April 14, 2024 • 29 mins
It is estimated that over 2 billion stars in our own Milky Way galaxy have planets orbiting them that could sustain life. Are we on planet Earth a lottery winner, a one in 2 billion chance for establishing life and intelligent beings? The odds suggest life exists elsewhere.
However, although it took billions of years to life on Earth to evolve to where we are today, there are stars are much older that our own sun. Several billion years older in fact. Why no evidence of extraterrestrial life? No radio signals, no unmanned probes, no hard evidence of visitations. Why not? Could we be alone?
Hegel teaches that rationality and Spirit is paramount, what is real. If so, it most be universal, across the cosmos. Are we the only place where it has actualized? This episode explores.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
Hello, I'm Gregory Nowak.
This is the cunning of Geistepisode 81.
Welcome back.
The purpose of this podcast isto explore philosophy psychology
and modern science.
With an emphasis on the great19th century philosopher, George
Wilhem freezer, Hagle.
I also cover other greatthinkers here, such as
(00:22):
psychologist, Carl Young mediatheorist, Marshall McLuhan, and
many more.
All of whom I believe canprovide help to us today and
understanding our place in theworld.
And then setting meaningfulgoals and taking appropriate
actions to build a better lifefor us and for everyone.
Before we get into this episode,I want to mention that.
(00:42):
I realize it's been seven weekssince I last published.
an episode.
And when I started the podcastsome four years ago, I began by
doing them every two weeks.
Very religiously.
Then after a year or so, I movedto every three weeks then after
another year or so to about oncea month.
And I continued that just upuntil now.
(01:03):
and as I've mentioned before, I.
Feel that I really need to havesomething to say that is new and
different to record an episode.
I just can't force it.
I don't want to just come onhere and babble and waste your
time.
But I do believe that I've comeup with a new topic and I'm
excited to present it here now.
So here we go.
(01:23):
In this episode, I'm going tomove beyond the confines of
planet earth and look at thelarger universe as a whole.
To get the bigger physicalpicture.
If you will.
There's so much we know aboutthe cosmos today, there was
unavailable to Hagle and otherthings.
It was even to thosephilosophers and psychologists
in the 20th century.
The questions I will beaddressing are these first one,
(01:46):
does life exist elsewhere in theuniverse?
Two is so does intelligent liferationality exist elsewhere in
the universe?
Three.
If intelligent life does existelsewhere, is it possible for us
to communicate?
With extra terrestrialconsciousness.
And for lastly, if extraterrestrial consciousness exists
(02:06):
beyond our planet.
Why have we not heard from them?
So.
As regular listeners.
Now, I normally begin an episodeby stating my overall
conclusions first, then backingup and presenting my, my full
argument and then summarizing,but given the uniqueness of this
topic, I believe it's bestagain, into some of the details
(02:27):
first, then present myconclusion.
So let's start.
Question one.
Does life exist elsewhere in theuniverse?
Well, let's break this questiondown first.
We do know that life exists hereon planet earth.
So we know it's possible forlife to originate in the
universe.
We also know that rational,conscious thought here.
(02:47):
It exists here as well.
So it's possible for rationalconsciousness to exist.
In the universe.
And whether or not that is theaim of the universe is a
separate question, which I'llput on hold for now.
Revisit later.
But let's step back and examinewhat we know about life
appearing here on earth.
And right off the bat, we arefaced with a big question.
(03:09):
Do we have the right to say thatlife began to exist here?
I only bring this up becausethere is a serious theory called
panpsychism.
We devoted an entire episode tothat back in episode 12.
Panpsychism holds that mindexists as a fundamental feature
of the cosmos of everything.
Even if matter.
There's no particle or speck ofdust or subatomic particle that
(03:32):
does not contain some veryrudimentary form of mind.
If that's correct.
Then mine may have beenoperating even in.
Rudimentary form mind in life.
From the so-called beginning ofour universe.
But this brings up a question.
From the beginning of ouruniverse, did our universe have
a beginning?
I've covered my thinking on thisquestion back in episode 39, but
(03:55):
let's review.
what I have to say on this.
Scientists now consider thenotion of the big bang as being
established fact that thisoccurred some 13.8 billion years
ago.
And just what was going on atthat moment and what proceeded
it is unknown.
My own theory.
Similar to, to what is taught inHinduism and in other.
(04:18):
Traditions teach is that theuniverse goes through cycles.
From the big bang, the universecontinues to expand to the point
where everything is so farapart, eventually dissolves.
And then a new universe isreborn from this.
cosmic quagmire.
Uh, of nothingness, if you will,into another big bang.
Now, this is not eternalrecurrence.
(04:40):
It's not the same things.
Repeat over and over again ineach round.
All in nature.
But the universe itself canevolve.
I believe.
And others believe including hislaws from round to round.
I covered this theory in detailin a full episode, episode 61.
So check that out.
Now, how did scientists concludethat the big bang occurred?
Well, this is interesting.
(05:01):
They discovered that thegalaxies we now observe are
moving away from each other inan accelerated.
Rate.
They, and they use this fact toproject backward in time and
realized that the universe hadto have a much smaller.
Beginning.
it must've been much smallerearlier on than it is today.
And actually it keeps, if you gobackwards, it keeps getting
(05:21):
smaller and smaller to theoriginal, big bang, some 13.8
billion years ago.
As I said, what, exactly wentdown there?
They don't know.
Uh, that's because the laws ofphysics break down in these
initial conditions.
But it appears that there wasinitially something that existed
on a quantum level andscientists determined that right
(05:44):
before the big bang, there was ahuge expansion of space itself.
Now what's important.
Here is the universe did notexpand into space.
It was space itself thatexpanded.
I know it's impossible tovisualize this because if
something's expanding, then itmust be expanding into
something.
Now scientists use the conceptof blowing up a balloon with
(06:04):
dots on it.
To explain this as the balloonsis the balloon gets bigger, the
dots move away from each other.
That is the best current sciencecan do as an explanation.
And it's not perfect by anystretch because the balloon
obviously is.
Expanding into the air aroundit.
But let's just leave thatconundrum here and just say that
scientists using relativelytheory, Einstein space-time
(06:26):
continuum, et cetera, believethis is what's occurring based
on current knowledge.
Now after this initial extremeexpansion of space.
There was just a kind of cosmicradiation that existed and it
existed.
