The (In)significance Of Our Time

And our existence. Why our time and we, (don’t) matter.

I am the man who was born on April Fool’s day. Friends joke about it: how my birth was a prank and how my whole life is a joke. I do too because well, I like my Birthday. It makes me feel special. I mean few people get to take part in conversations like these:

“Today’s my Birthday.”

“Really?!”, and then with a skeptical look, “Really?…”.

I love it.

I felt even more special when I read somewhere that the European calendar had April 1st as the new years day before it was moved to January 1st. But later I found out that I had misconstrued the truth. Firstly, it’s just one of many theories on the origin of the April Fool’s day and even then, it’s a pretty questionable one. Secondly, the New Year was on the 25th of March. But I ignored those other details because I had to have a special connotation attached to my birthday

All this I realize is a human thing; we all find ways to make ourselves feel special, don’t we?

When given a chance, a business student won’t pass up the opportunity to point out how everything is related to money, economy and the like. It’s everywhere they say.

Along similar lines, I point out how technology is creeping into our lives and how computers are becoming ubiquitous.

There might be a fair amount of truth in these claims. We could look at stats of some sort. However, it is also a fact that we can attach quite a bit of significance to almost anything if we wanted to. Take Human Psychology for instance. Even though I know next to nothing about it, I could probably conjure up some decent arguments about how it’s such an important field, how it affects so many other aspects of our lives.

There are three factors at work when I claim that the world runs on binary: It has some amount of truth in it. I am biased because I’m more exposed to technology. And, I want to feel special.

W e don’t need to be ashamed of our need to feel special. Humans have been doing it throughout history. For quite some time, we believed ourselves to be at the center of the Universe–literally! In fact, we even devised some crazy orbits for the other planets to explain their weird behavior of not orbiting us.

And when in the 16th Century that notion, that we held some special place in the grand scheme of things was thrown out the window, we took to the next “logical” thing — that our Sun was at the center of the Universe. Not until the early 20th Century did the realization begin to dawn on us. Our Sun is just one of many stars. And, more damningly, we are not special!

Of course, it would be false to say that our desire to feel special was the only reason we created these models of the Universe. In all likelihood, people were just trying to explain what they saw with the (limited) knowledge they had. However, our belief that we hold some privileged place in the Universe certainly affected our thinking.

So then, what is our place in the Universe?
These images might make it clearer:

We live on a pale blue dot.

The dot pales in comparison to the size of our Sun.

And, our Sun isn’t that special too.

We can only see a small part of the Universe.

And, even our galaxy is not that huge.

To emphasize our insignificance in space-time, let’s see where our time fits in the overall picture.

If we consider the 13.8 billion year lifetime of the Universe to be a year, we make our entry as anatomically modern humans on 31st December close to midnight at 23:52. In fact, on this scale, Columbus discovered America just a second ago! How much has happened since then!

Ain’t all this depressing? It sort of depresses me at least, especially the time aspect. Because our life is so short, its existence doesn’t matter to the Universe. On top of that, we are sure to miss out on a lot of cool things. It’s like we only get to see one still frame instead of the whole movie. I’d say that’s one of the reasons why living forever would be cool but let’s not get into that.

Now that we have established our insignificance, what can we do about it? Cry in a corner and wallow in self-pity?

No! Because 99.9999% of the Universe is not alive but we are. That is special in a way. Besides, we can use another scale. Instead of using the Cosmic scale, why don’t we use the “human” scale to measure our life.

What can you do in a lifetime? 
Answer: a lot of things.

You can build a palace from pebbles in a lifetime. Or publish 5000 books. Or watch 28000 movies. You can even do something extraordinary like save a billion people. Okay, these are rare instances.

Still, a lifetime — if used carefully — gives you quite a lot of time to love your loved ones, to make the world a better and happier place, to help out your fellow humans, to chase your dreams or better yet: to do what you love to do. In short, a lifetime is enough to live a life. Nothing more, nothing less.

In that sense, our time here is significant for what matters to us.

I say we use both scales in a way that leads to a better life and way of thinking.

Use the cosmic scale for your worries. If you ever find yourself worrying just for the sake of worrying. In other words, if there’s nothing you can do about it but you still worry, just zoom out to the heavenly scale. Would it matter in a few years? Heck, would it matter in a thousand years? Whatever it is that’s worrying you won’t be of any significance to anything in the universe pretty soon. Not even you. So, relax.

But for your happiness, use the human scale. Because when it comes to your happiness, the universe doesn’t matter. What matters is right here, right now. So, smile.

Another aspect that emphasizes the significance of our time is a relative one. It is based on the fact that we are developing quicker than at any point in human history. In fact, this form of accelerated growth has been with us ever since our arrival on the scene.

From this wonderful answer by Balaji Viswanathan on early human progress:

We took tens of thousands of years to settle down (starting from the migration in Africa). After we settled down, we discovered ways to domesticate plants about 12,000 years ago, discovered metals about 8000 years ago and started writing things about 5000 years ago.

So, in the early days, major discoveries and progress were thousands of years apart. In modern times, the duration has shortened to decades or even just years. This is simply due to the compounding effect of development — progress begets more progress.

Meaning we (as in, humanity as a whole) are moving forward at a rate unprecedented in all of history. We are advancing more in a week than what people in the 2nd Century might have done in a year. We are traveling faster (think maglev train vs a horse) both literally and figuratively than any of our ancestors. The question of whether we are heading towards a fatal crash (Technological singularity?) is another topic altogether.

We will experience some great changes pretty soon. Perhaps, even within the next ten years. It is definitely a pretty interesting time to live in — with self-driving cars, 3D-printing, Internet of Things, and possible mars colonization (albeit this might take a while) among some of the next possibilities. Ha! Take that Universe! Okay, it still doesn’t care. But we do and that’s what’s important.

We are not significantly insignificant. We are insignificant yet significant.