Entangled - journey of discovery

Chapter V Our Evolutionary Story

From Single Cell Organisms to Technologically Advanced Civilization

According to Brian Cox 'particle physicist' and others, life started quite soon after our solar system and our earth was formed 4.5 billion years ago. Around 3.8 billion years ago, was when the first single cell organisms appeared and what is amazing is that life on our planet stayed that way for 2 billion more years. That is a hell of a long time with very little change, and then multicellular organisms began to appear and then the explosion of life on the planet happened. What is interesting about the timeline is that it took almost 4 billion years for creative conscious intelligent beings to emerge to where we are today, ready to explore our solar system and beyond. We are on the cusp of exploring and inhabiting the rest of our solar system.

Other Advanced Civilizations

So when we are speculating about other technologically advanced civilizations in our galaxy and knowing that we have been searching for 50 years or so, and finding nothing, we may have to accept that we may be it. That we are the only conscious sentient beings in our galaxy, and that we have such a fragile grasp on our own existence. In other words, there may be no one else who can save us from ourselves. That alone should be a frightening wakeup call. That we are the only guardians of any understanding of our existence. Of course our universe is immense and it is very possible that other advanced civilizations exist in other galaxies but if we can't as yet find any evidence in our own Milky Way, the vast distances involved to go even farther afield most likely would put the search out of reach for now.

Finely Tuned/Intelligent Design Universe

And sooner or later everyone will ask themselves questions like, how did we get here. If that can be answered, the question, why are we here may also be answered. Are we all just the result of a very rare accidental combination of so many finely tuned aspects of our own universe. I would think that if you are interested in how we all got here, it didn't all start in the primordial soup on earth 3.8 billion years ago, it had to be setup before that when the planets were formed and the solar systems, and even going back to the big bang, or whatever was the beginning of our universe. That is the background conditions that allowed life to get started at all.

My understanding of the uniqueness of our universe and it's suitability to allow life to get started and stable enough for long enough for this evolution to take place, has many critical important elements. As just one example, the stability of the galaxies, which are constantly spirally but holding together and not flying apart for 10 billion years or more, even with the constant expansion and acceleration. This is only one intriguing aspect of our unique universe. There are so many 'finely tuned' conditions that have allowed the formation of solar systems, and planets that can sustain life, that some might call this an intelligent design.

So, the question is, how could this be, that our universe got to be so finely tuned. By the way, there isn't any disagreement among cosmologists on this point from what I can understand. It is a starting point though in answering the question, how did we get here. Religious people like it also because an intelligent design, may imply a designer and creator.

Our Part of the Universe Well Understood

At this point we just don't know what came before the beginning of our universe, was there a beginning, or has something always existed in one form or another. But after the so-called 'Big Bang' beginning of our universe it is quite clear how we got from there to here. Especially with the James Webb telescope, we can see back 13.5 billion years ago very close to the big bang. That much is very clear. Particles and gases were formed from the initial expansion and as everything cooled galaxies were formed. 

We don't know how large our universe is or what if anything is outside it. To observe the actual size is limited by the speed of light and how long it would take for signals to reach our earth since the beginning of the Big Bang. And the fact that our universe is expanding there is less and less to observe as more moves past the observable horizon. But we do know that there are several hundred billion galaxies in the observable universe, and some say that we may only be able to see a small part.

Universe Uniqueness Explanations

There is no shortage of ideas to explain the beginning, and the uniqueness, from continuous universes being formed serially (Roger Penrose, 'Nobel Price in Physics', to pocket universes like bubbles forming after the big bang (Brian Cox), our universe would be one of those bubbles. These theories satisfy the multiverses and parallel universes ideas. If these processes have been going on forever, and zillions of universes have been created, chances are that some of them would have the conditions suitable for life to evolve and of course we would be in one of them.

None of this implies an intelligent, all powerful or a good creator, but it is worthwhile thinking about how we got where we are when thinking about the other mysteries surrounding our existence and spirituality.