Carl Sagan said that if we were the only life in this universe, then it seems like an awful waste of space. Saying that is like calling that extra DNA “junk” or like saying that the 72.6% of us that is water is useless. His perspective is sorta narrow. The space, all the extra space without detectable life, without livable format, is useful. It wouldn’t have been created otherwise. Perhaps our idea of livable or useful is faulty—it just seems a little bit like the perspective of a creature who thinks he’s the biggest, baddest thing out there. The biggest, baddest creature who does things like define rules about physics, claims that babies have a certain way they need to develop, and can be convinced that all your relationship problems or money problems or sex problems or weight problems can be solved by his best-selling book. If the universe were thought of like a cell or an atom we wouldn’t question that the vast open space is valuable.
I think of the universe as a eukaryotic cell—the openness as the cytoplasm, containing all internal sub-structures. Here metabolic pathways define the functionality of the whole: the exchanges, the break-downs, the syntheses, the potential for entropy. It works toward homeostasis.
The sun would be our mitochondria: generating seemingly endless energy (one through the process of oxidative phosphorylation…and the other is a massive nuclear reactor releasing an energy equivalent of 1 trillion megaton bombs per second… both insanely cool, and both life sustaining.)
Earth is the nucleus.
People are her genomes. Limitless, independent in function while dependent on organization, creative, whole only if functioning in community… indescribably gorgeous.
And of course, the Millennium Falcon would be the endoplasmic reticulum.
Well…
Let’s just say anything could happen. And, um, despite the war in the stars…we’ll always find out who our father is in the end.
Not where you thought that would go, huh? ;o)
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