Like this for some 400 millionyears.
And then the first star hasfinally appeared.
(06:47):
So the cosmic background,radiation is still detectable
today, in fact, and it actuallyis what's provided further
evidence to support the big bangtheory.
So the expanding universe iswhat gave empirical evidence to
the original, big bang.
But we're talking here aboutgalaxies and stuff.
Let's just back up for a secondand review some basics about a
(07:09):
universe from a physicalstandpoint.
We live on the planet earth.
It's around blue ball.
We've all seen the photographsof it from space.
We live on this planet.
And the planet earth travelsaround in the circle around the
sun.
The sun is that big, brightobject in the sky that you can't
look at directly.
It takes one year for the earth,our planet to make the circular
(07:32):
journey around the sun.
In fact, this is how we definethe term one year, how long it
takes the earth to go onerevolution around the sun.
Now there are seven otherplanets that also revolve around
the sun, different sizes andmakeups.
Earth is the third one out.
Scientists used to considerPluto, which is the outer most
protoplanet.
(07:53):
They used to consider that anactual planet.
But they no longer classified asa full fledged planet.
so.
Our son now is just one son ofabout 100 billion stars that
make up our Milky way.
Galaxy.
As soon as you can see this atnight, the Milky way galaxy
consists of a hundred billionstars and we're one of the
(08:16):
stars.
With our eight planets.
Now that's a lot of stars incoincidentally, the human brain.
They estimate has approximately100 billion neurons, roughly the
same number.
Of stars as in the Milky way,galaxy.
Now.
What's fascinating.
Here is the Milky way.
Galaxy our galaxy is just onesuch star cluster.
(08:38):
Of an estimated 200 billion to 2trillion galaxies in the entire
universe.
Now we're getting into numbersthat you cannot visualize to
calculate the total number ofstars in the universe.
One, one after multiply 100billion stars from one galaxy
times, the number of galaxiessay 1 trillion.
And I don't think my calculatorcan handle that many zeros.
(09:00):
Now.
These first stars are sunsappearing some 13.4, roughly.
Billion years ago.
400 million years after the bigbang.
Not all the stars were formed instars.
Continue to be born and gothrough a lifecycle.
Some were formed then, and someare formed after.
Including our own sun and starsdie out also.
(09:21):
Uh, it depends on the size ofthe star where they can live
from some 20 million years onthe short side to several
trillion years on the long side.
Our own son is estimated to havea lifespan of some 10 billion
years.
So it is possible that some ofthe first stars in the universe
may still be around.
Now.
Our son was born about 4.6billion years ago.
(09:43):
So it's a relatively new star.
And it will continue to live foranother 5.4 billion years or so.
The earth itself is almost asold as the son being born 4.5
billion years ago.
And it, and the other plantswere formed at roughly the same
time, very early in the son'slife.
So that's where we stand on the,on the cosmic timetable and it
(10:05):
gives you some perspective.
Now let's go back to thequestion of life.
Scientists contend that thefirst physical evidence of
anything that could be calledlife, which is microscopic
microbes appeared some 3.7billion years ago on the planet.
So the physical appearance oflife on earth appeared
relatively early in the Earth'shistory.
so just over 80% of the Earth'slife so far has contained
(10:29):
observable physical life.
Now.
From the appearance of thesefirst singular cell microbes, it
took him to the two to 3 billionyears.
That's a lot of time formulticellular life to evolve,
where the cells joined up.
Some.
w one cell might eat another oneor they would combine somehow.
(10:49):
And they w.
Then formed a new entity andmulticellular organism.
Then it took another 800 millionyears, almost another billion
years for multiple forms oflife, plants and animals to
evolve.
Then around 538 million yearsago.
The so-called Cambrian explosionoccurred, and this is a great
(11:10):
evolutionary leap.
And that many early primitivelifeforms emerged that back
then, but a half a billion yearsago.
Now fish continued to evolveduring this period.
And the first ones then movedout of the water to the land did
so around 390 million years ago.
Mammals appeared around 200million years ago.
(11:30):
It took some time for theinitial primates, our direct
ancestors to evolve.
This occurred around 50 to 55million years ago.
Early humanoids evolve some fiveto 6 million years ago from a
common ancestor of the ape.
Um, and at that time there weremany different humanoid species
evolving separately, perhaps asmany as 15 to 20 different
(11:51):
types.
MITRE humans.
Speaking of our form, our bodiesfirst appeared around 300
million years ago.
And certain culturaldevelopments like tools, cave,
art, and such that's much morerecent.
And that started about 50,000 to65,000 years ago.
So.
(12:12):
We're moving forward here.
The agricultural revolution thenoccurred around 10,000 years
ago.
When people change from huntergatherers to living in more
stable communities writing,which is so important, became
more recently around 3,200 BC inMesopotamia.
And this is.
Very close to when.
Writing was formed in Egypt oron 3,100 BCE.
(12:36):
Hinduism the world's oldestreligion appeared 2000 BC
Judaism around 1000 BCChristianity around 33 CE with
the death of Jesus.
I continue to move forward.
The printing press was inventedin 1440.
the scientific revolutionoccurred in the 16th, 17th
century, along with theProtestantism of Martin Luther.
(12:58):
The great liberal revolutions inEurope and America began in the
late 17th and early 18thcentury.
The philosophical revolution ofcontent Hagle occurred during
that time.
The electrical revolution tookhold in the late 18 hundreds,
beginning with the Telegraphleading to the radio and then
television in the 20th century.
The first flight occurred earlyin the 20th century.
(13:21):
And the first man in the moonwas in 1969 and the internet
late in the 20th century.
All very recent.
Given the fact that, observablelife on earth goes back 3.7
billion years.
And the most major developmentsoccurred in just the last few
thousand years.
So it's just a tiny fraction ofthe total time of physical life
in the plant.
(13:42):
So.
What am I getting at here?
Life.
Whether it was also there in aproto form.
Before they had an as inpanpsychism or if it began to
exist at that time is nearly asold as the planet itself, but it
took almost this entire time forit to evolve where we are today.
Thinking conscious creatures.
(14:03):
Now.
Given that fact, though, thereare stars in the universe that
had been around much longer thanour sun.
Maybe even twice as long.
And.
Scientists estimate there's some200 billion stars like our sun,
just in our own Milky way.
