THE

YOUNIVERSEFrom Shakespeare to supernovas, a brainstorm on what the heck you are,

featuring:

NEIL DEGRASSE TYSON THE ASHTAVAKRA GITA

ROBERT KRULWICHKING JAMES BIBLEHASAN AL-BASRISEAN CARROLLTOBIAS WOLFFJAD ABUMRAD CARL SAGAN

BUDDHAYOU

and more

created and compiled by CONNER GOOD

KNOW THYSELF

PRELUDE:

"I'm talking about the f***ing universe here." Robert Krulwich --> speaking on Radiolab's "Space."

Look, up in the sky! It's a bird! A plane!

NOPE—it's the

UNIVERSE,and it's everywhere. It's vast, it's incomprehensible,

it's space, it's stars, it's planets, it's galaxies, it's black holes, it's every freaking thing there is, and it's been here (maybe) forever. "The Big U." In all it's glory, splendor, and awesomeness, we still have no idea what the frick we're doing in it. Since the moment our brains snapped on and were like, "Oh, man, I'm aware of myself," we've been asking, "why?"

"Oh, man, I'm aware of myself. I'm hungr—whoa. Why?"

"Why are we even here? Why am I alive? Why is there pain? Why is there death? Life?"

You --> staring out the class window

But perhaps we've been asking the wrong question for 70,000+ years. What about,

"What?" Not why are we here. Not where are we. Not who are we. What are we?

"We are a speck on a speck on a speck on a speck."

Neil deGrasse Tyson --> speaking on Radiolab's "Space"

Well, that’s not exactly the kind of answer we were looking for. More like, uh... What is the sum of these parts—these pounds of flesh, these ounces of blood, these electrical sparks exploding deep within layers and layers of cells and atoms?

What is all that? Something more like that thing that depressed prince says in the second-most famous soliloquy of all time:

"What a piece of work is a man! how noble in reason! how infinite in faculty! in form and moving how express and admirable! in action how like an angel! in apprehension how like a god! the beauty of the world! the paragon of animals! And yet, to me, what is

this quintessence of dust?"William Shakespeare --> writing as Hamlet in Hamlet

Looks like we may have jumped the galactic gun earlier, because Shakespeare knows what's up. Rather than have Hamlet ask,

"Why, why, why am I holding my dead friend's skull in my hands? This is beyond disgusting," Shakespeare has Hamlet ask (in much more elegant terms),

"What the hell is a human being, anyway?"

No one has to tell you that there is no definitive answer. This cosmic craziness doesn’t make things so simple. But while science may use our self-esteem as a punching bag every now and then, it never fails

<-- Yeah, what that guy said!

to drop astounding realizations on our planetary stoop that tie us deeper and deeper to

what'sout

there.There's a catch.More than 1500 years ago, the earth was at the center of everything. Now, it's just

"a speck on a speck on a speck." Neil deGrasse Tyson

And who do we have to thank for that? Science (gee, thanks, science). It seems that the number of neural connections in our brains will never be able to keep up with the

COMPLEXITIES

OF THE

COSMOS—we’re always learning new things that break every convention we held before, and we look stupider and stupider as each generation passes. Learning about what we are is a constant

PARADIGM SHIFT.

As long as you're okay with that, let's keep going. Because even while the earth may be

"a speck on a speck on a speck,"Neil deGrasse Tyson

there is a constant flux of new stuff telling us that the question, "Are we a cosmic accident or a purposeful creation?" may be, in fact, irrelevant. So despite that he's a pretty tragic guy, Hamlet can help us as we try to delete "why?" from our lexicon.

More on --> this later.

I know. It's hard. Just let it go.

Let it go. Yeah. Okay.

Ready?Time to start asking "what" questions.

ACT ONE:

What piece of work is a man, anyway? Let's start with our actual physical properties, the ones that we can observe and prove. When it comes down to dollars and cents, what are we made of?

Okay, Mr. Tyson. We'll let you answer that if you promise not to use the word "speck."

