The universe (as we know it)

Finally, the long-promised, long-delayed blog on all things cosmic.

As you might remember, I recently attended a weeklong course on the origins of the universe … well, to be more precise, the origins and current nature of the universe as we feeble human beings understand it. For those of you who have absolutely no interest in the origins of the universe, I’ll be back soon with other less … um … lofty topics. Meanwhile, here’s a picture of the Andromeda galaxy—the one closest to our own Milky Way—to tempt you to read on.

Rather than trying to tell you everything I brought away from my week, I’ll share a few particularly fascinating tidbits in hopes you’ll find them fun, too: Where did it all come from? Is there life elsewhere in our universe? Is there more than one universe?

How big is the universe and where did it all came from?

You’ve likely all heard of the “big bang.” The point about 14 billion years ago when the whole universe (as we know it) was created, when an unimaginably dense concentration of space/time/matter expanded with such suddenness that all of existence as we know it was created in an instant. Within seconds, time and space had expanded astronomically, spreading out enough that light could penetrate the mass, and the atoms that would become stars and galaxies began to coalesce. The atoms formed stars, the stars collected into galaxies, and the galaxies into galaxy clusters. Over a few million years, an eye blink in cosmic time, the structure of the universe as we know it had begun to emerge.

We now have the technology to see beyond our own galaxy and far, far into the distance (which is also into the distant past—nearly back to the big bang). What we see is billions upon billions of galaxies in various stages of evolution. For an idea of how many we’re talking about, try this. Hold up a quarter at arm’s length. Now, imagine a part of the sky the size of George Washington’s eye on that quarter. The Hubble space telescope stared a spot of sky that size—one eye’s worth—a part of the sky where regular telescopes saw no stars at all, and this is what Hubble saw. This is the Hubble eXtreme Deep Field or XDF. 

Here's the amazing part: each of those blurry spots and each of those pinpoints of light, even the tiniest and most faint, is a galaxy—not a star, but a galaxy containing many billions of stars, like the Andromeda galaxy shown above. Multiply the number of galaxies in this picture by the number of George Washington’s eyes it would take to cover the whole sky, multiply that by 2 to account for the southern hemisphere, and you have an idea of how many galaxies there are in the currently known universe. This picture looks back more than 10 billion light-years.

So, given those billions of galaxies, each of which has billions of stars, how likely is it that there is a star/sun somewhere with a plant that is home to life as we know it?

Is there life elsewhere in the universe?

The question of whether there is (or ever has been) life on other planets is much more complicated than it might seem at first. First, there’s the question of what me mean by “life.” Usually we mean intelligent life—someone we could communicate with, for better or worse. But bacteria and amoebas are also life. Then there’s the question of time frame. Do we mean is there life now, or has there ever been (will there ever be) life? And then we have to consider what stage of evolution we mean. Humans have taken about 7 million years to evolve to our present state … what are the odds that we’ll find intelligent life that is currently at precisely the stage of its evolution where it is able (and wants) to communicate?

Which raises the problem of distance. A signal travelling at the speed of light from (or to) the nearest known planet that might host life would take about 2,700 years to reach us (or vice versa). That’s a long wait for a reply. Actual space travel seems unimaginable. The fastest outward-bound spacecraft yet, Voyager I, has covered 1/600th of a light-year in 30 years. That means it would take a spaceship almost 50 million years to get to the closest known planet that might be able to harbor life. I’m guessing it would be hard to find volunteers for the trip.

Still, despite all this, folks are looking for other life in the universe. In our own solar system, they’re looking for signs of past or present life on Mars and on the moons of Jupiter and Saturn. This search won’t yield “intelligent” (i.e., human-like) life, but it could tell us some interesting stuff about the history of our own solar system.

And then there’s the search for life on planets circling other stars, i.e., extrasolar planets or exoplanets. The first sighting of such a planet happened in 1988. Now, nearly 900 exoplanets have been confirmed, and almost 3500 other observations have been identified as likely exoplanets. (For a running count, click here.). Still, virtually all of these would be uninhabitable—too gassy, too hot, too cold, too massive.

The hunt for a planet that could sustain life—one of reasonable size located in a star’s so-called “habitable zone” (also called the “Goldilocks zone”)—continues. Over 250 “candidate” planets in the habitable zone have already been identified in the relatively few solar systems that have been studied to date. Considering that there are estimated to be about 100 billion planets in our Milky Way alone (one of billions of galaxies in the universe), it seems very likely that life exists somewhere out there.

An important question (even for non-astronomy buffs) was raised during the Q & A after a talk at my course. The questioner asked whether we should be “excited or afraid” at the prospect of contact with other life. The speaker, an astrophysicist who hunts for Earth-like planets as her day job, answered, “Maybe they should be afraid.” After the chuckles died, she said, more seriously, “We’d better get our house in order, because we’re going to have company.”

Hearing the question, I was first struck by the sort of xenophobic assumption it conveyed. Why would we assume that another civilization would be frightening instead of friendly, enlightening, helpful, wise? Also, why would we assume that another civilization, should such a thing exist, would be interested in contacting us? If they’re advanced enough to get here, they’d likely know a lot about us before they arrived. You have to wonder how eager they’d be to visit a world where the supposedly "intelligent" residents kill each other and destroy their own home planet. Indeed, maybe they should be afraid!

Are there multiple universes?