Galaxy alone, 200 billion starslike our sun in our own galaxy.
And they estimate that some 20%of those stars have planets.
(14:29):
20% of the stars that elect ourson have planets.
That's 40 billion stars likeours in our galaxy with planets
orbiting around them.
And they also estimate thatthere are more than 2 billion
planets in our galaxy that couldsustain life because they are in
the habitable zone from theirmother's star.
So.
(14:50):
That's 2 billion plants.
You know, so.
We're saying that if life onlyinvolved here, that'd be one out
of 2 billion.
That's pretty low eyes.
so to answer the first questionwhere the life exists on the
planet.
It's it.
Twofold answer it's certainlypossible.
And it looks like it would behighly likely given the vast
number of planets that exist outthere.
(15:12):
Like ours.
However, we've seen no evidenceof such life, and this is a
paradox.
so we cannot reallycategorically say yes or no to
question one without directevidence of extraterrestrial,
intelligent life.
Now as Carl Sagan said, absenceof evidence does not mean
evidence of absence.
So.
(15:32):
We must remain agnostic.
At least on question one.
Now.
We have been searching the skyfor radio signals from other
plans for some time now, butnothing's turned up and some
refer to this as Fermi's paradoxand.
For me.
Was, Enrico, Fermi, and Italianphysicist to.
(15:52):
Raise the question back in 1950,if life on other planets is so
probable.
Why do we have no evidence ofthis life?
Um, I'm going to address thisquestion specifically in
question four, but first.
Let's move on to question two.
Does rationality exist elsewherein the universe?
Well, As I said before, we knowthat we are rational creatures.
(16:14):
So rationality exists in theuniverse.
And importantly, it may also befundamental to the universe as
Hagle explains.
Therefore it may be.
Universal.
and if life does develop in theuniversity and also.
If opportunity avails itself,continue to develop and continue
to evolve to the point where itexpresses rationality and
(16:37):
intelligence.
And this is I've said it wasmost likely it's cold.
Not that it's a goal by someoutside force or God.
It's just that that's the natureof the life force itself.
to express itself and betterexpress itself.
And.
And have greater freedom andcontrol of the environment and
awareness of itself, which leadsto the expression of
(16:58):
rationality.
But again, as with life itself,there's no evidence confirming
that rationality intelligencealso exists somewhere outside of
earth, but we can't rule it outeither.
This brings us to questionthree.
If there is rational life outthere, is it possible to
communicate?
With such extra terrestrialconsciousness.
(17:19):
And the answer here appears tobe yes, with some
qualifications, we are capableof picking up radio signals from
space, and we have monitorsgoing on right now, trying to
pick up signals from outerspace.
Many organizations monitor theskies for such signals.
Our own radio waves andsatellite transmissions extend
into space and have for sometime now.
(17:39):
Many of which could be picked upby now by our nearest neighbors.
And perhaps the most famous suchmessage was sent out from earth
from the huge air CBO radiotelescope, located in Puerto
Rico.
In 1974, it contained numbers,atomic numbers, chemical
formulas, a map of the solarsystem and other information
showing our intelligence.
And we aimed it at a starcluster, some 25,000 light years
(18:02):
from earth.
So our message will arrive25,000 years from now.
This method is obviously slow,real slow, but it may be too
slow for real communication.
What about physical visits?
Well, if you think radio wavesjust slow, physical travel is so
much, much slower.
So any kind of meaningfulphysical travel would have to
(18:24):
involve technologies beyond ourcurrent understanding and
capability.
Now there could be unmanneddrones or probes that are sent
out by civilizations.
From other planets.
In fact, the United States didthat.
In 1977, it's sent out twovehicles out of our solar
system, Voyager one and Voyagertwo.
They contain greetings fromearth messages.
(18:44):
They included also a recordingof music, which they called
Earth's greatest hits and evenattain to Chuck Berry rock and
roll hit Johnny B Goode.
And As an aside, there's a veryfunny old Saturday night live
skit in which earth receives itsfirst message from outer space.
Steve Martin portrays ascientist, and he's going to
read you the world, the firstmessage from the aliens.
(19:06):
And he says it contains justfour words and it's going to be
on the cover of time magazinenext week.
And he reads the four words.
Send more Chuck Berry.
Anyway.
I posted a video clip of thisSaturday night live skit on the
podcast.
Facebook page.
If you want to check it out..
But there's a fourth type ofcommunication beyond radio
signals, personal travel orunmanned spacecraft.
(19:28):
That's ESP.
Extra sensory communication.
Well, there is some empiricalevidence that ESP does exist
perhaps only in a limited senseamong some people, particularly
between close relations andfriends.
It's not yet firmly establishedas an accepted view of science.
(19:48):
But one wonder is just how deepdoes the collective unconscious
mind go?
Could it go?
So deep that it includes extraterrestrial life.
If it exists out there.
It's an interesting idea.
But it does not seem to beevident in our dreams or
archetypes.
So we expressing our religionand our art.
Following along with.
Young's theory.
So this question of ESP cannotreally be addressed at this
(20:12):
point in time.
It may be possible, but it mayalso not be possible.
So this brings us to our lastquestion regarding the Fermi
paradox.
For if rational creatures areout there.
Why have we not heard from them?
Well, as I said, the earth isclose to 4 billion years old
with measurable life arisingshortly after that.
(20:33):
Although conscious rational lifeonly appeared relatively
recently.
Many stars out there have been.
Around a lot longer, perhapstwice as long.
Could they have not figured outan interstellar travel by now?
The Milky way can be transversedin a few million years, given
conventional space travel.
So why aren't they here or theirprobes or the radio signals?
(20:54):
Anything?
But there's nothing.
It's silence.
And why is this so well, thereare many theories, many
possibilities.
Let me just cover two.
broad ones first is that.
Uh, technologically intelligentcivilizations may have a
lifespan of their own and dieout before they could establish
galactic travel.
And there can be many reasonswhy they die out, but we'll just
(21:14):
lump it all in.
That they never survived to thepoint.
Of, uh, establishing inneglected.
Travel.
Now, secondly, it's possiblethat they're out there and
they're aware of us, but theychoose not to communicate with
us.
And this is because they see usas not having evolved enough to
communicate with.
And you can understand this.
(21:36):
We are currently a species stillengaged with wars against each
other.
Why would an advancecivilization want to make
contact with us?