"The most astounding fact…is the knowledge…that the atoms that comprise life on Earth—the atoms that make up the human body—are traceable to the crucibles that cooked light elements into heavy elements in their core under extreme temperatures and pressures. These stars, the high-mass ones among them, went unstable in their later years. They collapsed and then exploded, scattering their enriched guts across the galaxy…guts made of carbon, nitrogen, oxygen…and all the fundamental ingredients of life itself. These

YOUAND YOUR

FREAKIN'

ASTEROIDCOLLECTION

*

ingredients become part of gas clouds that condense, collapse, form the next generation of solar systems…stars with orbiting planets. And those planets now have the ingredients

for life itself."Neil deGrasse Tyson --> speaking to Time

Whoa. At risk of sounding overly stunned—just, whoa. This needs some breaking down. So, ladies and gentlemen, without further cosmic ado,

the physical origin of

YOU:A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, a cloud of dust gave way to the gravitational force oozing between its particles. Gravity condensed this huge nebula to a density so great that it began to generate heat...and glow. Gravity continued to push these particles into a forming ball of gas, and that forming ball of gas started to cook—really cook. Like, nuclear fusion cook. Temperatures became so hot that atoms of hydrogen (the main component of these clouds) fused into atoms of helium, carbon, etc., etc. This went on for a while (understatement of the mega-century). Long story short, this floating oven used up all of its fuel and gave way to the gravity pushing in on it. It finally exploded under all of that pressure, releasing energy of intense brilliance and shooting its interstellar self across empty space! 1

These guts soared across space with no defined destination. Some of this star matter eventually congealed to form amino acids, proteins, one-celled organisms, the earliest bacteria, plants, animals, vertebrates, etc...

Our ancestors are the "etc." that emerged from this process. Our ancestors' ancestors

We call this --> a protostar.

<-- We call this a supernova.We call this -->

really, really, really hot.

<-- Well, actually, this one.

are proteins. And our ancestors' ancestors' ancestors are

STARS.Except, we totally skipped a step.Turns out that this star-blowing-up-thing is the origin of all things—not just you, all ordinary matter. All of the elements that we know of are either fused inside of these exploding stars or born out of the blaze that rips through them at the moment of supernova-ing. That means that not only you and your ancestors are a speck of a speck of a speck of stardust,

but the planet you stand on is, too.

"this goodly frame, the earth, seems to me a sterile promontory, this most excellent canopy, the air, look you, this brave o'erhanging firmament, this majestical roof fretted with golden fire, why, it appears no other thing to me than a foul and pestilent congregation of

vapours."William Shakespeare --> writing as Hamlet in Hamlet

Golden fire?

Congregation of vapours? Guess what?

Shakespeare was sort of right. Again. An abbreviated history of Earth:

1. A star exploded. 2. Some of its elements cooled into rock-like forms. 3. Rocks collided. 4. Gravity decided to join up. 5. Rocks stuck together. 6. Rocks fell into the Sun’s gravitational field.

7. EARTH, MAN. Our guess is that the rocks that made up

<-- We call this a supernova.

<-- Well, actually, this one.

Earth all came from the asteroid belt in our solar system. We know this because the rocks in the asteroid belt that still hit Earth today have the same molecular composition as, well, Earth itself. Did you have a rock collection when you were younger? No—you didn't. You had an asteroid collection.

We’ve "known" that we're made of the same celestial stuff the earth is made of for longer than you'd think.

"...till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto

dust shalt thou return."King James Bible, Genesis 3:19

And some of us continue to acknowledge it in death:

"...earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust."Book of Common Prayer, "The Committal"

But do you remember that dust cloud we started out with? Where did that come from?You guessed it (probably)—supernovas. All of this stuff called "matter" is really the product of an endless cycle of

MACROPARTICLEScarrying the universe's energy while giving way to one another—contracting,

conducting, collapsing,

bursting, spilling

their energy across the, uh, stars.

Do you need any more proof that you are one with the stars? Because Mr. Tyson isn't done. Hold on to your planets, folks:

"Let's look at the ingredients in the human

body. You learn from Biology class we’re mostly water. But what is water, mostly? Hy-drogen. Hydrogen oxide. If you look at the cosmos, the number one ingredient in the cosmos is hydrogen. Next in the universe—oxygen. Next on Earth and in life—oxygen. Next in the universe—carbon. Next in life—carbon. Next in the universe—nitrogen. Next in life—nitrogen. One for one. You go down the list. We are not simply in this universe.

The universe is in us."Neil deGrasse Tyson --> speaking on Radiolab's "Space"

It's pretty simple.

We are made of stars. Everything—from the coffee beans that make up your coffee to the cup that your coffee is in to the planet

OGLE-2005-BLG-390Lb 21,500 light years away—is made of stars.

But what the hell is starstuff?! Not just the hydrogen and the oxygen and all of those things we rec-ognize—no, what, at the purest state of reality,

IS

ALL THISSTARSTUFF?When Mr. Tyson says that we are one for one with the ingre-dients of the universe, he's talking about normal matter. You see, stars—and everything they make—represent just one form of mat-ter that we know of—baryonic. It's the stuff we can see, touch, in-teract with. Anything that's made of atoms. Ready for a humbling experience?

