Alien proof and human logic about the universe
The universe is so big, so vast that there is no word that would faithfully describe that vastness. And the number of bodies in the universe is so great that we cannot compare it with anything familiar from everyday life.
The Earth is an imperceptible speck in the Solar System which is an invisible dot in the Galaxy.
So how can we possibly be all alone in the cosmos believing that life exists only on Earth? Imagine a billion light-years distant galaxy with 100 billion stars and a thousand billion planets and there is no living thing there. It’s pointless.
Besides, we know how wrong we were when we claimed that the Earth is in a privileged position, that it is the center of the firmament, the only one, special. It took a thousand centuries for us to realize our delusion and that Earth is just one of countless worlds.
We are not privileged and the only ones in this infinity. There must be someone else. Isn’t it logical that it couldn’t be more logical?
Well, it wasn’t! Because somehow, quite imperceptibly, we again put ourselves in a privileged position, so we measure the universe according to our logic. We think that if something is logical to us, it is logical everywhere in the entire universe and for the entire universe.
And we claim this even though we are aware that our logic is unreliable.
Our system of thinking and reasoning developed over hundreds of thousands of years on Earth and in earthly conditions. Our logic draws data from the senses, and the senses are developed for everyday needs.
We orient ourselves well and perceive well in our field of vision. We perceive well what is important for our survival. We don’t see gamma rays and radio waves, because we never needed it for life. Besides, our senses are deceptive and can deceive us. For example, we see that the railroad tracks are coming together in the distance, although this is not true.
We say that something (say life) must exist in the universe, but we don’t understand the universe. What do we know about the universe? We perceive 4% of the entire universe. The remaining 96% is a mystery to us!
And even in that 4%, we do not manage well. But why?
Because the universe exists on several levels. We do not understand the micro level very well. Our logic says that we can only go through one door, and at the quantum level, particles go through two at the same time. At the same time! It’s illogical, but it’s true. In the world of quantum physics, our logic breaks and that is why there are physicists who say that the human mind will never be able to understand the quantum world.
It is the same with the macrocosmos. In our little world, the sum of the angles in a triangle is always and only 180 degrees. And in the macro, that sum is either greater or less, it’s just not 180.
In our world of low speeds, they are added and subtracted, but not in the world of high speeds.
Speed of light + speed of light = speed of light. It’s illogical, but it’s true.
So, can we still rely on our logic? Well, we have to, because we don’t have others, but we should be aware of its weakness and certainly not be able to say: “it is logical that there are aliens”. We know the logic of the universe as much as we know the universe in all its levels. And we know little about the universe.
To confidently reason about the existence of intelligent life in the universe, we need much more knowledge than what we have. Maybe there is such life, but we cannot claim that just because the universe is so big and there are many planets in it.
After all, the solar system is big, unimaginably huge, and there are trillions of different bodies in it. The fact that the universe is vast and that the number of bodies in it is immeasurable does not have to mean anything. Perhaps the universe exists only for us for reasons we cannot fathom. And maybe we are a coincidence?
For a thousand years it was logical for us that we were alone in the universe, for a thousand years it was logical for us that the Earth is a flat plane around which the firmament revolves, and for all those centuries we were in some error.
How can we be so arrogant today to think we know the logic of the universe? We need evidence!
We say: if conditions exist, it is logical that life also exists. Today, no one doubts that tomatoes would grow well in Martian soil, but the problem is that we don’t know anything about how life originates.
Perhaps the existence of good conditions for life is not enough for it to arise. If so far we had found five inhabited places where there are good conditions for life, we could claim with great certainty that there is life in the sixth such place as well. But we have no such experience!
In our minds, based on the data we receive from our senses, we create images of the world, so we say, this is a star, and this is a chair. But some other cognitive apparatus would create a different picture.
In reality, the entire universe is just a void filled with energy, which in some rare places takes on a special form that we call matter. And that matter is also woven from subatomic particles that run wild and are in a different place at every moment, and we basically get a rough and hazy picture of it at a given time, so we say, look at the stars, and this is a chair. And neither the star nor the chair actually exist for any other mind and logic.
Is there extraterrestrial life in that endless space? Can we rely on our logic?
Maybe there is, and that’s all we know about it.
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