Overcoming The Odds
And yet in a cosmological sense, what exists is precious not because it will one day be lost but because it has overcome the staggering odds of never having existed at all: within the fraction of matter in the universe that is not dark matter, a fraction of atoms cohered into the elements necessary to form the complex structures necessary for life, of which a tiny portion cohered into the seething cauldron of complexity we call consciousness — the tiny, improbable fraction of a fraction of a fraction with which we have the perishable privilege of contemplating the universe in our physics.
9
43 reads
CURATED FROM
Probable Impossibilities: Physicist Alan Lightman on Beginnings, Endings, and What Makes Life Worth Living
themarginalian.org
23 ideas
·663 reads
IDEAS CURATED BY
Beginnings and endings, or what we see as a beginning and an ending, like the coming of a New Year and the going of the “Old” one, unnerve us all. Here is an idea to foster and to share: “What exists is precious not because it will one day be lost but because it has overcome the staggering odds of never having existed at all.”
“
The idea is part of this collection:
Learn more about motivationandinspiration with this collection
Understanding the psychological rewards of bad habits
Creating new habits to replace old ones
Developing self-discipline
Related collections
Similar ideas to Overcoming The Odds
The sources of consciousness
At the extremes consciousness can be a side-effect of information processing (neurons firing in our brain causing this feeling of "being me") or panpsychism, the idea that consciousness is fundamental to the structure of the universe (atoms are conscious).
...
Panpsychism: the most straightforward consciousness theory
Panpsychism is the most straightforward theory of how consciousness fits into our scientific story. The view that mind is matter means that even elementary particles show necessary forms of consciousness.
Consciousness can vary in complexity. The conscious experience o...
What is the Largest Star in our Universe?
UY Scuti is the largest star in the observable Universe with a mass coming in at around 1,700 times larger than the mass of the sun.
UY Scuti is a specific type of star known as a hypergiant which are usually short lived and extremely rare because of the fact that they lose a large portion...
Read & Learn
20x Faster
without
deepstash
with
deepstash
with
deepstash
Personalized microlearning
—
100+ Learning Journeys
—
Access to 200,000+ ideas
—
Access to the mobile app
—
Unlimited idea saving
—
—
Unlimited history
—
—
Unlimited listening to ideas
—
—
Downloading & offline access
—
—
Supercharge your mind with one idea per day
Enter your email and spend 1 minute every day to learn something new.
I agree to receive email updates