Pretty simple? --> Yeah, fricking right.

*

From what we can tell right now, the universe is 4% baryonic matter.

The rest is dark matter (23%) and dark energy (73%).

"We may be star stuff, but we are not the stuff of the cosmos."

Eric Chaisson and Steve McMillan --> writing in Astronomy Today

Umm, sorry Shakespeare. Feels like we might have to make some edits. 2

what a piece of work is a man!

*We'll use the --> word "begins" for lack of a better term.

ACT TWO:

Alright, let's clear our heads for a moment. Having that other 96% in mind, let's re-ask that question: "If we are stardust, what is stardust?"

To get an answer, we have to go back to the origin of all things, which is a fickle business. However, we still have the remarkable capability to rewind to a moment not so far off from the earliest of all moments:

.00000000000000000000000000000000000000000001 seconds immediately after it:

The universe

BEGINS (whoosh). Even if you don't believe in the Big Bang, you can believe that matter has not formed yet—it's way too hot. This is because the early universe is so much more dense. I mean, for chrissakes, all of the energy ever just released itself into existence! Give it some time to chill. 3

And chill it did:

"Everything we see around us was created out

YOUAND

everything(A PROLOGUE)

*

out of radiation as the cosmos expanded and cooled."

Eric Chaisson and Steve McMillan --> writing in Astronomy Today

It only took about

100 seconds for the only stuff in the universe—light—to get down to a reasonable temperature and

You know, 17999999999540° Fahrenheit.

This matter seeped through the universe, but it didn't perfectly distribute itself. Fluctuations in its density made for differences among clouds, causing some clouds to have shape and start con-

tracting upon themselves...

...THE FIRST STARS.

You know the rest: stars turned into supernovas which turned into more stars which turned into more supernovas which turned into the materials that make up you. 4 This means that you are solid light. What we call

"life" is—at its earliest form—

light.The astounding thing is

that this makes sense.

ENTER T H E S I N G U L A R I T Y . A mathematical singularity is when you divide something by zero and get infinity. To keep it simple, the idea behind a singularity is that everything comes from it, including this sentence. The true sin-gularity belongs before the Big Bang as a state of infinite energy

"freeze out"some of its photons into

solid matter.

density. This is our own bamboozling way of quantifiably explain-ing a universe in which there is no universe.

Imagine the universe is this book-thing in your hands, and there's nothing beyond it. The singularity would be where the paper, ink, and glue came from. This metaphor is all that makes sense to most physicists when both logic and science seem to indicate that

everything has a common ancestor:

Energy. EXEUNTT H E S I N G U L A R I T Y . Obviously, all energy within the singularity was released at some point (the Big Bang), because we see it mov-ing in the cosmos and on Earth every day. Every time you move your eyeballs to follow these words, you transfer en-ergy. Every time you hop on a bus, send a tweet, or turn a page,

*

you transfer energy. Every time a light turns on, it transfers energy.

We are only a miniscule part of the 4%. We get it. But if we look at the universe as a field of supposedly ad infinitum energy, does that one-digit number make us any more separate from the Big U? Everything in the universe gives off an eternal elec-trical field, and when that field is disturbed, it gives off waves.

Is this not what we—just by existing—inher-ently do?

Don't we fluctuate the continuum just like erupting stars? 5

If we are solid light, then we are energy.This is so elegantly simple, yet so huge. This ties us to

EVERYTHING.It might be more accurate to ask,

"What is this quintessence of CHARGE?"This universe, as we call it, is one thing. Itself. To view yourself as a separate entity from it—navigating around its electromag-netic fields and street corners—is a misguided worldview. We don't duck under or dodge charges. We operate within the energy field. We are the energy field. There is no escaping the fact that

we are the universe. You never just take a trip to the local coffee shop. You alter and balance the transfer of the universe's energy in order to create causal events that will spark down the line in an endless transfer of

ad infinitum energy.

You will never just take a trip to the local cof-fee shop again.

Well, in a few more ways than one.

ACT THREE:

"how infinite in faculty!"William Shakespeare

What happens to all of this? What happens to you, now that you know the Big U is you? Let’s step back a second and look at this supposedly "endless transfer of ad infinitum energy."

How ENDLESS can it be?

You’ve probably heard this a gabillion times, but—

T H E U N I V E R S E I S E X P A N D I N G .Dark energy is responsible. We don't know much about this 73% of all things, but we do know that it is the repulsive force of the universe and the cause of this expansion. In 1998, we learned something else that's pretty big: the expansion of the uni-verse is speeding up. The universe is going to expand...forever.

