Thursday, September 20, 2018

Essays for my children: We Are All Equal

We Are All Equal:

Sometime ago I was introduced to the theory of the Fermi Paradox. The Fermi Paradox states that humanity has not made contact with intelligent life anywhere else in the Universe because we are alone - being either the first or the last of intelligent life forms in existence. That in itself - at least for me - was a startling premise to consider however, when looking at the massive scale involved with this theory, it provided a revelation on equality.

In all of human history, 106 billion people have walked the face of the Earth. Today alone, there are 7 billion of us living on the planet. That sure is a lot of people however, let us compare that number, on this planet, revolving around our solar system's single star, to the awe-inspiring numbers in The Milky Way Galaxy and beyond. The Milky Way Galaxy possesses approximately 300 billion stars, in a broader Universe that contains 100 billion galaxies, and those galaxies have a combined 30 quadrillion stars. The immense numbers of planets that revolve around those stars have an estimated total of 999 sextillion, 999 quintillion, 999 quadrillion, 999 trillion, 999 billion, 983 million, 222 thousand, 784 planets. Written out continuously, that number looks like this: 999, 999, 999, 999, 999, 983, 222, 784.


For additional scale, if humanity were to divide the Universe's planets equally, each human being alive today would receive 142 trillion planets for their own. There are more planets in the heavens than there are grains of sand on all the beaches of the Earth. And we, all 106 billion of us who have lived on this planet over the entire course of human history, account for less than one grain of sand on the vast celestial beach of all creation.

When taking into account the possibility for the Fermi paradox - with those mind boggling figures - I find we are equal in being an amazingly finite gift of life and an absolute mathematical miracle of existence. So, on the topic of equality, to say that one human being's life is more or less equal than another is cosmically laughable. For whether you are spiritual or atheistic, the overwhelming scale and majesty of existence profoundly states - with a thundering voice - that all human lives are equal as being irrefutably a marvel of intelligent life.

You are equal and a miracle.