Got some great news this week. As I was scanning the latest "Time" magazine, I read a Q&A piece featuring futurist Ray Kurzweil, who seems like a really smart guy that kind of looks like a muppet. Anyway, as I was reading the piece, my eyes dawdled over his answer to the question "Do you think we'll find intelligent life anywhere else in the universe?"
Kurzweil said the current thinking is that there already are between a thousand and a million technologically-advanced civilizations in our galaxy alone. DANG! That got my blood going! And then he topped that amazing claim with this mind-boggling afterthought: "...within a few centuries at most, these civilizations would be doing galaxy-wide engineering. It's impossible we wouldn't be noticing that."
I LOVE that we aren't the be-all end-all of this universe. Frankly, it makes me think a little better of God, who was going to disappoint me if we were his opus, his Really Big Moment.
About 20 years ago, I first starting hearing the incessant, blubber-backed yabbering of Rush Limbaugh or maybe it was the pinch-faced blather of Dr. Laura Schlesinger, arguing that this world was ours to use as we please. In fact, as I recall, they had the nerve to say that God himself pretty much insisted on it. Yeah, I could see God doing that...
"Go ahead and make a mess of things. That was my first try anyway..."
Turns out, maybe we really WERE God's Beta test!
Now, as excited as I am to hear we aren't the only ones out there, I wonder if I might be a little astro-agoraphobic, because a million other civilizations sounds, well, a little crowded to me. And a teensy bit creepy, too.
But I'm willing to be creeped out a little if it means that, some night, when I'm soaking in the hot tub, watching the stars hold their inky-black ground against time itself, and something whizzes by, I may be watching some intergalactic taxi cab ferrying a VIP who's late to his next appointment.
THAT would be a story worth telling!
Note: here's a link to Time's Kurzweil piece:
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,2033076,00.html#ixzz16d730xEd
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