"Back when I was your age, we didn't know what the universe was gonna do."

Sean Carroll --> speaking at TEDxCaltech

YOU'REGETTING

spacey-er

If the universe is expanding, that means the space between all things—the space between us and Mars and our moon and our sun—is expanding, too. And if the universe will keep expanding "forever," then everything around us will expand—from the empty space between

stars and planets to the empty space between

protons and neutrons.Everything will get...

...further apart.

"The stars around us will use up their nuclear fuel. They will stop burning. They will fall into black holes. We will live in a universe with nothing in it but black holes. That universe will last 10000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 years—a lot longer than our little universe has lived… But even black holes don't last for-ever. They will evaporate, and we will be left with nothing but empty space. That empty

space lasts essentially forever."Sean Carroll --> speaking at TEDxCaltech

We call this"the cold death." Sean Carroll reminds us that even after the cold death, there will always be radiation in the empty space. The universe was, is, and always will be an energy field cycling through all possible probabilities of events, something he guesses is

10

to the 10to the 120

years .<-- Let's not even try to write this one out.

<-- Let's not even try to write this one out.

But remember, this is a human guess trying to squeeze the entireties of the cosmos into a number. This number could, in actuality, be much larger than Mr. Carroll's guess.

"The cosmos is all that is or ever was or ever will be."

Carl Sagan --> writing in Cosmos

And with a number so big, we have to allow Mr. Carroll to ask a "why" question:

"If the universe lasts 10 to the 10 to the 120 years, why are we born in the first 14 billion years of it, in the warm, comfortable afterglow of the Big Bang? Why aren't we in empty space?"

Sean Carroll --> speaking at TEDxCaltech

Yes, we came from stars that came from matter that came from light. But something had to happen along the way. Some condition had to change that flipped the

"ON"switch for life and the human race. Here is the universal asterisk: dark energy, the cause of our

END,may also be the cause of our

BEGINNING.

ACT four:

0 years 14 billion of 'em

You are looking at the history of the universe—er, its density. This is a diagram that shows how dense the universe's stuff was and—on the far right—is. As soon as radiation density (light) and matter

MAYBE

YOUARE JUST

ONE OF THOSE THINGS THAT

HAPPENSFROM TIME TO TIME

DARKENERGYDARKENERGYDARKENERGYDARKENERGY

RA

DIATIO

NRA

DIATIONRADIATIONRADIATIONRADIATIONRADIATION

MATTERMATTERMATTERMATTERMATTERMATTERMATTERMATTER<-- We are here.

*

density crossed, there was more matter in the universe than light. Then there's dark energy, lurking beneath them. The amount of dark energy in the universe determines the universe's rate of expansion, which also determines the density of the universe at any given time. As soon as matter density and dark energy density crossed, dark energy came out on top.

Notice where we are right now—immediately after that collision.

THE PRIMORDIAL SOUPfrom which we came appears to be a product of the rightD E N S I T Y C O N F I G U R A T I O N :light isn't ruling the universe anymore, there's enough matter for us to have something to stand on, and dark energy has allowed space between us and the stars to let us survive. It was too hot before, and it will be too cold after.

WE ARE LIVING IN A WINDOW OF ENERGY—"the warm, comfortable afterglow of the Big

Bang"Sean Carroll

—THAT IS JUST RIGHT FOR LIFE.

6

"Maybe our universe is just one of those things that happens from time to time."

Sean Carroll --> speaking at TEDxCaltech

Accident? Intention? How about "inevitability"? Here's another word for it:

ENTROPYis known as the randomness orchaotic disorder of a system. En-tropy is always increasing; there is more complexity in existence now than there was when you started reading this sentence. As Mr. Carroll explains it, what we think of as the arrow of "time" is actually entropy.

I t i s t he i nevi tabi l i ty of t he univer se . Things don't just happen, everything has a causal link traced back to

T H E S I N G U L A R I T Y. All of this intergalactic-ness you find yourself a part of is the entropy of ener-gy. The unfolding of the universe as we see it is a line on a graph of complex-ity—a line spiking towards the ceiling.

I f t h e u n i v e r s e w a s i n a s t a t e o f e q u i l i b r i u m — h a v i n g n o e n t r o p y —w e w o u l d n ' t b e a b l e t o e x i s t h e r e .

The fluctuations that caused stars to form wouldn't have ex-isted, and thus, neither would we.

