Over the long weekend we had (thanks Sandy!), I spent a night watching George Carlin on YouTube. Now, I have seen many a George Carlin video, but I came across one that I have not see. It was his rant about how people are so obsessed with saving the planet. You know... stopping global warming, end all this pollution, etc.
But he brought up one point that completely changed my view on the world. Probably changed it forever.
He, in short, called the human race a phase.
A phase?
I examined my ideologies and realized, I think he's right.
Carlin mentions that 90% of species that have ever lived on this Earth are gone. He states that we lose up to twenty-five (that number has probably risen since the video was created) species a day, even without human interference. That is astounding. That's twenty-five animals that will never walk the face of the Earth again just... just gone. That is not what changed my way of thought, though. Carlin mentions that it is the Earth's natural process to repair itself, to allow life to once again evolve from simple forms once we humans destroy ourselves through war.
Think about it.
The Earth formed approximately 4.5 billion years ago. Just realize how long of a time that is. Next, after these billions of years, life slowly emerged through evolution. It took billions of years of course, but eventually came the dinosaurs. But as unintelligent we consider dinosaurs when compared to humans, consider this. Dinosaurs developed slowly over time, the way we did. They did NOT devolve and slowly turn into primates. Their evolution was cut short by some natural disaster that ended the species, with very simple forms of life still existing. These remaining animals slowly but surely evolved into the human race. The dinosaur's natural process came to an immediate halt, allowing the Earth to attempt its process of evolution a second time.
Now, what if these creatures that lived millions of years ago did not end up getting wiped out by some disaster? They could possibly be living here today. That would completely change the way life evolved. What would dinosaurs look like today? Would they, could they be intelligent? Would we humans even cease to exist? Probably not. Could a dinosaur talk in a way in which we do now? Develop theories of how they themselves came about? Develop mathematical equations? Become a Shakespeare? Go to the moon? We will never know.
The dinosaurs were nothing but a phase on this Earth. They had their time, they are gone.
We, the humans, are the second phase. We have inhabited this Earth for a small fraction of time compared to the dinosaurs. However, we are intelligent, or so we think. Perhaps compared to some other galaxy, we are their unintelligent "dinosaurs." Perhaps they do quantum physics behind their backs in preschool. Maybe they read entire books in the blink of an eye. Maybe they have technology that we have never even considered. As ridiculous as it sounds, the universe has been around for billions of years. Other forms of life could be millions of years ahead of us; maybe they have destroyed themselves, maybe they travel planet to planet, who knows? These forms of life could be in an evolutionary period in which they still are just small mammals, that is, if mammals even exist on other planets. Just imagine the difference between histories of planets. Teachers on these planets are teaching their students about histories that we will never know about, wars or revolutions we will never know took place, discoveries we will never hear about. What we teach in our classrooms is being taught differently around the entire universe. The information we just cannot reach is upsetting, yet blows my mind. For example, a couple years ago Isaac Newton discovered a few laws of physics, but that was for here on Earth. Who actually discovered them first? Was it some a blob of intelligent goo that lives four hundred thousand light years away? Could be. I have random thoughts like, What if an alien planet had a revolution against their "mother" planet, similar to our Revolutionary War? They honestly could be fighting it in a similar fashion to "Star Wars." I guarantee somewhere in this vast universe something similar to "Star Wars" has happened. I strongly believe it has. We just will not be able to find out about it during my lifetime.
Sorry, I got off track. Yes, we are the second phase. Inevitably, our phase on Earth will eventually be gone. Perhaps we colonize another planet, or maybe we suffer the same fate as the dinosaurs. Either way, the Earth is not going to just die off. Something, maybe deep in the rain forests (if they exist in the future), or deep in the ocean blue, will be alive. Something will evolve over a large, mind-blowingly long time. If they are intelligent beings, maybe they will find our fossils. What the third phase will be, nobody knows. But I believe there will be one. The Earth will repair itself from the damage we have caused it, and life will begin its natural process from step one.
While we are living peacefully on Mars, what creature will be slowly evolving on Earth? It saddens me that I will never live long enough to witness theses evolutions take place.
But...
Maybe that is the beauty of it. My atoms and my body will eventually become a part of this earth. I will be the fuel for this evolution, just as our ancestors were.
A thousand years from now, when humans are traveling the solar system, my atoms will be traveling with these humans.* Just not in the way many people view it. But I'll still be there. Traveling the entire universe along side my fellow humans. And so will you.
*Disclaimer: Unless we blow ourselves up... then it gets complicated. We will have to wait for more intelligent life to evolve and learn to travel into space, blah blah blah, and then I will be traveling the solar system.
All this blog asks is to think. Think about the possibilities. Look up to the sky and realize that somewhere. millions upon millions of miles away, there is somebody looking back at you wondering the same exact thing. It should bring a smile to your face, but at the same time, a tear to your eye. You will never know who this "person" is, where they are, what they are, their past, their language, etc. However, you know they are out there. It is virtually implausible and even selfish to believe that we are the only life in the universe.
Now, factually speaking: dead remnants of microorganisms and such HAVE been found on extraterrestrial objects, so we know some form of life is out there.
Anyways, I hope you enjoyed a few of my many, many thoughts about the universe. I could literally go on until my brain fries. If you want to watch the video that inspired me to write this post here's the link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eScDfYzMEEw
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