[thoughts of a burning woman]

In just one universe: billions of galaxies.  In one galaxy, hundreds of billions of stars.  How many of those stars have planets in systems similar to our own solar system?  How many of those planets either have conditions similar to those of earth, thus allowing for the development of our kind of biological life, or how many of those worlds developed other kinds of intelligent life; other types of intelligent or highly advanced societies?

Those are the basic scientific questions that, as yet, cannot be answered objectively although there are specious claims that technologically advanced ‘aliens’ have visited earth, have even crash landed and been ‘taken into custody’ so to speak. 

But science is only one small part of the field from which we draw this age-old question of man’s.  What about ‘religion’?  Where did ‘man’ come up with the idea there were ‘gods’ out there, some good, some bad, some indifferent?  How did these ideas that ‘we are not alone’ and there are spirit beings around us originate and become so powerful they gave rise to earth-controlling social systems replete with laws to which global man basically agreed to live by.  Unusual, miraculous ‘powers have been claimed by, and recorded of, individuals who closely followed the teachings of their gods, or representatives of such gods.

There’s more: where do dreams and visions come from?  Why do we believe in some sort of future life and even the most die-hard ‘atheists’ despite their protests to the contrary cannot help but wonder?

How about this: why are humans fascinated by fairy tales, fantasy, and long before the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, by science fiction?  The long-standing saw is that as man evolved he felt increasingly puny and alone on his little world, the problem intensifying as organized religion had to bow to scientific discovery that earth was not the center of the universe, not even the center of this tiny, meaningless solar system.  So man’s creative ‘mind’ invented non-human spirit beings, or alien beings who share the world with him.  Much as we give dolls and teddy bears to little children to keep them company.

The most logical approach to this ‘discussion’ goes back to Occam’s razor, that all things being equal, the simplest explanation tends to be the right one.  And the simplest explanation is we are not alone at all.  We can look at our interaction to the rest of the cosmos with a simple analogy.  Imagine an earthworm living in an earthworm colony somewhere on earth.  He’s not sure of his location relating to the rest of the planet, but he’s quite sure that apart from the few insects and types of life he’s observed there is nothing else.  His world is the center of an infinite entity and there isn’t any point thinking about that. 

One day a fisherman digs up the colony and picks the earthworm for bait.  He puts the worm in a glass jar and goes off on his boat to fish.  At the end of the day, this fisherman being a bit aware, always returns whatever worms he has not used, to their home.  The earthworm returns with a tale of the ‘god’ who chose him to go on an incredible journey and having shown him some of the mysteries of his amazing worlds and some of his powerful technology, brought him back to tell other earthworms that ‘they are not alone’ and that there is a god who cares about them. 

Some time later as the earthworms emulate their gods and develop their own technology they begin to think that maybe their gods are just simply higher advanced forms of earthworms who evolved long ago when they too got their awakening from even more advanced earthworms.   The earthworms begin to look at their world from an ever-expanding ‘bigger picture’ which is bound to make them, in turn, gods to lesser advanced earthworms somewhere on their planet and beyond.

Are we the earthworms who are about to discover a very old technology built by our ancestors: wormholes?  Are we the intelligent species from this solar system that is going to ‘walk’ the hypothetical Einstein-Rossen bridge that opens up a tunnel through the fabric of space/time connecting different dimensions?  We’ve been practicing this in our stories, vision, dreams, and faith for tens of thousands of years.   Are we ready to actually do it?  Or are we going to chose to wait another thousand years, enduring untold horror and terror before we close this old book and begin a new one?  

Thank you once more, Carl Sagan, for helping me think outside the box.