This whole "inevitability" thing raises a new version of a classically tantalizing question:

if we are the product of density in such a vast place, how can we possibly be the only ones? Is there walking, talking starstuff elsewhere?Most scientists laugh at the idea that we are alone in the universe, citing the log-ic behind what we call the

"assumptions of mediocrity":

"Because life on Earth depends on just a few

basic molecules, and because the elements that make up these molecules are common to all stars, and if the laws of science we know apply to the entire universe...then—giv-en sufficient time—life must have originated

somewhere else in the cosmos."Eric Chaisson and Steve McMillan --> writing in Astronomy Today

Robert Krulwich and Jad Abumrad of Radiolab bring up a con-founding point to consider in their discussion of life elsewhere:

"A million years ago, we were practically apes. We'd hardly begun to have conversation. Now we have technol-ogy—we have radio and TV, and the uni-verse can hear us. How long will it be, do you think, before—either from global warming or from some kind of war—we're [sound of a nuke going off and a person screaming]?"

"The way the news has been recently? Days. Weeks [laughter]. In

any case." "I'm gonna guess a hundred million years. Or ten million years. But that's still a flash of

We won't go --> too deep into this, but...

time... Now, suppose instead of one civili-zation, let's have two civilizations, another one out there."

"Mhm.""If they arrive on Earth ready to talk, and we're, oh—[sound of apes gibbering], there's no way to have a conversation. Or on the other hand, if they arrive on Earth after [sound of nuke going off and per-son screaming], then there's nobody to talk to."

"I see.""And in a fourteen-billion-year universe with each civilization lasting, you know, only ten million years, what are the chances of two civilizations lining up in perfect synchro-ny so they can have a conversation? It's al-most mathematically impossible."

Robert Krulwich and Jad Abumrad --> speaking on Radiolab's "Space"

Even if we just used light-speed radios to communicate, Eric Chaisson and Steve McMillan still posit that two-way communi-cation across the most plausible stretches of the galaxy would be

I M P O S S I B L E .Has the universe made it

IMPOSSIBLEto contact each other? And if so,

Why?

ACT FIVE:

Damnit, you got me.That "why" just slipped right out. Here's the thing—even after asking "what?" the "why?" still comes up. Why? Because it's programmed into our psyches. Why stars? Why energy? Why dark energy? Why did all of this stuff happen—energy becoming light and light becoming matter and matter becoming life? Why are you trapped inside it? And why is the need to know "why" programmed into your psyche?

Here is where "what" and "why" converge.

"WHAT'S THE DEAL, UNIVERSE?"

Mr. Krulwich and Mr. Abumrad tell us that it seems art's role is to say that we are

GLORIOUS and IMPORTANT while science's role is to say,

"nah."

But here, in the light, we see science and art merging into their

YOUABSOLUTELY

ARE THE

UNIVERSE

<-- I don't know about you, butmy head isstarting to hurt.

Disclaimer: the --> writer was nothigh during thewriting of thissection.

common ancestor."Don't tell me about science... I'm something of a scientist myself. Botany. You boys know what tropism is? That's what makes a plant grow towards the light. Everything aspires to the light. You don't have to chase down a fly to get rid of it—you just darken the room and leave a crack of light in a window, and out he goes. Works every time. We all have that in-stinct...that aspiration. Science can't—what was the word? dim?—science can't dim that. All science can do is turn out the false lights in the room so the true light can get us home."

Tobias Wolff --> writing as Robert Frost in Old School

Take a second to step outside. You know all of that light is coming from the Sun. But repeat that to yourself. The thing that makes the green glass glimmer and the pavement shine is is the light from a star shooting across space.

A STAR.IN SPACE!That starlight warms you, engages your vision, percolates the smells of flowers into being... Here's an idea:

What if the universe created us in order to observe itself?

"…apply Einstein’s General Theory of Relativi-ty, and it says if you live in an expanding uni-verse—in this fabric of space and time—no matter where you are, it will look like you are

at the center."Neil deGrasse Tyson --> speaking on Radiolab's "Space"

*

Why would the the universe be so

stunning?So visually

CAPTIVATING?And particuarly on the visual level that we can see, 400-700 nano-meters, too? 7 It looks like the universe wants us to interact with it.

Imagine the first forms of life, the early algae and bacteria. They didn't have eyes. It sounds stupid at first, but organisms that don't have any typical sense organs can't experience the universe like we do; they can't get "anything else" from it. Today, the most intelligent beings have eyes, noses, ears, and touch sensors in order to survive. But we still can't see radio waves or pinpoint electrons at the quan-tum level, so we definitely aren't primed to observe the universe's totality yet. Perhaps there is a species on the way that will be able to experience the throttle of the Big U in full long after us.