Remember the old line, take meto your leader.
We, as a planet, could not evencome to agreement as to who to
put forth as our leader.
So we may be sort of untouchableat this point in time.
And also the recent, relativelyrecent spate of UFO sightings,
(22:00):
unidentified flying objectsraises this possibility of us
being observed, but not.
You had contacted.
So it's an interesting theory.
But again, backing up a littlebit.
All this is very technologicallyoriented, very physically
oriented.
And as I said before, my main DBuniversal.
(22:21):
And as such if other creaturesevolve and other planets.
Uh, they may advance to thepoint where they tap into
rational thought as well.
So they would not be truealiens, but they would be fellow
Centene, creatures, recognizingthought and spirit as a bond
between us.
Now.
Let me bring up an interestingpoint.
It, it cannot be denied that theuniverse appears as if it has
(22:43):
been fine tuned for life.
And as I said, this does notimply necessarily imply a
creator God, behind at all.
My own theory is that the law ofnature.
The laws of nature may haveevolved from round around of the
universe and other scientists.
Phil.
This may be the case as well.
From birth to death, the rebirththere's a cycle and things get,
(23:06):
get more fine tuned to producelife.
It may have taken a few roundsjust to get to the point where
there.
Where there was initial life.
Anyway.
Some of the coincidences that,that we see, for example, If the
electronic magnetic forcebetween two protons were only
(23:26):
slightly smaller, the universitywould have been short-lived.
If the strong nuclear forest wasoff a bit, by say two, one
hundreds of a percent, theuniverse itself could not exist.
If the ratio of dark energy togravity, where I've just a bit,
the initial universe would havecollapsed.
If the cosmological constantwere just slightly larger space
(23:46):
would have expanded too rapidlyfor stars to form.
So the universe itself seems toHave evolved very much along the
lines to support life and lifeevolves to the point to support
rational thought.
I mentioned this.
Theory.
That I've adopted an exportedin, in episode 61.
(24:09):
And this may be an, anevolutionary journey that we
share with others.
It may not be.
You know, planet dependent.
and as listeners to the podcastknow Hegel's approach is that
evolution of spirit in nature ishistorical and is ongoing.
And he claimed that historyevolves toward greater freedom
and rationality dialectically,it's a dialectical process.
(24:32):
And this often happens throughthe struggle of nation against
nation.
This is still going on today onearth.
and someday, if, if, and whenconfronted with an alien
civilization, we may have toengage dialect the claim with
them for advancement.
Let's hope it's a peacefuldialectic.
Process.
But assuming their rationalityis core to the universe.
(24:53):
When we are confronted withother rational beings, they may
have evolved past us.
From an understanding point.
They may be more in touch withspirit incorporated into the
lives that more than us.
Will we be able to grow givensuch an account or hopefully.
Are there things perhaps we canpass on to them given our own
unique circumstances also,hopefully, possibly.
(25:16):
meeting another civilizationwith their own dialectical
history and then combining itwith the.
With ours in a dialecticalprocess could be a life-changing
experience for us here.
So finally, what do we do aboutall this?
What do we just wait and see?
Uh, no, there are.
There are a couple of knownshere that I think we should keep
(25:37):
front and center.
First, the big one, the sun willnot last forever.
It will eventually die out.
Even if we live together.
You know, w if we can extendlife indefinitely is.
That's not good enough.
The sun will not last forever.
It will die.
And as part of its process, itwill eventually become bigger
and engulf the earth.
(25:57):
This will incur in about 5billion years or so.
So he had plenty of time toprepare for this event and
possibly leave earth and thesolar system itself.
And it may take us.
A few billion years to become aninterstellar species.
But there's no time like thepresent to start things moving
along.
And there's another danger that,that have a giant asteroid
(26:19):
hitting the earth.
This is what is commonlybelieved to have wiped out the
non-flying dinosaur some 65million years ago.
Unfortunately they didn't haverocket ships to escape the
planet.
And there's another thing thatcould happen.
A huge random asteroid couldstrike the earth.
And scientists estimate thatthis can occur every 500,000
years or so.
(26:40):
and this is a much shorter timespan than the 5 billion years
when the earth is engulfed bythe sun.
And it just because it's veryrare does not prevent it from
happening sooner than later.
And this is another reason thatI'm interplanetary colonization.
Got it in a very important lifesaving benefit for us and for
rationality itself.
(27:01):
if we're the only ones that,that have evolved so far to this
point, otherwise we might haveto wait for the next round to
continue our evolution of whatyou've were alone or.
You know, Somebody else in someother planets, some other
species will, will carry on, butit's something that is important
to consider seriously,interplanetary.
(27:23):
travel and setting up colonieson other planets.
Then there are the issues hereon the planet itself.
Things such as nuclear,Armageddon, climate change, they
represent known risks that thatcould make the earth
uninhabitable.
And, and that's another reasonto explore other, other planets.
And there's also the issue ofcontagious pandemics.
(27:47):
the, the could occur.
The worst than what we've seenso far and they are certainly
possible and can't be ruled out.
So.
All these terrestrial events.
Point the need to take a lookfor, for new, for new Homeland.
As they say.
So to close things off let'sreturn once again, to philosophy
(28:09):
all this talk about the big bangand galaxies makes for great
left brain analysis.
But as Hegel famously said inthe phenomenology of spirit,
everything turns on grasping andexpressing the true, not as
substance, but equally assubject.
And the following, what seems totake place outside of it to be
an actively directed against it.
(28:31):
Is its own doing.
It's own activity and substanceshows.
That it is in reality subject.
So, what are you saying here isthat my Damanhur are essentially
the same.
They're two sides of the samecoin.
Both are fundamental.
And we can take solace from thefact that mine exists in is
indeed.
Fundamental as other planets,the suns and the galaxies.
(28:54):
But we shouldn't just rest withthat knowledge.
We are alive in nature and wemust move forward.
And for the reasons discussedhere, this means moving out to
other planets.
And two other stars.
So that's a wrap for thisepisode.
Thank you so much for listeningand a special thanks to all
those of you who have bravedthrough all 81 episodes of the
(29:16):
cutting of guys podcast so far,I will keep them coming.
And as I always remind everyoneat the end of each episode,
please be sure to like, andfollow the podcast, Facebook
page at cunning of guys, I postthere often.
And we have very fruitful.
