The highly improbable fact of being alive

Forget everything.  Clear your mind.

And then read the following:

A rocket powered by kerosene and liquid oxygen and carrying a scientific observatory blasted off into space at 10:49 p.m., March 6, 2009 (by local calendars and clocks). The launch came from the third planet out from a G-type star, 25,000 light-years from the center of a galaxy called the Milky Way, itself located on the outskirts of the Virgo Cluster of galaxies. On the night of the launch, the sky was clear, with no precipitation or wind, and the temperature was 292 degrees by the absolute temperature scale. Local intelligent life forms cheered the launch. Shortly before the blastoff, the government agency responsible for spacecraft, named the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, wrote in the global network of computers: “We are looking at a gorgeous night to launch the Kepler observatory on the first-ever mission dedicated to finding planets like ours outside the solar system.”

Usually, a scientist doesn't write like that.  But, Alan Lightman is no ordinary scientist.  He is one of the few alive who is a master in science and literature.  An established physicist, he has also authored six novels among other writings.  Like in the essay that I refer to in this blog post from more than 5 years ago, Lightman weaves science and the humanities so well that even those of us who barely know any science or literature can easily follow along.

When people glibly tell kids that they can be whatever they want to be, I can't but help wonder if any kid can become an expert in both science and literature.  Can any kid be whatever they want to be?  Seriously?

But, I digress.

In that paragraph, which is how this essay begins, Lightman imagines that the "account might have been written by an intelligent life form located on exactly the kind of distant planet that Kepler would soon begin to search for."

Is there life outside our own planet?  We do not have proof.  But, the probability is high that we are not the only life forms, and not the only intelligent ones either.  "With 100 billion stars just in our galaxy alone, and so many other galaxies out there, it is highly probable that there are many, many other solar systems with life" if something like 10% of stars have a habitable planet in orbit."

So, on one hand, it might seem like life in the universe is not rare.  But, Lightman makes us think in another manner, which I find fascinating:

I have estimated that the fraction of all matter in the universe in living form is roughly one-billionth of one-billionth. Here’s a way to visualize such a tiny fraction. If the Gobi Desert represents all of the matter flung across the cosmos, living matter is a single grain of sand on that desert. How should we think about this extreme rarity of life?

How should we think about this extreme rarity?

[If] we can manage to get outside of our usual thinking, if we can rise to a truly mind-bending view of the cosmos, there’s another way to think of existence. In our extraordinarily entitled position of being not only living matter but conscious matter, we are the cosmic “observers.” We are uniquely aware of ourselves and the cosmos around us. We can watch and record. We are the only mechanism by which the universe can comment on itself. All the rest, all those other grains of sand on the desert, are dumb, lifeless matter.

I wish I could require students to read this essay and comment on it as a requirement for successfully completing liberal education.  I wish!