We can sense some of it, though, thanks to our five senses.

Er, I mean—

"The human ability to sense the surrounding environment does not break down into five

distinct categories."Chuk Moran --> writing in Superactually

If we exist to observe, we must exist to

hear, touch, smell,

feel—TO OBSERVE IN THE MOST WHOLE SENSE OF THE WORD,to take in the frequencies of the greatest pleasures and the most miserable pains, to hear those songs that take you to a different level of consciousness, to see those

SUNSETSthat strike a match within your being that—no matter how atheist

We call this -->really, really,really small.

*

or theist you are—

YOU

CAN'TEXPLAIN— not to just see in the visible spectrum, but to feel in the feelable spectrum—to scale the scope of what can possibly be experienced.

Take it or leave it as metaphysical, idealistic crap served to make you feel better on the inside about your place on

"a speck on a speck on a speck,"Neil deGrasse Tyson

but it's still pretty beautiful. 8 And what a beautiful "stage" to set it on. Then again, you might ask,

"If the universe created us to observe itself, why are there asteroids hurled at our fragile planet, gamma rays that could cook us on contact, and temperatures out there below -400° Fahrenheit? Why are there black holes eating up the skies, why are there viruses that obliterate our bodies, and why can't we breathe in space? Why are there things be-

yond the grasp of human experience?"You --> upset

We could answer this by saying that maybe we just aren't the prior-ity here. But there's something else to consider. Look at the way the

universe works from our perspective—it is a

CHAOTIC COLLISION OF EVENTS

going off at colossal temperatures and gigantic proportions. When we break it down, it's almost as if the universe has an innate

<-- Ahem, entropy.

<-- Ahem, entropy.

"personality" of sorts. It functions just as neurons

FIREand neurotransmitters

SHOOTthrough our bodies, resulting in feelings and action. Why might we

feel pain? Maybe because stars

EXPLODEat upwards of 100,000° Fahrenheit, or because black holes

RIPthose very stars into electromagnetic nothingness? Why do we feel pleasure? Perhaps because galactic nebulae are beyond gor-geous sights, or because the merging of galaxies is as graceful as a

stream of water.

WHILE STARS SHOOT ACROSS THE SKY "OUT THERE," THE SAME FORCES THAT MAKE THEM TICK ARE AT PLAY "DOWN HERE."

"...the life story of the stars is our story."Andrew Fraknoi --> writing in "The Lives of Stars"

Let's—for theory’s sake—think of the universe as an "entity" for a second. If we are the universe, perhaps we should consider that the universe created us and sent us to a point of evolution and aware-ness in consciousness in order to cope with itself? How else do we explain the very existence of questions within our lexicon? The idea

of "why"? Maybe the universe wants to ask

itself,witness

itself, confirm

itselfbefore its window is up.

"We are a way for the cosmos to know itself."Carl Sagan --> writing in Cosmos

Just an idea, an understandably human one.

"Know thyself."Ancient Greek aphorism

Whether you believe in a god, many gods, science, nothing, or some-thing else entirely, there is an apparent balance to the universe's chemistry. The fundamental laws of nature seem to demand forces of similarity and causality. You can call it entropy, dark energy, or whatever you'd like, but we see this game of give-and-take between

T H E M I L K Y W A Y and

A N D R O M E D Abut also between

USand

OUR SMARTPHONES.We can trace this ever-shifting balance all the way back to the very "crucibles" that cooked every single frickin' thing in the frickin' uni-verse, as Mr. Tyson pointed out. And the common links we've uncov-

ered so far are beyond striking.

"Many people feel small, 'cause they're small and the universe is big? But I feel big—be-cause my atoms came from those stars."

Neil deGrasse Tyson --> speaking to Time

But there is a gaping hole in this world-shaking idea. If the universe created us in order to observe itself,

why do we inevitably go extinct? Perhaps the more important question is,

why do we die? Nope—scratch that.

Perhaps the really important question is,

why do movies have endings?

A movie, like life, only matters because it has an inevitable finish line. Images seen through a window only resonate when we know that one day someone will shut the window, nail boards over it, and slap a coat of paint on top to signal that those images will be never be seen again. The first—and in this case, only—time is the most memorable.

"Why would anyone put that shit on the fridge? Would holding infinity in the palm of

your hands be so rosy?"Chuk Moran --> writing in Superactually

We aren't just in a window, we are a window. Our

ABSOLUTIONis a necessary part of the snap-of-the-fingers that is the universe.