Conversations with followers ofthat page.
So, so check it out like it andfollow it and contribute.
(29:37):
And also feel free to sharelinks to these episodes on your
own social media accounts.
I highly encourage it.
And also tell your like-mindedfriends about the podcast,
spread the word.
So closing, let me say.
I'm Gregory Nowak.
This is the cunning of Geist.
CNX time.
Hello, I'm Gregory Nowak.
This is the cunning of Geistepisode 81.
Welcome back.
The purpose of this podcast isto explore philosophy psychology
and modern science.
With an emphasis on the great19th century philosopher, George
Wilhem freezer, Hagle.
I also cover other greatthinkers here, such as
(00:22):
psychologist, Carl Young mediatheorist, Marshall McLuhan, and
many more.
All of whom I believe canprovide help to us today and
understanding our place in theworld.
And then setting meaningfulgoals and taking appropriate
actions to build a better lifefor us and for everyone.
Before we get into this episode,I want to mention that.
(00:42):
I realize it's been seven weekssince I last published.
an episode.
And when I started the podcastsome four years ago, I began by
doing them every two weeks.
Very religiously.
Then after a year or so, I movedto every three weeks then after
another year or so to about oncea month.
And I continued that just upuntil now.
(01:03):
and as I've mentioned before, I.
Feel that I really need to havesomething to say that is new and
different to record an episode.
I just can't force it.
I don't want to just come onhere and babble and waste your
time.
But I do believe that I've comeup with a new topic and I'm
excited to present it here now.
So here we go.
(01:23):
In this episode, I'm going tomove beyond the confines of
planet earth and look at thelarger universe as a whole.
To get the bigger physicalpicture.
If you will.
There's so much we know aboutthe cosmos today, there was
unavailable to Hagle and otherthings.
It was even to thosephilosophers and psychologists
in the 20th century.
The questions I will beaddressing are these first one,
(01:46):
does life exist elsewhere in theuniverse?
Two is so does intelligent liferationality exist elsewhere in
the universe?
Three.
If intelligent life does existelsewhere, is it possible for us
to communicate?
With extra terrestrialconsciousness.
And for lastly, if extraterrestrial consciousness exists
(02:06):
beyond our planet.
Why have we not heard from them?
So.
As regular listeners.
Now, I normally begin an episodeby stating my overall
conclusions first, then backingup and presenting my, my full
argument and then summarizing,but given the uniqueness of this
topic, I believe it's bestagain, into some of the details
(02:27):
first, then present myconclusion.
So let's start.
Question one.
Does life exist elsewhere in theuniverse?
Well, let's break this questiondown first.
We do know that life exists hereon planet earth.
So we know it's possible forlife to originate in the
universe.
We also know that rational,conscious thought here.
(02:47):
It exists here as well.
So it's possible for rationalconsciousness to exist.
In the universe.
And whether or not that is theaim of the universe is a
separate question, which I'llput on hold for now.
Revisit later.
But let's step back and examinewhat we know about life
appearing here on earth.
And right off the bat, we arefaced with a big question.
(03:09):
Do we have the right to say thatlife began to exist here?
I only bring this up becausethere is a serious theory called
panpsychism.
We devoted an entire episode tothat back in episode 12.
Panpsychism holds that mindexists as a fundamental feature
of the cosmos of everything.
Even if matter.
There's no particle or speck ofdust or subatomic particle that
(03:32):
does not contain some veryrudimentary form of mind.
If that's correct.
Then mine may have beenoperating even in.
Rudimentary form mind in life.
From the so-called beginning ofour universe.
But this brings up a question.
From the beginning of ouruniverse, did our universe have
a beginning?
I've covered my thinking on thisquestion back in episode 39, but
(03:55):
let's review.
what I have to say on this.
Scientists now consider thenotion of the big bang as being
established fact that thisoccurred some 13.8 billion years
ago.
And just what was going on atthat moment and what proceeded
it is unknown.
My own theory.
Similar to, to what is taught inHinduism and in other.
(04:18):
Traditions teach is that theuniverse goes through cycles.
From the big bang, the universecontinues to expand to the point
where everything is so farapart, eventually dissolves.
And then a new universe isreborn from this.
cosmic quagmire.
Uh, of nothingness, if you will,into another big bang.
Now, this is not eternalrecurrence.
(04:40):
It's not the same things.
Repeat over and over again ineach round.
All in nature.
But the universe itself canevolve.
I believe.
And others believe including hislaws from round to round.
I covered this theory in detailin a full episode, episode 61.
So check that out.
Now, how did scientists concludethat the big bang occurred?
Well, this is interesting.
(05:01):
They discovered that thegalaxies we now observe are
moving away from each other inan accelerated.
Rate.
They, and they use this fact toproject backward in time and
realized that the universe hadto have a much smaller.
Beginning.
it must've been much smallerearlier on than it is today.
And actually it keeps, if you gobackwards, it keeps getting
(05:21):
smaller and smaller to theoriginal, big bang, some 13.8
billion years ago.
As I said, what, exactly wentdown there?
They don't know.
Uh, that's because the laws ofphysics break down in these
initial conditions.
But it appears that there wasinitially something that existed
on a quantum level andscientists determined that right
(05:44):
before the big bang, there was ahuge expansion of space itself.
Now what's important.
Here is the universe did notexpand into space.
It was space itself thatexpanded.
I know it's impossible tovisualize this because if
something's expanding, then itmust be expanding into
something.
Now scientists use the conceptof blowing up a balloon with
(06:04):
dots on it.
To explain this as the balloonsis the balloon gets bigger, the
dots move away from each other.
That is the best current sciencecan do as an explanation.
And it's not perfect by anystretch because the balloon
obviously is.
Expanding into the air aroundit.
But let's just leave thatconundrum here and just say that
scientists using relativelytheory, Einstein space-time
(06:26):
continuum, et cetera, believethis is what's occurring based
on current knowledge.
Now after this initial extremeexpansion of space.
There was just a kind of cosmicradiation that existed and it
existed.
Like this for some 400 millionyears.
And then the first star hasfinally appeared.
(06:47):
So the cosmic background,radiation is still detectable
today, in fact, and it actuallyis what's provided further
evidence to support the big bangtheory.
So the expanding universe iswhat gave empirical evidence to
the original, big bang.
But we're talking here aboutgalaxies and stuff.
