This trilogy is not like the Monty Python version, there
will actually be more parts.
Lots of folks say we need to abandon American
exceptionalism. Some, like my Dear Uncle
Napoleon, prattle on about British exceptionalism. Today, rather than taking on either of those
two comparitively minor annoyances, I hope to kick the shit out of both Homo sapiens sapiens and Planet Earth
exceptionalisms.
A single member of the H.
sapiens sapiens race is, on average, 664 billionths (10-9) km3
in volume, with an average lifespan of 67.2 years. There are currently 7.3 billion (109) individuals of that
race on Earth, or Terra.
Earth, or Terra, is
1.12 trillion (1012) km3 by 4.54 billion years. It rotates on its axis at a speed of 1674.4
km/h while revolving around Sol at 108 thousand (103) km/h.
Sol, our system’s star,
is 1.4 quintillion (1018) km3 by 4.56 billion years. The Solar Planetary System is 1.7
duodecillion (1039) km3 by the same 4.56 billion years.
The Milky Way
Galaxy is 8 sedecillion (1051) km3 by 13.2 billion
years. Of its 200 billion stars, 40
billion support Class-M planets, with 8-10 billion of these hosting life-forms
analogous to Humans, making some 61.6 quintillion (1018) sapient
beings in our galaxy.
There are 2
trillion (1012) galaxies in the Universe with 80 sextillion (1021)
Class-M planets hosting 123 nonillion (1030) sapient beings in the
Universe at any one time.
The Universe, the
‘Verse for short, is 213 duovigintillion (1069) km3 by
13.8 billion (109) years. It
is expanding outward at a rate increased by the like-polarity of the
electromagnetic fields of different galaxy groups. And it is just one of innumerable such cosmic
bodies making up the Omniverse (aka Multiverse), and is currently the only one
we can measure.
* * * * *
The Universe is
formed of a single matrix called spacetime.
Everything in the
‘Verse not of the matrix of spacetime is composed of energy. Energy can be neither created nor destroyed
but only change forms. All matter that
exists is but alternate forms of energy.
Spacetime and
energy are thus the fundamental building blocks of the ‘Verse and everything in
it, the emanations from which all that is evolves.
There are four
basic dimensions—height, length, width, time—which define the point in the
spacetime matrix at which we are at any given moment. Energy flows to and from that single point in
spacetime—forward and backward, up and down, left and right, past and
future—along each of these dimensions.
The force of
gravity provides the cohesion for the ‘Verse in a relationship with the
dimension of time that is correlative if not causal. Without gravity, there would be no time;
without time, there would be no gravity.
* * * * *
Life is a function
of energy, of thermodynamics. Given
appropriate conditions, life is inevitable, because energy in the form of
matter will spontaneously self-organize through abiogenesis.
Once manifest, life
evolves into more complex forms which themselves evolve further, with those
most adaptable being the best able to survive, reproduce, and flourish.
Life has existed on
Terra for 4.1 billion years, and in the Universe since 10-17 million years
after the Big Bang.
The essence of life
is change and evolution, growth and decay.
For individual organisms, birth and death define the boundaries of
life. Without death, life has no
meaning.
Whether or not
there is another form of existence once the organic shell has been shed in
death and life on this plane ends does not matter; Humans debating those
questions are like fetuses discussing questions on life after birth.
* * * * *
In 5 million years,
the H. sapiens sapiens race, and along with it the H.
sapiens species and the Homo genus, will be extinct
due to degradation of the Y-chromosome, if we have not already destroyed
ourselves and/or our biosphere or suffered a mass extinction we don’t cause.
In 800 million
years, multi-cellular lifeforms will have vanished from Terra.
In 1.3 billion
years, eukaryotes will be extinct and life on Terra reduced to prokaryotes due
to CO2 starvation caused by chemical disruption from Sol’s
increasing luminescence.
In 2.4 billion
years, the Milky Way Galaxy and the Andromeda Galaxy will collide and merge
into one Milkomeda Galaxy, altering the structure of everything in them, though
most stars and planetary systems will remain intact.
In 5.4 billion
years, Sol will enter its red giant phase, incinerating Mercury, Venus, and
possibly Terra, destroying any remaining life on Terra if not. The habitable zone will move out to Mars, and
Saturn’s moon Titan may become habitable.
In 8 billion years,
Sol will collapse into a white dwarf, expelling half its mass into the
interstellar medium, making elements available for nucleosynthesis and forming
an emission nebula. Any remaining
planetary bodies will be stolen by passing stars, leaving the Solar Nebula.
In 14.4 billion
years, Sol will be a totally dead black dwarf star.
The Universe will
eventually end in the next Big Bounce (a Big Crunch facilitating another
Big Bang) in around 60 trillion years, dying so another can be born anew as it
was formed before.
All of this has happened before, and all of it will happen
again, and again, and again.
Next: “The Meaning of
Life, Part 2: Ain’t No Power in the ‘Verse”.
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