IV. A Memorial to Humanity
Human beings have inhabited the surface of this spinning, blue orb in the vastness of space for countless millennia: enough years so that we can only conjecture at when the first hominids crossed the great divide into personhood. Not only is the Earth humanity's home; but this planet will someday be our tomb, or will prove to be the place we briefly inhabited while continuing on our perpetual transformation driven by quantum mechanics and genetic evolution. Our species will only continue to exist for a relatively short time.
We must not be so vain as to assume that the Earth will exist as a cosmic memorial to human achievement for all of eternity. The Earth does not exist for us, just as we do not exist for it. The Earth will continue to exist long after our lives end; it will continue rotating about its polar axis long after the memory of Homo sapiens passes into unrecorded, unstudied, and therefore irrelevant cosmic time. The universe itself will neither celebrate nor mourn our passing.
Published by Brett LaFave
I grew up in the Northeast, attended Arizona State University, and dragged my poor Southwestern wife back to the snow with me. I'm just trying to make my way in the world. View profile
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3 Comments
Post a CommentThanks for the comment Roddy! - I see 2 possible outcomes in this piece: "this planet will someday be our tomb," "or will prove to be the place we briefly inhabited while continuing on our perpetual transformation driven by quantum mechanics and genetic evolution." The second certainly might involve outliving this planet, but I don't see the human species existing eternally.
I agree with you Roddy..
I want to offer a counterpoint. We very well could outlive this planet. The advent of human technology along with a keen interest in the universe as well as an eye towards the heavens is nature's way of offering the opportunity to move beyond the finalities.