Let's just back up for a secondand review some basics about a
(07:09):
universe from a physicalstandpoint.
We live on the planet earth.
It's around blue ball.
We've all seen the photographsof it from space.
We live on this planet.
And the planet earth travelsaround in the circle around the
sun.
The sun is that big, brightobject in the sky that you can't
look at directly.
It takes one year for the earth,our planet to make the circular
(07:32):
journey around the sun.
In fact, this is how we definethe term one year, how long it
takes the earth to go onerevolution around the sun.
Now there are seven otherplanets that also revolve around
the sun, different sizes andmakeups.
Earth is the third one out.
Scientists used to considerPluto, which is the outer most
protoplanet.
(07:53):
They used to consider that anactual planet.
But they no longer classified asa full fledged planet.
so.
Our son now is just one son ofabout 100 billion stars that
make up our Milky way.
Galaxy.
As soon as you can see this atnight, the Milky way galaxy
consists of a hundred billionstars and we're one of the
(08:16):
stars.
With our eight planets.
Now that's a lot of stars incoincidentally, the human brain.
They estimate has approximately100 billion neurons, roughly the
same number.
Of stars as in the Milky way,galaxy.
Now.
What's fascinating.
Here is the Milky way.
Galaxy our galaxy is just onesuch star cluster.
(08:38):
Of an estimated 200 billion to 2trillion galaxies in the entire
universe.
Now we're getting into numbersthat you cannot visualize to
calculate the total number ofstars in the universe.
One, one after multiply 100billion stars from one galaxy
times, the number of galaxiessay 1 trillion.
And I don't think my calculatorcan handle that many zeros.
(09:00):
Now.
These first stars are sunsappearing some 13.4, roughly.
Billion years ago.
400 million years after the bigbang.
Not all the stars were formed instars.
Continue to be born and gothrough a lifecycle.
Some were formed then, and someare formed after.
Including our own sun and starsdie out also.
(09:21):
Uh, it depends on the size ofthe star where they can live
from some 20 million years onthe short side to several
trillion years on the long side.
Our own son is estimated to havea lifespan of some 10 billion
years.
So it is possible that some ofthe first stars in the universe
may still be around.
Now.
Our son was born about 4.6billion years ago.
(09:43):
So it's a relatively new star.
And it will continue to live foranother 5.4 billion years or so.
The earth itself is almost asold as the son being born 4.5
billion years ago.
And it, and the other plantswere formed at roughly the same
time, very early in the son'slife.
So that's where we stand on the,on the cosmic timetable and it
(10:05):
gives you some perspective.
Now let's go back to thequestion of life.
Scientists contend that thefirst physical evidence of
anything that could be calledlife, which is microscopic
microbes appeared some 3.7billion years ago on the planet.
So the physical appearance oflife on earth appeared
relatively early in the Earth'shistory.
so just over 80% of the Earth'slife so far has contained
(10:29):
observable physical life.
Now.
From the appearance of thesefirst singular cell microbes, it
took him to the two to 3 billionyears.
That's a lot of time formulticellular life to evolve,
where the cells joined up.
Some.
w one cell might eat another oneor they would combine somehow.
(10:49):
And they w.
Then formed a new entity andmulticellular organism.
Then it took another 800 millionyears, almost another billion
years for multiple forms oflife, plants and animals to
evolve.
Then around 538 million yearsago.
The so-called Cambrian explosionoccurred, and this is a great
(11:10):
evolutionary leap.
And that many early primitivelifeforms emerged that back
then, but a half a billion yearsago.
Now fish continued to evolveduring this period.
And the first ones then movedout of the water to the land did
so around 390 million years ago.
Mammals appeared around 200million years ago.
(11:30):
It took some time for theinitial primates, our direct
ancestors to evolve.
This occurred around 50 to 55million years ago.
Early humanoids evolve some fiveto 6 million years ago from a
common ancestor of the ape.
Um, and at that time there weremany different humanoid species
evolving separately, perhaps asmany as 15 to 20 different
(11:51):
types.
MITRE humans.
Speaking of our form, our bodiesfirst appeared around 300
million years ago.
And certain culturaldevelopments like tools, cave,
art, and such that's much morerecent.
And that started about 50,000 to65,000 years ago.
So.
(12:12):
We're moving forward here.
The agricultural revolution thenoccurred around 10,000 years
ago.
When people change from huntergatherers to living in more
stable communities writing,which is so important, became
more recently around 3,200 BC inMesopotamia.
And this is.
Very close to when.
Writing was formed in Egypt oron 3,100 BCE.
(12:36):
Hinduism the world's oldestreligion appeared 2000 BC
Judaism around 1000 BCChristianity around 33 CE with
the death of Jesus.
I continue to move forward.
The printing press was inventedin 1440.
the scientific revolutionoccurred in the 16th, 17th
century, along with theProtestantism of Martin Luther.
(12:58):
The great liberal revolutions inEurope and America began in the
late 17th and early 18thcentury.
The philosophical revolution ofcontent Hagle occurred during
that time.
The electrical revolution tookhold in the late 18 hundreds,
beginning with the Telegraphleading to the radio and then
television in the 20th century.
The first flight occurred earlyin the 20th century.
(13:21):
And the first man in the moonwas in 1969 and the internet
late in the 20th century.
All very recent.
Given the fact that, observablelife on earth goes back 3.7
billion years.
And the most major developmentsoccurred in just the last few
thousand years.
So it's just a tiny fraction ofthe total time of physical life
in the plant.
(13:42):
So.
What am I getting at here?
Life.
Whether it was also there in aproto form.
Before they had an as inpanpsychism or if it began to
exist at that time is nearly asold as the planet itself, but it
took almost this entire time forit to evolve where we are today.
Thinking conscious creatures.
(14:03):
Now.
Given that fact, though, thereare stars in the universe that
had been around much longer thanour sun.
Maybe even twice as long.
And.
Scientists estimate there's some200 billion stars like our sun,
just in our own Milky way.
Galaxy alone, 200 billion starslike our sun in our own galaxy.
And they estimate that some 20%of those stars have planets.
(14:29):
20% of the stars that elect ourson have planets.
That's 40 billion stars likeours in our galaxy with planets
orbiting around them.
And they also estimate thatthere are more than 2 billion
planets in our galaxy that couldsustain life because they are in
the habitable zone from theirmother's star.
