What is Our Place in The Universe
Universe is, undoubtedly, huge. And the quest to know our position in it has bothered humans since ages.
The Universe we find ourselves in is billions of years old, 13.8 to be precise. Life started on it much much later, and as a consequence of slow, but steady and effective process of evolution, the most evolved form of life — humans — have started to think about the mysteries that surround the universe and place that they have in this continually expanding and seemingly endless universe. The quest to know our place in it is actually a hunt for meaning, signs from something superior that our struggles in this life are not futile and that there is much more to us than just being a piece of flesh who happen to be more advanced than other biological lives.
As the desire to know our position in the universe is never ending, it is also fascinating to ask ourselves about why do we want to know how important we are in the grand scheme of things? I think It has something to do with how we orient ourselves in life. We are meaning seeking creatures. We want our struggle to carry some meaning. Living a life that has no particular direction scares us and appears extremely boring. In that light, the ultimate meaning would then be to discover the meaning of existence itself. We are yet to find the “meaning” of such sort and hunt for it, therefore, continues.
It is important to mention that many people, most of whom happen to be religious, claim to have found the answer in the form of their religious scriptures and need not look up at the stars in contemplation. Going by statistics, the “many people” (who are sure that they have found the answers) constitute majority of the humans on earth. They belong to different religions each of which have their own “indisputably true” version of the answer. We can never be certain whether those claims are true, since there is no objective way to establish the truthfulness of the claims that involve supernatural entities. It, however, goes to show that religious people don’t even bother themselves with this question since they think they already have the answer.
We now have a tool, in the form of science, which has had helped us to understand the world around us in a better way. And one might expect that it is perhaps this tool that will finally unleash the answer. But again all of these are pure speculations and there is no proof that this would be the case.
Conclusion
Different people have different answers when it comes to answering the question about our position and how significant we are in this marvelous universe. Some try to connect it to the theology, some expect that by following the scientific path, coupled with technological advancements, we will finally get closer to the answer, while others just don’t care, as for them, living the life itself is such a challenge and perhaps even greater than knowing what life is about. So, there is no certain answer, and I think this is really exciting as trying to find the answers than already having them is what motivates us to do.
