Desiderata establishes that we are children of the universe and we have a right to be here no less than the trees and the stars. But does our right to be here supercede the right of trees and stars to be here? We go about our daily lives destroying forests for huge industrial Starbuck plantations. We treat dead trees similarly, digging up their fossil remains and burning them, pumping greenhouse gases into our atmosphere. Our activities are changing Earth from a planet that welcomes a huge diversity of life to something far less hospitable for our species.
But what about the stars' right to be here? Quantum theory shows us that on a subatomic scale, we change particle attributes such as spin, location, energy, etc, simply by measuring them. Could the same thing be happening on a cosmological scale? By measuring the amount of dark matter in the universe, could we be changing it from a life-welcoming state to a life-hostile state, thereby hastening its, and our ultimate demise?
2007-11-22
01:39:01
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7 answers
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asked by
@lec
4
in
Astronomy & Space