So.
(14:50):
That's 2 billion plants.
You know, so.
We're saying that if life onlyinvolved here, that'd be one out
of 2 billion.
That's pretty low eyes.
so to answer the first questionwhere the life exists on the
planet.
It's it.
Twofold answer it's certainlypossible.
And it looks like it would behighly likely given the vast
number of planets that exist outthere.
(15:12):
Like ours.
However, we've seen no evidenceof such life, and this is a
paradox.
so we cannot reallycategorically say yes or no to
question one without directevidence of extraterrestrial,
intelligent life.
Now as Carl Sagan said, absenceof evidence does not mean
evidence of absence.
So.
(15:32):
We must remain agnostic.
At least on question one.
Now.
We have been searching the skyfor radio signals from other
plans for some time now, butnothing's turned up and some
refer to this as Fermi's paradoxand.
For me.
Was, Enrico, Fermi, and Italianphysicist to.
(15:52):
Raise the question back in 1950,if life on other planets is so
probable.
Why do we have no evidence ofthis life?
Um, I'm going to address thisquestion specifically in
question four, but first.
Let's move on to question two.
Does rationality exist elsewherein the universe?
Well, As I said before, we knowthat we are rational creatures.
(16:14):
So rationality exists in theuniverse.
And importantly, it may also befundamental to the universe as
Hagle explains.
Therefore it may be.
Universal.
and if life does develop in theuniversity and also.
If opportunity avails itself,continue to develop and continue
to evolve to the point where itexpresses rationality and
(16:37):
intelligence.
And this is I've said it wasmost likely it's cold.
Not that it's a goal by someoutside force or God.
It's just that that's the natureof the life force itself.
to express itself and betterexpress itself.
And.
And have greater freedom andcontrol of the environment and
awareness of itself, which leadsto the expression of
(16:58):
rationality.
But again, as with life itself,there's no evidence confirming
that rationality intelligencealso exists somewhere outside of
earth, but we can't rule it outeither.
This brings us to questionthree.
If there is rational life outthere, is it possible to
communicate?
With such extra terrestrialconsciousness.
(17:19):
And the answer here appears tobe yes, with some
qualifications, we are capableof picking up radio signals from
space, and we have monitorsgoing on right now, trying to
pick up signals from outerspace.
Many organizations monitor theskies for such signals.
Our own radio waves andsatellite transmissions extend
into space and have for sometime now.
(17:39):
Many of which could be picked upby now by our nearest neighbors.
And perhaps the most famous suchmessage was sent out from earth
from the huge air CBO radiotelescope, located in Puerto
Rico.
In 1974, it contained numbers,atomic numbers, chemical
formulas, a map of the solarsystem and other information
showing our intelligence.
And we aimed it at a starcluster, some 25,000 light years
(18:02):
from earth.
So our message will arrive25,000 years from now.
This method is obviously slow,real slow, but it may be too
slow for real communication.
What about physical visits?
Well, if you think radio wavesjust slow, physical travel is so
much, much slower.
So any kind of meaningfulphysical travel would have to
(18:24):
involve technologies beyond ourcurrent understanding and
capability.
Now there could be unmanneddrones or probes that are sent
out by civilizations.
From other planets.
In fact, the United States didthat.
In 1977, it's sent out twovehicles out of our solar
system, Voyager one and Voyagertwo.
They contain greetings fromearth messages.
(18:44):
They included also a recordingof music, which they called
Earth's greatest hits and evenattain to Chuck Berry rock and
roll hit Johnny B Goode.
And As an aside, there's a veryfunny old Saturday night live
skit in which earth receives itsfirst message from outer space.
Steve Martin portrays ascientist, and he's going to
read you the world, the firstmessage from the aliens.
(19:06):
And he says it contains justfour words and it's going to be
on the cover of time magazinenext week.
And he reads the four words.
Send more Chuck Berry.
Anyway.
I posted a video clip of thisSaturday night live skit on the
podcast.
Facebook page.
If you want to check it out..
But there's a fourth type ofcommunication beyond radio
signals, personal travel orunmanned spacecraft.
(19:28):
That's ESP.
Extra sensory communication.
Well, there is some empiricalevidence that ESP does exist
perhaps only in a limited senseamong some people, particularly
between close relations andfriends.
It's not yet firmly establishedas an accepted view of science.
(19:48):
But one wonder is just how deepdoes the collective unconscious
mind go?
Could it go?
So deep that it includes extraterrestrial life.
If it exists out there.
It's an interesting idea.
But it does not seem to beevident in our dreams or
archetypes.
So we expressing our religionand our art.
Following along with.
Young's theory.
So this question of ESP cannotreally be addressed at this
(20:12):
point in time.
It may be possible, but it mayalso not be possible.
So this brings us to our lastquestion regarding the Fermi
paradox.
For if rational creatures areout there.
Why have we not heard from them?
Well, as I said, the earth isclose to 4 billion years old
with measurable life arisingshortly after that.
(20:33):
Although conscious rational lifeonly appeared relatively
recently.
Many stars out there have been.
Around a lot longer, perhapstwice as long.
Could they have not figured outan interstellar travel by now?
The Milky way can be transversedin a few million years, given
conventional space travel.
So why aren't they here or theirprobes or the radio signals?
(20:54):
Anything?
But there's nothing.
It's silence.
And why is this so well, thereare many theories, many
possibilities.
Let me just cover two.
broad ones first is that.
Uh, technologically intelligentcivilizations may have a
lifespan of their own and dieout before they could establish
galactic travel.
And there can be many reasonswhy they die out, but we'll just
(21:14):
lump it all in.
That they never survived to thepoint.
Of, uh, establishing inneglected.
Travel.
Now, secondly, it's possiblethat they're out there and
they're aware of us, but theychoose not to communicate with
us.
And this is because they see usas not having evolved enough to
communicate with.
And you can understand this.
(21:36):
We are currently a species stillengaged with wars against each
other.
Why would an advancecivilization want to make
contact with us?
Remember the old line, take meto your leader.
We, as a planet, could not evencome to agreement as to who to
put forth as our leader.
So we may be sort of untouchableat this point in time.
And also the recent, relativelyrecent spate of UFO sightings,
(22:00):
unidentified flying objectsraises this possibility of us
being observed, but not.
You had contacted.
So it's an interesting theory.
