Cutting Edge Forum WHAT ARE WE?

The question usually posed is : who are we?
Sometimes we also ask the question: are we alone?
Perhaps, posing of the question in another way will provide a more needed focus. Such as: what are we?

At our present time, in our assumed chronology, we sometimes think of our presence is at the center of known things. This will entail looking at our situation to see if we are omniscient enough to know all the factors in relation to other factors of the universe and also whether we are at a time-event juncture.


What are we? Empirically, modern science can say "star dust" which entails a lot of component material to come together to make form of what empirically exists and are detectable. The actually more accurate answer comes from sources even more refined.
We sometimes also ponder from our perspective of intelligence just how long ago we have to accrue knowledge about our environs and universe. Science indicates, by our chronology, that the universe we seem to know is about 15 billion years old. That what composes the materials of the universe were initially believed very compacted.  It is held that human civilization is some few tens of thousands of years old. Perhaps mankind is a few million years old. Yet we have evidence that there are other beings on this planet well before humans that were huge mammals and dinosaurs. Those life form species had lived much longer than we have, hundreds of millions of years in some cases. They also lived at an earlier epoch of the earth than our existence. However, an earlier existence may not have afforded the rise of all opportunities of living, such as adroit intelligence. Nor is there any guarantee that beings of nonenduring, temporal proclivities will be able to mark or leave a mark on the whole existence of a cosmos (Kosmos).


Was their earlier existence of different species more toward the center of time of the universe's development than ours? We don't specifically know the end point of the universe's chronology to make a very accurate guess toward answering that.
Yet, we do know that over time, things of the environs have changed. The universe is no longer compacted, for one. It is assumed now that nothing is immutable. And, from our perspective, there is not only inanimate matter now but also intelligent life since the known beginning.


If one wanted to live more at the center of time development of the universe, perhaps the era of dinosaurs is chronologically more appropriate, or even earlier. For it is believed recorded that the pace of the universe's expansion is not changed in the present time but may have shifted 9-6 billion years ago. Now that would have afforded one to be at a most momentous change in the universe since its beginning compared to the present time when the expansion is the prevailing force.


Now, what if there had arisen an earlier intelligence at another location of the universe that had explored its environs? Would we, if we found them or detected them, be able to communicate with them and perhaps trade information? The scientific odds of that are against that. For due to the astonishing expansion rate of the universe, most locales that were close together soon after the beginning are now likely so far separated and being more so as time goes on, that any communication even by the speed of light would not avail if they are of a distant galaxy. Then, of course for our locale, we have yet to detect any sign of advanced civilization in our solar system or any neighboring galaxies.


So for millions of galaxies and trillions of stars and solar systems, we do seem to be the only present site of intelligent activity. And with rapidly expanding space, the odds of encountering like others is always diminishing. The end development of this universe entails that major matter will expand away with space and separate even more from each other and matter density will diminish like wise in the universe. Solid objects will eventually become islands amidst ever vaster volumes of space. Any interspecial contacts would be impossible then.


Further, there are reports of the scientific community that for the same treatment of equations that provide reason for our existences can also be turned around so that, in one case, the universe can perform its functions and expansion without having any significant matter in it. This would tend to make any significance of matter to be rather inconsequential for any central or extensive role in such a cosmos (Kosmos).


This is usually traced to the finding of W. de Sitter, ca. 1917-33, in his examination of general relativity (and Edward Kasner). It is further observed at this present time, there's a tendency of the future cosmos to revert to a drastically reduced presence of material state where only expansion will prevail over a near total voidness.


In furtherance, science indicates that measuring some critical factors in the universe that comprise a cosmos, that if some values are skewed differently, there is ample outcome that the arrangement of properties in the universe would be inclement toward even the aggregation of matter to make planets, etc. or even that no cosmos could form due to irreconcilable disparate elements or factors. These values would involve compression, density, radiation, matter-antimatter among significant factors. This has not been   refuted or obviated and may signify the outcome of the universe's progression. It would seem that the presence of sentient beings is more problematic than inevitable.


What are we? It is likely we are not entirely of the above treated constituents, for they are transitory, temporal natures with no enduring substrata. Nothing else has been determined either as being perdurable.

There is no guarantee of the occurrence of any particular development of any nature. Likely, any occurrence of anything is at best problematic and the same for any being that would exist in such environs, for, presumably, the being would be constituently conditioned or dependent upon such environs, if any develop. The responses to the questions of "who are we", "are we alone" and "what are we" are qualified by whether the factors that would lend to substantiating those occurrences can reliably be creditable, if even they can be substantiated to be considered.


Amidst ever changing natures, the elusive quest for identity might evolve to a yet more germane question of candor.  Are we any distinct thing, at all?