of the stuff of the universe, are the universe conscious of itself. And you, that special consciousness that can exist and see meaning or give meaning, make me think that this whole Whole is just for you.
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