But again, backing up a littlebit.
All this is very technologicallyoriented, very physically
oriented.
And as I said before, my main DBuniversal.
(22:21):
And as such if other creaturesevolve and other planets.
Uh, they may advance to thepoint where they tap into
rational thought as well.
So they would not be truealiens, but they would be fellow
Centene, creatures, recognizingthought and spirit as a bond
between us.
Now.
Let me bring up an interestingpoint.
It, it cannot be denied that theuniverse appears as if it has
(22:43):
been fine tuned for life.
And as I said, this does notimply necessarily imply a
creator God, behind at all.
My own theory is that the law ofnature.
The laws of nature may haveevolved from round around of the
universe and other scientists.
Phil.
This may be the case as well.
From birth to death, the rebirththere's a cycle and things get,
(23:06):
get more fine tuned to producelife.
It may have taken a few roundsjust to get to the point where
there.
Where there was initial life.
Anyway.
Some of the coincidences that,that we see, for example, If the
electronic magnetic forcebetween two protons were only
(23:26):
slightly smaller, the universitywould have been short-lived.
If the strong nuclear forest wasoff a bit, by say two, one
hundreds of a percent, theuniverse itself could not exist.
If the ratio of dark energy togravity, where I've just a bit,
the initial universe would havecollapsed.
If the cosmological constantwere just slightly larger space
(23:46):
would have expanded too rapidlyfor stars to form.
So the universe itself seems toHave evolved very much along the
lines to support life and lifeevolves to the point to support
rational thought.
I mentioned this.
Theory.
That I've adopted an exportedin, in episode 61.
(24:09):
And this may be an, anevolutionary journey that we
share with others.
It may not be.
You know, planet dependent.
and as listeners to the podcastknow Hegel's approach is that
evolution of spirit in nature ishistorical and is ongoing.
And he claimed that historyevolves toward greater freedom
and rationality dialectically,it's a dialectical process.
(24:32):
And this often happens throughthe struggle of nation against
nation.
This is still going on today onearth.
and someday, if, if, and whenconfronted with an alien
civilization, we may have toengage dialect the claim with
them for advancement.
Let's hope it's a peacefuldialectic.
Process.
But assuming their rationalityis core to the universe.
(24:53):
When we are confronted withother rational beings, they may
have evolved past us.
From an understanding point.
They may be more in touch withspirit incorporated into the
lives that more than us.
Will we be able to grow givensuch an account or hopefully.
Are there things perhaps we canpass on to them given our own
unique circumstances also,hopefully, possibly.
(25:16):
meeting another civilizationwith their own dialectical
history and then combining itwith the.
With ours in a dialecticalprocess could be a life-changing
experience for us here.
So finally, what do we do aboutall this?
What do we just wait and see?
Uh, no, there are.
There are a couple of knownshere that I think we should keep
(25:37):
front and center.
First, the big one, the sun willnot last forever.
It will eventually die out.
Even if we live together.
You know, w if we can extendlife indefinitely is.
That's not good enough.
The sun will not last forever.
It will die.
And as part of its process, itwill eventually become bigger
and engulf the earth.
(25:57):
This will incur in about 5billion years or so.
So he had plenty of time toprepare for this event and
possibly leave earth and thesolar system itself.
And it may take us.
A few billion years to become aninterstellar species.
But there's no time like thepresent to start things moving
along.
And there's another danger that,that have a giant asteroid
(26:19):
hitting the earth.
This is what is commonlybelieved to have wiped out the
non-flying dinosaur some 65million years ago.
Unfortunately they didn't haverocket ships to escape the
planet.
And there's another thing thatcould happen.
A huge random asteroid couldstrike the earth.
And scientists estimate thatthis can occur every 500,000
years or so.
(26:40):
and this is a much shorter timespan than the 5 billion years
when the earth is engulfed bythe sun.
And it just because it's veryrare does not prevent it from
happening sooner than later.
And this is another reason thatI'm interplanetary colonization.
Got it in a very important lifesaving benefit for us and for
rationality itself.
(27:01):
if we're the only ones that,that have evolved so far to this
point, otherwise we might haveto wait for the next round to
continue our evolution of whatyou've were alone or.
You know, Somebody else in someother planets, some other
species will, will carry on, butit's something that is important
to consider seriously,interplanetary.
(27:23):
travel and setting up colonieson other planets.
Then there are the issues hereon the planet itself.
Things such as nuclear,Armageddon, climate change, they
represent known risks that thatcould make the earth
uninhabitable.
And, and that's another reasonto explore other, other planets.
And there's also the issue ofcontagious pandemics.
(27:47):
the, the could occur.
The worst than what we've seenso far and they are certainly
possible and can't be ruled out.
So.
All these terrestrial events.
Point the need to take a lookfor, for new, for new Homeland.
As they say.
So to close things off let'sreturn once again, to philosophy
(28:09):
all this talk about the big bangand galaxies makes for great
left brain analysis.
But as Hegel famously said inthe phenomenology of spirit,
everything turns on grasping andexpressing the true, not as
substance, but equally assubject.
And the following, what seems totake place outside of it to be
an actively directed against it.
(28:31):
Is its own doing.
It's own activity and substanceshows.
That it is in reality subject.
So, what are you saying here isthat my Damanhur are essentially
the same.
They're two sides of the samecoin.
Both are fundamental.
And we can take solace from thefact that mine exists in is
indeed.
Fundamental as other planets,the suns and the galaxies.
(28:54):
But we shouldn't just rest withthat knowledge.
We are alive in nature and wemust move forward.
And for the reasons discussedhere, this means moving out to
other planets.
And two other stars.
So that's a wrap for thisepisode.
Thank you so much for listeningand a special thanks to all
those of you who have bravedthrough all 81 episodes of the
(29:16):
cutting of guys podcast so far,I will keep them coming.
And as I always remind everyoneat the end of each episode,
please be sure to like, andfollow the podcast, Facebook
page at cunning of guys, I postthere often.
And we have very fruitful.
Conversations with followers ofthat page.
So, so check it out like it andfollow it and contribute.
(29:37):
And also feel free to sharelinks to these episodes on your
own social media accounts.
I highly encourage it.
And also tell your like-mindedfriends about the podcast,
spread the word.
So closing, let me say.
I'm Gregory Nowak.
This is the cunning of Geist.
CNX time.
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