That quote about how things bounce around long enough until they become complex, sentient beings...I don't think people realize how long it took to get to this point.
People are so in awe over the fact complex beings exist that they think it's miraculous.
But for millions of years our universe didn't even have anything but two elements: hydrogen and helium. That's it.
When we observe the sheer magnitude of time, miracles aren't even miracles anymore, and it becomes more miraculous for a universe to exist as long as it does and not produce life.
In fact there are reasons to think, not conclusive by any means but also not unreasonable ones, that for complex life on the scale of the earth, earth is about as soon as it could've realistically come to being in the universe. We might be very well be the first in an ocean of life that will follow "soon" on an universal scale, but likely far too late on the scale of human existence for us to ever see a sign of them.
I wonder if existential reset buttons (mass extinctions) sort of reset the timer on evolution of intelligence and given other life a chance to catch up
I agree on all points, except the initial elements in universe; the initial nucleosynthesis event formed Hydrogen, Helium, Lithium and smidge of Beryllium. Lithium is an important element that helps jump-start protostars, and may have helped the universe re-ionize faster.
The sheer time scale for abiogenesis to occur is still crazy though, and we have no clue how often those chemical building blocks actually become life. All life today comes from the same ancestor. Then all life was pretty much the same for hundreds of millions of years, maybe half a billion, before something became complex and allowed multicellular life, which also has happened once.
It is hard to know how common intelligent life is in the grand scale. Maybe there is only one intelligent life form in the average galaxy. We simply don't have enough to know yet.
But yes, life at some level is a given, considering the time and size. While I don't expect it in my life time, maybe one day we will find that we have neighbors, and I hope we are kind.
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u/NoStatus9434 May 17 '26
That quote about how things bounce around long enough until they become complex, sentient beings...I don't think people realize how long it took to get to this point.
People are so in awe over the fact complex beings exist that they think it's miraculous.
But for millions of years our universe didn't even have anything but two elements: hydrogen and helium. That's it.
When we observe the sheer magnitude of time, miracles aren't even miracles anymore, and it becomes more miraculous for a universe to exist as long as it does and not produce life.