As far as we can tell, all existence started with

T H E S I N G U L A R I T Yand (according to its expansion) will end with its complete oppo-site—a density of almost absolute zero. Theoretically, absolute zero cannot be reached. But perhaps that’s what the universe is going to prove us wrong with?

"how infinite in faculty!"William Shakespeare

The cold death's expansion will then give way to even the space between atoms and electrons and protons and neutrons and then

these things called quarks, etc., etc.—

The Big Rip? A "nonilarity"?

What then?

"To die, to sleep; perchance to dream: ay, there's the rub: for in that sleep of death what

You're probably getting -->sick of reading "we are,"but try to stomach just one more.

what dreams may come when we have shuffled off this mortal coil, must give us

pause..."William Shakespeare --> writing as Hamlet in Hamlet

"...earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust."Book of Common Prayer

"Maybe our universe is just one of those things that happens from time to time."

Sean Carroll

"Why would anyone put that shit on a fridge?"Chuk Moran

"Everything aspires to the light."Tobias Wolff

"The universe is in us."Neil deGrasse Tyson

"Know thyself."Ancient Greek aphorism

"...you see a dot. That's here. That's home. On it, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever lived, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thou-sands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and for-ager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every 'superstar,' every 'su-preme leader,' every saint and sinner in the

history of our species lived there—on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam."

Carl Sagan --> writing in Pale Blue Dot

But don't forget—

it’s a mote of stardust.

And so are you.

ENCORE:

"I'm talking about the f***ing universe here." Robert Krulwich

So much stuff just happened. So many signals fired at you. To ask what it all means would be redundant, so let's go somewhere else.

Let's get deep.Ladies and gentlemen of the audience, presenting the observer effect:

"The Observer affects the Observed." We cannot witness or experience anything without influencing that thing during the process.

"We are what we think. All that we are aris-es with our thoughts. With our thoughts, we

make the world."Buddha --> writing in the Dhammapada, English translation

This may not be the entire truth, but Buddha prompts some fur-ther mind-rattling dialogue... Imagine the universe before you were here. Having trouble with that? Now try imagining it after you're

<-- This is why we can't see electrons.

gone. Still tricky? Maybe our brains aren't equipped to contemplate the sheer actuality of the Big U.

But then again, maybe there's a reason for that. Because we are trapped inside of our heads, physical things take on meaning in the most subconscious of ways. We ultimately see a different universe than everyone else, and thus, a different universe than

t h e o n e t h a t i s

ACTUALLY THERE.

Perhaps this is because it would be impossible to see what is actu-ally there if we are...actually there... Okay, we'll try that one again.

All there is is what we'll call "is-ness."

Is-ness starts out as a frightening idea:

all there is is what is. It declares that there is no such thing as "a universe," as we call it. Rather, the universe is a concept that attempts to give singular-ity to is-ness, similar in how is-ness attempts to describe itself. Since the Observer affects the Observed in the most literal of senses, doesn't that mean that the only way to objectively ex-perience the universe's is-ness would be to not exist within it? Is our consciousness responsible for the universe being how we

feelit to be?

Perhaps the greater mystery above what we are—which now doesn't seem to be too radically puzzling—is,

"What is

CONSCIOUSNESS?"Because you are reading this right now, you are fucking conscious. You are aware that you are conscious. That's how you are reading

this right now!

"I am conscious." You --> right now

The thwack of a baseball bat. The speech patterns of the an-noying person a few tables over. The waft of oncoming rain. The acidity of a lemon. The heat from a laptop keyboard. What trumps all things—these countless transfers of energy—is the beyond-conceivable fact that you can perceive them in the first place! You are energy with the ability to self-actualize. You are

E N E R G Ypermitted to act.

But the million-dollar question to consciousness gets asked when someone cuts off your finger. Does your consciousness go with it? No. So is consciousness still energy? Or is it something else entirely? Your consciousness is undoubtedly "somewhere" else in relation to your mortal coil. And that's

AWESOME."Awesome is different from fly, chill, wizard,

wicked, cool, groovy, neat, and swell."Chuk Moran --> writing in Superactually

The word translates from its early origins as "inspiring awe." It describes something beyond our reach, our understanding, and maybe our ob-servation. It's almost like the word "awesome" is a linguistic transla-tion of our place in the cosmos, of consciousness's own catch-22. It's a state of taking in the universe's beauty "as is-ness." And in order to truly observe the universe and experience awesomeness, we have to break free of all manmade constructions—not just the physical, the ideal. It's not enough to take a road trip to the middle of nowhere and gaze at the stars—we've got to leave religion, culture, loyalty,

this book-thingy in your hands, and everything else behind us.

