IMHO, the cream of the crop, the best of the best, has been the “Through the Wormhole” series hosted by actor Morgan Freeman. All the episodes examines one of these nebulous Big Questions in philosophy and science. Here are the questions asked about the broad topic of life and the mind, our thoughts, and my personal opinions on each.
How Did We Get Here?
If asked the question about your ultimate origins, you could reply that you’re of this or that nationality, possibly with ancestry from this or other location. Perhaps if you’re somewhat more clued you would say “Africa” as the birthplace of the human race. If you are really clued, you could say the oceans, the undoubted place where life itself got its start. But no doubt, no matter what, you would say you’re “terrestrial” – of the Planet Earth. Alas, you are still not clued enough. You’re extraterrestrial.
We’re the aliens, directly and indirectly. Once upon a time there was this Big Bang. Since we’re a part of the Universe, and because the Universe had a source (the accepted standard version being the Big Bang event some 13.7 billion years ago), that alone of requirement means we’ve got an extraterrestrial heritage since everything which makes you, you was born in this event, thereby in a way of speaking which makes you 13.7 billion years old! As it was at the beginning, well so too did our Sun and Planet Earth have a start.
We’re Star Stuff
Our solar system, our Sun, the planets, including Earth, were formed from the remains of extraterrestrial gas, dust and debris from older stellar systems, scattered to the four interstellar winds by supernovae explosions, more than four and a half billion years back. Thus, that too lonely, whichever way you slice it, means we (as beings part and parcel of our leading system) are extraterrestrial in origin.
The terrestrial origin of life might have happened inside that petrii dish/test tube called Planet Earth – Or maybe not. IMHO it happened way too fast and far too soon post Earth’s creation to likely have been a completely terrestrial happening. There’s an alternative known as panspermia which expands both the space and time available for life’s origin by many order of magnitudes.
Panspermia
It is the idea that Earth was seeded by cosmic microbes or spores which were expelled from another planetary abode in certain other leading system and drifted across the gulf of space. A remarkably tiny fraction of those cosmic spores lands on appropriate planetary environments, where they live and flourish and evolve. Our Earth was one such location due to their lucky landing. It’s akin to a plant generating countless spores – 99.999percent of that fail to land on fertile earth; but that little fraction that does is it takes to maintain the species keeping on keeping on. Ballistic panspermia is a small variant on traditional panspermia in the spores or microbes are within the protective covering of a good object – dust or little stones, even gigantic rocks.
These, alone with their microbial passengers get blasted off home turf by incoming ballistic objects (impacting meteors), escape their home planet and some finally, by chance land on another acceptable abode. That Mars stone, ALH84001 that caused such a stir several years ago is just one such example of a prospective case history of ballistic panspermia. Directed panspermia is just another variation on the theme, only in this case there is intelligence behind the scenes, possibly sending out canisters of germs willy-nilly in a shotgun way, and/or directing that canister especially at a selected target.
When Does Life Begin?
If by that query one attempts to pinpoint that moment in time between conception and death once your life started, well, an individual would on logical grounds need to choose the moment of conception. There’s no question that sperm cells are living; there is no wonder that egg cells are living, so there is little point in arguing that the marriage of both isn’t alive. Perhaps the greater, and harder question, is when does this egg and that sperm become you? Again, according to logic, the solution is at conception, because at that point you’ve got all the genetic material which makes you a special life form. As to whether you have the exact human rights as you do later down the trail, well that is a philosophical and legal question, not a scientific one.
