Do you understand what it is to think rationally?
By that, I'm not asking if you know the definition of rational thought; I'm asking you to describe the feeling, the emotional impact, of your mind's effect on your body when you examine a series of facts and, consequently, draw a logical conclusion—the result of which is a novel idea (for your brain).
When you mentally examine something complex, which you've not considered before (but others, obviously, have) do you have a 'eureka moment'? Or, do you just store this new-to-you information and mentally move on? Is there a last-puzzle-piece-falling-into-place feeling of pleasure-adrenaline? Do you get an inner smile?
Let me give you an example. Each of the following numbered statements are factually true.
- You had no control over when, or where, you were born.
- Your parents had no control over when/where they were born.
- No mammal controls when/where it's born. Life on earth can be dated to three billion years ago.
- Our planet is about four billion years old. It is about a million times smaller than the sun.
- The sun is about five billion years old. It is one star in a galaxy of at least a hundred billion others.
- Our galaxy is about 14 billion years old. It is one galaxy in an observable universe of trillions.
- The observable universe is only about 100 million years older than our galaxy. Because of the speed of light and the continual expansion of space (over those 14 billion years) the farthest point of light we can see, today, is approximately 46 billion light-years away; the light from everything further away hasn't had time to reach us yet.
I came to this conclusion because our location in the universe is completely arbitrary. Humans did not choose to make earth their home, no more than the earth chose it's placement around the sun, or the sun chose it's placement in the milky way, or the milky way chose its placement in existence.
Right this moment, as you're reading these words, if you raise your left hand and point, a zillion-and-a-half light years away in that exact direction is another intelligent person. Xhe is exponentially smarter than you and I (because life can be dated to seven billion years ago on xer planet). None-the-less, xhe did not control when/where xhe was born. Right now, xhe is also contemplating xer observable universe (which is also 46 billion light-years away from xer arbitrary location in the entire universe). You and Tgja (that's what xer name sounds like to human ears) are alive at exactly the same moment in time, in the infinite existence of space, but our two observable universe's will never overlap. Our two planets have never, and will never, share one single point of light in each of our respective night skies.
Oh, and one final answer to that question you had from the last paragraph: it's because xer entire species put hubris behind them and stopped thinking about themselves as the center of all existence when they stopped believing in anything they could not prove with mathematics (over 27 thousand years ago). That was the time when Tgja's species began treating those who claimed to know something which couldn't be rationally proven, using simple logic, as mentally damaged. Back then, they'd kindly offer those lesser individuals a kind facial grimace (xhe would call it a smile, we—if we could see it—would never refer to it as such) before they reported the defective individual (whom they referred to as 'idiot') for re-education.
more complex stuff:
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