Some Fundamental Questions

These are some of the fundamental questions that have intrigued me all of my life. There are more, of course, particularly relating to consciousness, that may well be among the last to be answered. The ‘answers’ below are just my own, certainly imperfect, understanding of the present state of knowledge. I hope that you find this brief discussion interesting.

Q: Does our world have a special place in the universe?
A: In the sense of being at a relatively benign location, yes, we would not be here otherwise. Most of the extra-solar planets discovered so far are not habitable for life as we know it, but we’ve only had search tools for a few years.
But our world is certainly not the unique centre of the universe nor is it the centre of our hundred thousand light year wide galaxy. The solar system is located in one of the outer spiral arms of our galaxy – and all the better for that. The quieter ‘suburbs’ of the Milky Way provide longer lasting security from catastrophic events and a safe distance from the galaxy’s central black hole. Our excellent sun has a good life expectancy, is stable and of an intensity to give a decent sized habitable zone in which, fortunately, the earth is located.

Q: Will we ever understand it all?
A: We perceive only 'through a glass darkly' with the imperfect minds of the unperfected beings that we are. We’ve only been at the scientific process consistently for a few centuries (despite the insights of some of the early Greeks – but not the most famous ones). A complete understanding may take thousands of years to acquire. Indeed it may be that full knowledge of the nature of reality will remain forever beyond our ability to ascertain for ourselves - although perhaps not beyond our ability to grasp if explained by sentient others. And it may turn out that such an understanding may not be confined within the constraints of current orthodox scientific analysis.

Q: Are we alone?
A: I see there being three possible answers to this question (not including ‘don’t know). In my view the answer is no, but the universe is not overcrowded with technologically advanced civilisations that have not self destructed or otherwise come to an end.

Q: Where is everybody?
A: Be patient! The Galaxy (a tiny fraction of an observable universe of a hundred billion or more galaxies) is a vast place with two hundred billion or more stars. If the sun was the size of a grain of rice you could just about fit the Milky Way into the space between the Earth and the Moon. There are more stars in the universe than there are grains of sand in all the beaches of the world. There may be ten times as many planets as there are stars. This is why, to me, complete solitude has always seemed unlikely to say the least.
For all we know thousands of advanced civilisations might have arisen in the Milky Way galaxy alone but, given its scale, with most of them likely to be separated by hundreds of light years in space and possibly hundreds of millions of years in time. Quite possibly, long lasting technical civilisations are a rarity and that in this neck of the thousand light year woods we are ‘it’. This is the third answer alluded to above – no and yes (in practical terms). It’s rather like a code based on prime numbers that is in principle crackable but the fact that it would take centuries to do this makes the code effectively uncrackable.
Can we make ourselves an exception to the longevity issue and can we acquire the patience and vision to continue with our modest efforts to make contact for more than the few years we’ve been at it?

Q: The most fundamental question of all: Why there is something rather than nothing?
A: There are at least two assumptions implicit in this question namely (a) that something ‘exists’ and (b) that nothingness is a default position inherently more likely and less demanding than ‘somethingness’. I will accept (a) and in terms of (b) my personal guess is that the quantum nature of reality will turn out to be a necessity, that quantum fluctuations are an inescapable part of this and that with random quantum fluctuations permanent total nothingness is a logical impossibility.

Q: Is there not evidence of design?
A: In a universe that is capable of developing and sustaining life there must inevitably seem to be evidence for design given the conditions that appear to be required, but that does not necessarily imply that there was conscious design even though it is true that the universe is, to use a youthful expression, ‘brilliant’ and wonderful.
A number of interesting questions arise. Here are two of them. Would a designer necessarily be conscious – or is that bit up to us? Would a designer have much (or any) choice in terms of ‘the laws of nature’?
However, it is intriguing to speculate what a conscious universal designer would have set out to achieve. In my view this would include freedom for any sentient beings (and the suffering that is an essential part of this - the price of freedom) an absence of favouritism and a wide separation between planetary civilisations to reduce the possibility for mutually assured destruction. Funny, but that seems to be the way it’s turned out.