Thirteen point eight billion years after its birth, our universe has awoken and become aware of itself.
From a small blue planet, tiny conscious parts of our universe have begun gazing out into the cosmos with telescopes, repeatedly discovering that everything they thought existed is merely a small part of something grander: a solar system, a galaxy and a universe with over a hundred billion other galaxies arranged into an elaborate pattern of groups, clusters and superclusters. Although these self-aware stargazers disagree on many things, they tend to agree that these galaxies are beautiful and awe-inspiring.
But beauty is in the eye of the beholder, not in the laws of physics. So before our universe awoke, there was no beauty. This makes our cosmic awakening all the more wonderful and worthy of celebrating: It transformed our universe from a mindless zombie with no self-awareness into a living ecosystem harboring self-reflection, beauty and hope — and the pursuit of goals, meaning and purpose. Had our universe never awoken, then it would have been completely pointless — merely a gigantic waste of space. Should our universe permanently go back to sleep due to some cosmic calamity or self-inflicted mishap, it will become meaningless.
On the other hand, things could get even better. We don’t yet know whether we are the only stargazers in our cosmos, or even the first. But we’ve already learned enough about our universe to know that it has the potential to wake up much more fully than it has thus far. Perhaps life will spread throughout our cosmos and flourish for billions or trillions of years. And perhaps this will be because of decisions we make here on our little planet during our lifetime.
To me, the most inspiring scientific discovery ever is that we’ve dramatically underestimated life’s future potential. Our dreams and aspirations need not be limited to centurylong life spans marred by disease, poverty and confusion. Rather, aided by technology, life has the potential to flourish throughout a cosmos far more grand and inspiring than our ancestors imagined.
