Our Universe
Although we’re all a speck of stardust, normally we are too consumed with our lives to be bothered with our universe.
In response, the universe seems to be getting further and further away — I am not just talking about the expansion of our universe, but also how it feels to us humans. Back when we were hunter-gatherers, the universe was the source of warmth and navigational stars. Then we built and confined ourselves to a farm, with the universe regulating the seasons and housing the gods. The gods would continue to live in the skies and the stars would continue to tell our fortunes throughout the Middle Ages until Galileo blew our minds. Since then we’ve learnt that we are riding on a rock shot out from a single point of Big Bang. Our planet is one of the eight orbiting around the Sun, and the Sun is one of 100 billion stars in the Milky Way, which is one of 125 billions of galaxies in the cosmos. Meanwhile, “the galaxies will all keep getting further apart from each other, the universe will get colder and colder, and eventually any galaxies beyond our local group will become so faint and distant that we won’t be able to see them at all — their light won’t even be able to reach us,” says astrophysicist Tamara Davis. From an heaven full of gods directly guiding us, our universe turns out to be an unbearably sparse place where sentient beings like us, if they exist at all, won’t even visit (at least not openly). I honestly can’t think of a loneliness more extreme.
There is an antidote: that we venture out and actively populate other planets as we did with all the continents on Earth. Some people maintain that earthlings should not invest in expensive space programs when so many on the ground are struggling. That’s a noble humanitarian sentiment. However, development in the next wave of technology is important to humankind. It’s difficult for humanity to continue to grow without answering the next set of questions discoverable through science and technology. Besides, breakthroughs in space technology might help us solve earthly problems such as the mitigating climate crisis and protecting our planet. The question is: how to develop space science without neglecting the underprivileged on Earth and without creating a super class of people with exclusive rights to all things beyond our skies? How do we prevent undemocratic governments from weaponizing space know-how for world domination?
Elon Musk’s SpaceX, for example, has the ambition to reduce interplanetary transportation costs and enable the colonization of Mars. How do we make sure that poor people with little choices on Earth do not get sent to Mars as “pioneers”, risking their lives to make Mars inhabitable? Reversely, how do we make sure that multi-billionaires do not spend earth funds on vanity space projects or exploit Earth because they have a choice of moving to another planet? Superpowers such as the US, Russia, China as well as private companies with deep pockets are exploring the mining of the moon and asteroids, for another example. How do we make sure resources in outer space do not get monopolized by a few governments, making a handful of political elites literally beyond-this-world rich, and funding authoritarian regimes that do not represent the interest of the rest of us on Earth? How do we ensure that space technology is democratized for the betterment of humankind?
These questions may not be as far-fetched as we think they are. What we are far, far away from, though, is the Star Trek universe, where humans are part of an egalitarian, intergalactic community pursuing meanings beyond money and power, hopping from galaxy to galaxy solely for the exploration of new life forms and new civilizations. To boldly go where no human has gone before, we must take the first step out of our front door, but we also need to be cautious about the earth-shaking impact this first step makes.
Beyond Our Universe
Current discussions on anything beyond the observable universe feel surprisingly intimate, almost back to the self level where all relationships start. So far we have no way of knowing what’s “beyond” the horizon of the universe, if that’s the right concept at all. We can only speculate and hypothesize what sits after 46 billion light-years from us, or the distance light can travel in 13.7 billion years since the Big Bang, and ask ourselves:
- If we live in a type of multiverse called braneworld, with other dimensions we cannot discern existing alongside our cosmos, would you live this existence differently?
- If we live in another type of multiverse ▶️, where the configurations of this universe and as well as “you” are simply one of many or even infinite versions there are, would you live this existence differently?
- If we are living in a simulation or test ▶️, maybe even inside a C-grade school project that’s forgotten in an advanced being’s closet, would you live this existence differently?
Does the meaning of our existence depend on how we come to be who we are, or how much we can perceive into the cosmos and beyond? Since we cannot directly observe anything exceeding our universe, this existential question is really for each of us to answer for our self.
Read about other relationships in the 21st century:
- Self
- Romance / Sex
- Family
- Friends
- School
- Work
- Communities
- Social status
- Consumer groups / Economies
- Political Systems
- Memes / Ideologies / Religions
- Humanity
- Environment / Earth
Do you have any suggestions, doubts, hypothesis or experience for this topic? Please comment below 👇!
