Because You Can Feel the Universe

Why do we exist?

Photo by Planet Volumes on Unsplash

I have a decades-long conversation going with a pen pal and we often end up with the following type of exchange. Since I haven’t posted anything in a while, I thought it would be a nice break to share with my followers and take a break from Doomification thoughts.

Jim said,“You raise the question of significance. I raise the question “for whom?” For whom are questions significant? For themselves and their kind? I reflect on a 13 billion year old flash infinitely probably expanding naturally with living matter matter reflecting it briefly curious 👀 (and) questioning entropy.”

I don’t always answer his questions directly. Sometimes, I just drift into a thought and fill it out, regardless of whether it completely answers the question(s). This was my reply:

I think of Significance as either “resource creation” or “persistence”.

Prior to biological matter, significance might have been measured in the accumulation of nuclear particles (each generation of stars producing heavier elements), or gravitational accumulation of those materials to form planets with potential for action.

The anthropic principle suggests that the only significant development that mattered was the emergence of consciousness that could ask the question, “What is the universe…