How little do we know? — Questions of life and existence
Humans are the most intelligent being that has ever existed. But what’s so special about them? What does your living room table lack that you have? In my opinion, there are two things fundamentally that distinguish us from our living room table: Element of life and Cognitive Consciousness. If there would be a way to embed these two things in that table, there’s a higher chance it’ll stand on two of its legs someday and would try to mate with your dining table. It may even fight for its rights and start its civilization. Then, we may have to fear “The rise of tables” rather than AI. Anyways, enough of this tabular evolution, let’s talk more about this Element of life today.
Let us converse about LIFE — a simple four-lettered word, having only one syllable, heard many times in our daily lives, never thought much about it, right? On searching Google the definition of life, it shows — ‘the condition that distinguishes animals and plants from inorganic matter, including the capacity for growth, reproduction, functional activity, and continual change preceding death.’ So in short, we can say that — Life is the condition that distinguishes animals and plants from inorganic matter, which means life distinguishes me(an animal) from my living room table(an inorganic matter). So can we also say that life is the condition that distinguishes one arrangement of electrons, protons, and neutrons from another arrangement of electrons, protons, and neutrons? After-all everything we know of is just an arrangement of atoms. So what if (hypothetically), I’m able to achieve the exact arrangement of protons, neutrons, and electrons that my body has, could I be able to call it a living being(or thing) or even a Human? (a full-bodied person who died one minute ago also has everything that a living human requires). Well here comes our element of confusion or should I say “Element of Life”, we don’t even know if it’s a real thing or just an imaginary human construct.
When I ask “What is life?”, I don’t mean it in a religious or spiritual sense, I want to know it scientifically. (being a so-called show-off intellectual). Basically when a very large number of atoms is grouped together suddenly a so-called life is born in them which allowed them to reproduce and evolve, and then 3.5 billion years after, a more advanced, complex, and evolved version of this former group of atoms is conscious enough to question its own existence. But what exactly happened 3.5 billion years ago that Life began in that single-celled organism we call Prokaryotes? Why on this huge floating space rock? This is the question beyond which we don’t know anything except some made-up theories.
When we think about the fundamental building blocks of existence itself, the first thing which comes into our minds are atoms, right? No, but atoms are made up of electrons, protons, and neutrons, so are they the fundamental particles of existence? No, even protons and neutrons are made of something, which we call Quarks — One proton constitutes three quarks and the same goes for one neutron. So quarks and electrons are the foundation of our universe or say existence, right? Well, pardon me but there are actually twelve fundamental particles as far as we know, better look up here. But, maybe someday, one new study may show that there exists an even smaller particle, who knows?
The point I’m trying to put here is we don’t exactly know the existence i.e. most basic building blocks of existence or why they exist. We don’t know the existence fundamentally, but do we know it as a whole? Existence as a whole means Our Universe, our observable universe is approximately 93 billion light-years in diameter, but that is the observable universe, not the entire universe. We don’t know what’s beyond our observable universe, we don’t even know if it’s finite or infinite. So, right now we know existence neither fundamentally nor wholly, we just know it exists. We don’t know the boundaries of our existence, just some false imaginary boundaries waiting to be shifted farther away. Right now, we are just beings limited by our microscopes and telescopes.
But why did anything exists, did someone create it? This asserts that there’s a creator(or should I say GOD) but who is the creator of this creator and so on, it becomes a paradox. Or is this concept something that the brain of a three-dimensional human being could not perceive? How little do we know?
Too many question marks up there, right? (oops here goes one more) Well, question marks are what allow us to be curious and wonder about our things. I hope I’m able to ignite a spark in your minds to think and wonder about our existence and reality, it really changes our perspective regarding everything.
Well, Thanks for reading. And lastly, a request from one combination of atoms to another: “Please subscribe to my newsletter!!!”
