TWO SEATS

Do we really know what happened, in the beginning? Not just at the Big Bang, but before.

Science has sought the answer, so has religion. Neither that will ever find the definitive proof.

Finding it would requiring going back, through time travel, to the moment itself.

Or traveling so far out into the universe that we could finally find that stellar fragment, the elusive cosmic trail, the final dying light. But as it stands, from here on earth, we sit too far away. So do our telescopes and space capsules and sophisticated measuring instruments.

For lack of ever finding it, we have to find the most logical answer, based on what we can observe, here on earth.

First of all, we’d have to know that by fact of being the observers, the conscious observers, are we part of what should be observed. That is, to know that we are part of the answer.

First, the reason is to know why we would care to know such a thing in the first place.

Science, tends to search for answers out of a combination of curiosity, to solve a problem, or by the general belief that the more we know, the better off we will be.

Religion search for answers out of a combination of reasons too. It comes down to two: in prescriptive manner to increase the likelihood of survival, and to provide hope along the way.

None of the above have fully reached the answer, and elements of all of the above are necessary.

Here, I distinguish between the answers given by science and religion, and the simpler one here. Again do I base the answer on the essential fact of being an observer but also the observed, i.e., as a member of the human race. Thus what I say is that it impossible to understand the answer, without knowing we are a part of it.

This is a bit of circular logic, I realize. However is that a little bit of the point. The human race, indeed, inseparable from the point.

This is to say that indeed, there is a point. Religion will agree on this one, science perhaps not so much.

Religion however, we know can be problematic. Thus do I tackle here some of the key misunderstandings of religion, that have caused the problematic state.

I begin with the reality of the world, today. For all of human history up until this point, have our actions been limited, in how much they could impact the rest of the human race. Actions that might have had devastating or catapulting effect on their nations, cultures, tribes .. but not upon the entire human race.

For example, some peoples who disappeared and went extinct, and others that went on to become very powerful. However, neither situation that could impact the entire human race.

That has changed, and the moment it did, when humans developed the technology that could destroy indeed, the enetire human race. Of the billions then millions of years, then millennia and centuries — i.e., from Big Bang to now — and only now that we have reached that point.

Imagine how incalculably rare this is — to be alive in the moment of history, that paradoxically, has the power to end it all. Billions of years, as if for nothing. We fail to grasp the scale, but also how it is a precipice.

What will tip us over the edge? It would be the point of no return.

We should not wait to find out, in which case, we would not be “finding out” anything, because we would not be alive to reflect upon the lesson.

In that terrible hypothetical, what then? If we ceased to know the Universe, would it matter what we had theorized about it to that point? No, because the human race would be extinct, and non-existent.

Some naturalists might argue at this point (but cynically so), well that would be what we the human race deserved! And the earth and all its non-human life would somehow start over again, without the human race, and better off for it.

I will discuss here how this is actually untrue. The earth in fact, would not continue, in the long run.

The example of earth without human life is an importantly illustrative one for that reason. To realize that without -a singular critical element, of observing the Universe, the earth would cease to exist.

The earth, but also the very Universe in which it sits, is inseparable from the fact it is observed. Again, to be explained.

Animals do not observe the way the human race does. And of course, nor do plants, waters, airs, seas, rocks, soils, elements, etc. They respond to it, but do not observe it, consciously.

The Universe — in both the answers for how it began and by extension how it exist today — is inseparable from its observers, the human race. That is, as it concerns the human race. I explain the circular logic as follows.

Thus do I eliminate all theories that exclude the human race, as if the human race is some random “added” thing, in optional manner.

Instead, the observing human race, to truly understand the Universe, must also observe humans themselves. To understand the human race as part of our understanding of the Universe. The human race, an integral part of the Universe.

I distinguish again between humans and animals.

Animals respond to the Universe, e.g., in their migrations, cycles, etc. They live in different environments, formed as they were to survive in them. Their surroundings and very animal beings, were formed out of the processes that also made earth.

Only the human however, can observe that fact.

Why is observation important? Because at one point can we say that the forming process that made earth, made us observers, i.e., conscious beings.

Was this a separate act, just randomly added to the mix? If so, that would be akin to calling the entirety of the human race itself, marginal and incremental, and most of all, unnecessary.

Thus while it sounds “nice” and sympathetic to the earth, to say it would be better off without the destructive ways of the human race, we in truth know this is not true. The earth would not be the place it is today, without the human race, and overall, is it for the better.

And paradoxically, on the verge of being the absolute worst. Thus might we begin to wonder, if our very presence on earth has a reason.

Before answering that, let’s ask: how did humans make earth for the better?

This question of how, as it turns out, is inseparable from the question of Why. I.e., why we are here.

I will not answer yet the Why, but in the meantime return to the How.

The how of how we have made the earth better, is understood by the very fact of you reading this. By the fact of you, or anyone, doing, reading, seeing, observing, sensing, feeling anything we do.

Do we not put value into those acts? Including of the earth itself in its all infinite beauties. The place from which to see a far horizon, or just our bare feet at the lapping shore. Or the climb of a mountain, or the long or brief distance there back to here.

Do we not delight in these things? Perhaps not in every moment, when it seems daily life takes it toll. Yet even in daily life are reminded that we are indeed, alive to be aware of that fact.

It comes down to an existential framing, as difficult as life can be — are we still not grateful we have it?

The answer is yes. The answer, only answerable by members of those creatures called the human race. No other being knows they are alive, as we do. Animals that may feel the warmth of the sun. The cool of the night, the wind, the mud, the desert, the humid, the ___.

Yet no animal asks why that is. Why, the question reserved for the human race.

Thus do we glean the answer, to how we made the earth a better place. The anwer having something to do with our very capacity to ask — why.

Not just that we feel the warm sun, but we ask why. Why we can, and why we should again, day after day, year after year.

Epoch after epoch.

Our modern world tends to impress upon us, the sense that

(to be continued)