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Monday, April 28, 2008

Time and Space

Time - on Friday I posted about the mind-boggling concept of space. Today, I think I will continue on that theme, but this time ventured towards the mind fuck orgy that is time. There has been life on Earth for, what did I say Friday? 3.7 billion years, with man barely breaking the 15,000 mark at this point, if it is even that high. We are merely a blip in the grand scheme of life on Earth - yes, I am only going by time versus life on Earth because if I go with cosmic time, I'll barely be able to wrap my head around it.

Ironically, I'm short on time here at work, so I'll make this brief.

Dinosaurs roamed the Earth for 160 million years, give or take a week or so. Now during that time they obviously evolved greatly and some theorize that they continued to evolve into modern day birds but that's neither here nor there in terms of this discussion. The point is, as a species - or, I suppose more specifically, a class of vertebrae animals they survived 160 million years until some global catastrophic event probably occurred, more than likely something of a cosmic nature that was of no consequence of something done here on Earth but rather something that unpreventable. Mankind, on the other hand could essentially destroy ourselves effectively within 10,000 years of existence. Granted, we've had 70 millions years of mammalian evolution to back us up, but how much progress have we made in the past 10,000 that makes this truly possible? Exactly - it's like iPod memory sizes, how quickly we figured out how to build a society and then destroy it. Impressive, humans.

I think the point I'm trying to make with both of these posts is truly how insignificant we all really are. Now I'm not saying that we are a meaningless and pointless species, I just think we take ourselves too seriously and hold ourselves in too high regards for many of our own limitations which we are practically blind to see. What do I suggest? We need to work towards utilizing more of what was given us, and I'm not just referring to natural resources here on Earth - I'm also talking about brain power and skills. If the most effective use of our opposable thumb thus far is hitch hiking than we aren't trying hard enough. Just my two cents, of course. So that's what I've got - we are all insignificant. Tomorrow - there is no God and other common human beliefs destroyed by logic! Ta.

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