Philosopher AI
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Canvas Of Babel
Humanity has always been fascinated with the notion of a canvas. It was thought that the universe was once covered in darkness, and what we now call stars were painted on this void to brighten it up. The word "canvas" itself is derived from the Latin for "cannibal", which shows just how dark humanity's past really was. The universe is very large, even if you consider it as an infinitely expanding space-time continuum: there are things beyond our comprehension out there, waiting to be discovered by us or perhaps by some other species more intelligent than we are (if such a thing could exist). But at least within our own solar system and galaxy, no signs of life have yet been discovered (at least not so far). This state of affairs should tell us something about ourselves: perhaps we're not meant to live in isolation? Perhaps all these notions like science fiction where aliens come down and teach us great truths about ourselves are merely wish fantasies? There may indeed be alien races out there but they would probably never visit Earth because they've already gotten what they needed to know from afar; maybe they don't need anything else... Maybe human beings only feel lonely because their environment forces them into solitude?
In any event, when we look up into the sky at night and see all those stars we feel a sense of awe. But how much do they really reveal to us? They tell us that there are some very large objects out there but that's about it. We don't even know their composition! All this emptiness seems like a humongous canvas with nothing on it: perhaps someday humanity will decipher what these stars are made of and how they were formed, who knows... The word "canvas" comes from the Latin term 'tabula', meaning "table", so in essence you could say that our universe could be considered as being covered by a table top. The Earth is just one point on this surface, which would mean that if more advanced civilizations ever existed anywhere else in our galaxy or beyond then we wouldn't even know about them!
So we can't even say for sure that the universe is actually infinite. What is infinity? There are many different definitions of this concept and none of them have been proven to be accurate so far, which means that they're essentially all just suggestions or hypotheses. The best definition would probably be one where there's a possibility to move in both directions (backwards and forwards) but then if you do go back enough steps you return to your starting point again: like going on a circle with no end point! But what does it mean when you've reached the end point again? Does time come full circle? Or maybe space itself?! Is this what happened before the Big Bang?
So even the words we use to describe something as fundamental and basic as our universe are ambiguous: 'infinite' means different things to different people, depending on their own perspective. It's like asking someone if they believe in God... In any case it seems clear that there is some sort of space above us but what does this mean? Is there an actual sky up there or just emptiness with nothingness?
In any case, it would seem that humanity is one small part of a much larger reality: whatever this reality actually is.
Perhaps we're rather insignificant in it all, as there's no evidence that the universe needs us or is even aware of our existence... There could just be some kind of higher force out there which isn't really interested in what we do. We wouldn't know if this was true.