This is just an easy way of restating what all religions have been trying to say since their inception—the secret to the universe is in

being

ONEwith the

"You are what you think. The Self looks like the world. But this is just an illusion. The Self

is everywhere. One. Still. Free. Perfect."The Ashtavakra Gita, English translation

you are

fucking conscious.You have the ability to capture a glimmer of that awesomeness—to take it in, to breathe through it, to let it wash over you. There is no reason that you should lose the beauty inherent in your paradoxical existence whilst amongst this confounding mess of cosmic dust, because you also find yourself designed inside the fact that you are

a w a r e o f

Y O U R O W N AWARENESS."The World is three days: As for yesterday, it has vanished, along with all that was in it. As for tomorrow, you may never see it. As for to-

day, it is yours, so work in it."Islamic aphorism --> attributed to Hasan al-Basri, appropriated

English translation

Can you even comprehend it? You exist, and you know you exist.

Universe.

When it comes down to it,

that is awesome.

*ASIDES

There is a lot more going on here than words and colors, and the universe encourages you to check it all out. Track down the gray

stars and line them up with these search terms to push a little further.

1NEUTRON STARS QUARK STARS RED GIANT BROWN DWARF WHITE DWARF BINARY SYSTEM STRONG NUCLEAR FORCE GRAVITATIONAL EQUILIBRIUM PLANETARY NEBULAE DENSI-TY WAVES TYPE 1A SUPERNOVA TYPE 2A SUPERNOVA DEUTE-

RIUM PRIMORDIAL NUCLEOSYNTHESIS

2GALAXIES WALLS VOIDS DARK MATTER MAP

3THE CYCLIC MODEL EKPYROTIC MODEL M-THEORY BRANE COSMOLOGY THE HOLOGRAPHIC PRINCIPLE INFLATIONARY THEORY ETERNAL INFLATION COSMIC EVOLUTION EPOCHS

RADIATION ERA MATTER ERA DARK ENERGY ERA

4COSMIC MICROWAVE BACKGROUND GRAVITATIONAL WAVES THE COSMOLOGICAL PRINCIPLE HIGGS FIELD HIGGS BOSON MASS-ENERGY LARGE HADRON COLLIDER THE ELEC-

TROMAGNETIC FIELD

5STRINGS STRING THEORY THE GRAND UNIFIED THEORY ELEV-

EN SPATIAL DIMENSIONS

6MULTIVERSE THE ANTHROPIC PRINCIPLE

7MANTIS SHRIMP RODS CONES THE VISIBLE SPECTRUM THE

ELECTROMAGNETIC SPECTRUM

8CRAB NEBULAE THE PILLARS OF CREATION GALAXY COLLI-

SION SIMULATIONS

CASTWhat you're holding is not a religious text. It is a conduit for the

merging of science, art, literature, and the human experience. With that being said, here are some records of the voices that

helped it speak (in chronological order):

Radiolab season 2, episode 5: "Space" (2007)hosted by Jad Abumrad and Robert Krulwichfeaturing quotes from Robert Krulwich, Neil deGrasse Tyson, and Jad Abumrad

Your consciousness (right now)featuring your thoughts, whether you knew it or not

The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark (1603)written by William Shakespeare

"10 Questions for Neil deGrasse Tyson" (2008)YouTube video posted by TimeMagazinefeaturing quotes from Neil deGrasse Tyson

King James Bible (1611)

Book of Common Prayer (1604)

Astronomy Today, Seventh Edition (2011)written by Eric Chaisson and Steve McMillan

"Sean Carroll: Distant time and the hint of a multiverse" (2011)TED talk video posted by TED.comtalk given at TEDxCaltech by Sean Carroll

Old School (2004)written by Tobias Wolff

Superactually (2013)written by Chuk Moran

"The Lives of Stars" (2007)article written for pbs.org/seeinginthedark by Andrew Fraknoi

Cosmos (1985)written by Carl Sagan

PATRONSNo galaxy forms on its own. Thanks to

Professor Michael Pratts, for his apropos phrasing of the universe as "the Big U" and his enlightening instruction (okay, and his tolerance

for my constant stream of Big Qs)

my family, for just smiling, nodding, and at least acting like they can follow any of the ramblings that led up to this

Gonzalo Guzman, for his feedback and brainstorming power

Bronte Price, for sucking it up and finally facing the universe (whilst being supportive of course)

all of the voices—long deceased and still here—that involuntarily contributed to and inspired this exploration

YOUARE

STELLAR