In a 13.8 billion year old universe, I'm a particular organization of matter/energy that will exist, recognizable though constantly changing, for - let's be very optimistic (and keep the math simple) - 100 years. 0.000000000072 of the age of the universe.
The stuff I am made of is elements forged in the sun a few billion years ago, and recycled since, who knows how many times, though other forms - organizations of matter/energy - both living and non-living.
When I die, my stuff will be scattered and recycled again, and again, until the end of time.
It's quite a peculiarity of my human ego that I think of myself as particularly important - that I imagine that I'm a special being blessed with the means to pass on some aspect of myself to "my" progeny.
It's perhaps even more peculiar that I have the ability to recognize that as the illusion it is - that the more persistent thread of life is the DNA itself - the particular program for organizing the stuff of the universe into me - a living machine of sorts with the function to participate in a complicated, reassorting replication of the program that passes on through time, even as I appear and then disappear, a mere blip in the expanse of time.
Meanwhile, we humans have collectively developed and accumulated a stunning ability to understand and manipulate the basic stuff of the universe - to develop tools that extend the range of our naturally evolved senses to orders of magnitude of largeness and smallness. We can control the subtle fluctuations of energy fields to the point that we can each have a personal device that extends our ability to connect and communicate around the globe. We can unleash the power of a sun and destroy a city - or more.
The huge explosion of this ability to affect our world - at macro and micro levels - has occurred within my lifetime - the last 0.000000000072 of the age of the universe - give or take. It is insane for us to think that we understand the implications of what we are doing. It is high hubris to think that we will be able to corral, constrain and control the myriad of existential threats to our species that we have, and have yet to but certainly will, unleash.
At the same time, these abilities have, from many perspectives, greatly improved our lives. Do we have the collective ability to sort out the things that will sustain us from the things that will destroy us? To succeed at the former, and avoid the latter?
The answer to that will likely come, if it is consciously known at all, from a future particular organization of matter/energy that is not us.
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