Stardate 021006, Spock beaming down to groom the folds in his skin: I was fascinated to recently hear/read that the furthest light source has now been measured to be +/- 30 billion light years away (I know, the age of universe I thought was +/- 12 ? 15 billion years old) and is, as I understood, on the red-shift spectrum limit (sorry, I can?t recall the source ? I think it was a TV news bulletin ? not the inebriated janitor at work). But it?s still that famous Hubble Deep Field Survey image that blows my mind: +/- 2?600 (?) (new) galaxies (discovered) in a spec of sky that seemed to be totally void. Add ?this? to every such spec in our perceivable orb, stretch it out to 30 billion light years available ?scope? (heck, even stick to the original 12 ? 15b LY) and you start getting to some massive numbers indeed. Give the universe the benefit of the doubt (i.e. if we could come into being, so could ?others?) of only 1 viable (i.e. life-bearing/supporting planet) per galaxy (keeping in mind how many stars it takes to make up one galaxy ? each with its own satellites/planets) and the odds start looking very attractive, especially when accounting for some of the more recent discoveries (PM - Oct ?06) of earthly life forms found in places previously considered too inhospitable to support them ? let alone ?flourish?. We cannot be alone. And as far as the galaxy-trotting antics of little aliens in UFOs are concerned? hold the line: just take our progress over the last 100 years and imagine it in another 100 years from now (remember, we?re progressing [technologically] exponentially) then just imagine us a 1?000 years from now. Scary. Hell, WE?VE become the space-trotters? shuttles, probes, satellites, Orbiters, Rovers, Voyagers, ISS (what do you think our space-conquering capacity will be like in 1?000 years?) And, again, if we could (and will) get there, so could others. Besides, in terms of the universe?s clock, anything being 1?000 years behind or ahead of us (we being the ?benchmark?) is like someone getting into a lift a millisecond before ? or after ? us. It bugs me that people overkill our (earth?s) ?(standalone) uniqueness? ? as though in the entire universe WE?RE the (only) exceptional (life-bearing) planet: Take man out of earths? equation and what do you have? You still have life abound, but it?s "meaningless" because you need intelligent beings to contemplate and appreciate it - i.e. us. Without man here, life as we know it ? though still present - would have been meaningless? a not-too-special phenomenon as far as a ?humanless? universe is concerned.
To quote YT: For not the conscience of man, the bold expanse and presence of the universe would be no more significant than a single, random ripple of water, somewhere, at some time, amongst the world's great oceans.
We are but children of a bio-chemical process. If we could get here (to this level of self-awareness via a path of ?finding? a habitable environment by way of adaptation), so could others. It?s only a matter of time ? many years maybe - before we make contact, but I believe it will happen eventually? even if it is just ?Buzz Lightyear meets deaf/mute/blind Orion Swamp Amoeba? or ?Surface Explorer bumps into what looks like a flat, thorny type of bonsai?? to begin with.
And that?s all I have to say about that.
"When I was coming up, it was a dangerous world, and you knew exactly who they were. It was us versus them, and it was clear who them was. Today we are not so sure who the they are, but we know they're there." --George W. Bush, Iowa Western Community College, Jan 21, 2000
