I knew I shouldn't have stuck my toe in all that heavy stuff about space, life, evolution and really, really big sums but there, I've done it, so now I will jump in head first! The Really Big Fundamental Question remains what it has always been, how did matter/energy come into existence? The swots seem fairly agreed (for the time being!) that it all began with a Big Bang but that, of course, does not answer the fundamental question. Even I can grasp that if you suddenly let loose mega-gazillions of hydrogen particles at high speed in all directions then, assuming (yes, another assumption) that the laws of physics are just sitting around waiting for something to operate on, then some of those hydrogen particles will collide, or attract each other, so that larger particles are formed and then suddenly, hey-ho, we're off to the races. It is worth noting that if this explosion of particles had been absolutely exact and precise the little critters would just have flown off into the big beyond but, of course, it was the tiny little deviations in the explosion which assisted the gradual union of particles. So, in a sense, we are the result of a series of tiny errors. What lies beyond the Big Bang, of course, is silence! Not even the great scientific swots have more than fanciful theories which are no more convincing than those offered by the theists. You pays your money and you takes your choice!
All of that takes us to the Really Big But Second Question which asks how organic life developed from collections of inanimate matter? The swots seem convinced that water was a cardinal requirement which is why there is so much fuss over exactly how and when water came into existence on earth. Those who believe that life began on earth seem to have settled on a theory that the very best conditions were deep in the pre-historic oceans w here various chemical particles and elements under huge pressure and immense heat from fissures in the seabed somehow created replicating organisms from hitherto lifeless matter. But now we return to the current question plaguing the swots - did this process just occur on earth where at a certain moment in time the conditions were just right, or was it that the water from space detritus that crashed into earth wasalready bearing the 'seeds' of replicating cells? The point is, as I understand it, that the parameters for an environment conducive to creating life from non-life are unbelievably strict and limiting and that even the very slightest deviation would result in no result!
All this leads onto the Really Big Third Question which is that if all that frozen water was hurtling about the universe crashing into this, that or the zillion other planets then surely there must be a chance that life exists elsewhere. Alas, to the deep regret of the swots who believe that theory, so far there has been absolutely no, nil, zilch indications of any life anywhere within reach of our observations. It's not so much that we are waiting for the second shoe to fall, we haven't actually heard the first one yet. Alas, well, alas for me, I must now return to sums again! The absolutely essential requirements for life to develop on earth are, as I said before, terrifically strict - even the minutest deviation would abort the attempt. So looked at from an earthly perspective the chances of life beginning here are infinitesimally tiny. But looked at from a cosmological platform with zillions of planets all in different stages of development and with all that water whizzing around, so to speak, to 'fertilise' them then you would have to say that it would probably happen sooner or later - somewhere. And perhaps in several different places even though there are no signs (signals) of it to us. It is necessary to think of the mathematical chances of success when the opportunities for it run to eye-wateringly huge numbers given the size of the universe. It is around this point that my synapses tend to close down rapidly!
And that word 'synapses' brings me - er, are you still with me? - to the Really Big Fourth Question. Actually, I should refer to it properly as The Hard Problem of Consciousness. Thoughts can be explained scientifically as a series of inter-actions between objects 'out there' which are picked up via our sensory perceptions, sight, sound, etc, and are then converted by electrical impulses into our brains where we experience thoughts and images. As Isaac Newton put it:
to determine by what modes or actions light produceth in our minds the phantasm of color is not so easie.
It's that old mind/body problem again. When and how - and why - do merely mechanical processes somehow convert into ideas? Perhaps that very intelligent chappie, Tom Stoppard, will tell us in his new play due to open any moment now at the Royal National Theatre. The play is called The Hard Problem!
(I suspect there will be a number of typoes in this for which I apologize and will make every effort to correct as soon as possible.)
