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The Seven Wonders of the Universe Intelligent Life
When you stand out under a starry sky, it's inevitable that you see all those stars (and a few planets) and wonder about what OTHER intelligent life there is "out there." It's an interesting philosophical train of thought to get on because, if you're intellectually honest with yourself, you stumble across two compelling, but opposed realizations:
1. We could be the ONLY intelligent life in the cosmos; 2. We are NOT the only intelligent life in the cosmos.
Either way, those can be frightening, even challenging ideas to entertain. If we ARE the only intelligent life in the cosmos, then look around at our home planet and see how we're treating the only place we know we can exist. Think about how we treat each other, especially if we ARE the only INTELLIGENT life in the cosmos.
If we are NOT the only intelligent life in the cosmos, then that means there could be life that's more or less intelligent that we are. How do we measure up, especially when we examine how we treat our home and our fellow intelligent lifers?
I doubt most of us alive now will know if there IS intelligent life "out there" unless we start getting visited from other planets. But, there's intelligent life on our own planet, distinct from humans, and we don't have a good track record with it these days. That life exists underwater, in the oceans, with its own societies and ways of living. If our track record with dolphins, for example, is any indication, our first visitation with intelligences from elsewhere in the cosmos is going to be a rocky one.
So, think about it next time you're out stargazing. You've been blessed with intelligence that lets you comprehend and STUDY the sky, to understand the world around you. It's special, but how special is it?
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Adot's Notblog A fellow traveler blogger and astronomy enthusiast!
Astronomy Blog An astronomy blog pondering the big questions