Physicists are on the hunt for a unifying theory that would join currently incompatible models of how the cosmos works—a so-called “theory of everything.” That search has led to complicated new theories (about strings, ‘branes, etc.), which have led, in turn, to suggestions that ours may not be the only universe.

Over the years, I’ve heard several arguments for the possibility that more than one universe exists. On one level, this seems nonsensical—how could there be something else outside of everything that is? Don't worry if you find it baffling. Famous physicists have publicly agreed that the notion is incomprehensible, if mathematically logical. Our brains, my astrophysicist teacher said, just don’t seem to be the right tools for understanding this notion. But “the math,” as physicists like to say, “is clear”: multiple universes are definitely possible.

During my week-long course, I heard a talk by Brian Greene, author of (among other things) The Hidden Reality: Parallel Universes and  the Laws of the Deep Cosmos. Greene’s candidate for a unifying theory is string theory. Whole books have been written about this, and although I learned a ton from his talk, I remain deeply confused and won’t even pretend to explain it here.

But this much I got: For string theory to work, a few things must be true. Most importantly, there have to be 11 dimensions (plus time) instead of the three dimensions we’re used to. These additional dimensions are not visible to us because they are so tiny. Greene uses the analogy of a wire that, at a distance, looks like it has just one dimension–length. But to an ant crawling around its circumference, it has three. The extra 10 dimensions, he says, are rolled up inside the ones we know, much as the ant’s path is rolled up in what we see as the “length” of the wire. These various dimensions exist as strings, and these strings vibrate at different frequencies. In fact, what we understand to be different particles (electrons, neutrons, quarks, etc.) are just strings vibrating at different frequencies.

And what, you may ask, does this have to do with multiple universes? Couldn’t those little ant spaces just exist here? Well, not exactly. If other dimensions are curled up as invisible strings, these strings could have an infinite number of potential shapes, each of which would have a different vibrational frequency. This infinite variety of vibrational frequencies would point to an infinite number of possible particles and an infinite number of possible laws to govern them.

So what? Well, Greene asks, why are we only aware of three dimensions if there are so many? Why only a finite number of elements and a finite number of laws to explain them? His answer: because this particular universe, with this particular set of laws is the one that allows us to exist. All the other possible types of existence—the other possible dimensions, frequencies, and laws—exist because there are other universes where those particular forms of reality operate.

Again, making sense of this may simply be beyond the ability of the typical human brain. Although Greene and his colleagues seem to get it, I, for one, am left scratching my head. So rather than belabor it further, I’ll just leave it to you to imagine how exciting it was to hear this from someone who explained it really well (with great visuals). And who sent the audience away not stuck in confusion about the science but instead wondering at the anthropocentrism that allows us to think that our universe is the only universe. Why would that be the case?!

Which takes me back to an earlier blog about reflections on being and nothingness, also evoked by this course. I refer you to that discussion for further mind-numbing exploration of who we are in the cosmos.

And with that, I’ll wrap up the topic of astrophysics with a grateful nod to the joy and privilege of retirement. It was such fun to be able to dedicate a week to the sheer joy of learning more about a life-long avocation. And as a bonus, I figure it may have helped to keep my brain lubricated.

Fire!

A while ago, I talked about a book called Fire on the Mountain, which I read for my class on "The American West." It's a truly gripping story of the events of July 6, 1994, when 14 young wildland firefighters died on Storm King Mountain just west of Glenwood Springs, CO. After I read the book, I decided I had to walk the trail to the site where they died. Once I knew their story, not doing so would somehow feel disrespectful. My partner and I made plans for the trek in May, and when the weather foiled that, we scheduled a return trip this week.

So I climbed Storm King this morning. Now, I'm sitting in a coffee shop in Glenwood Springs resting my aching knees ... with my mind full of what I saw, what I know about Storm King from my reading, how it felt to be there where 14 people died late one July afternoon. It just rained here. I'm thinking, "If only that had happened on that day." So now, I've decided to finally blog about a topic that has consumed my consciousness for the past several weeks.

The topic is fire. Wildfire. Fire on Storm King Mountain in 1994. Fire in Colorado Springs last year and in Fourmile Canyon near Boulder two years ago. Fire in the wooded hills of Colorado's Black Forest a few weeks ago and in the piñon scrub of Yarnell, Arizona, right after that. Fire in the wild land–urban interface, or WUI (pronounced “woo-ee” in wildfire circles). Fire that risks and consumes lives in exchange for mountain views, open desert skies, solitude, a “return to nature.”

Fire—wild land fire—has been so on my mind  these past couple of weeks, as Black Forest and Yarnell burned and I anticipated my pilgrimage up Storm King. During that time, I've worked sporadically on a blog about this topic. I've hesitated to post it because it's so ... um ... difficult. From my perspective, it's full of deep sadness about the firefighters' deaths and vague outrage over how they died—protecting homes built in the WUI. From others' perspective, it may seem like a rant, might appear to disregard the complexity of the situation. So I postponed it, waiting to see how today's walk would speak to me. Now I have the answer: deep sadness and vague outrage.

I'm troubled about two things here: the tragedy of these people's deaths and our collective inability to think about what their deaths mean for how we live our lives. Before I talk about these issues, I need to have a full-disclosure moment: This issue has a very personal meaning for me, although I only recently made the connection. For most of my adult life, I lived in the WUI, in the mountains just west of Denver. I loved it without reservation. I loved awaking to the absence of city noise and the quiet presence of birdsong and wind in the aspen. I loved sitting on the deck and watching the sun set behind the familiar line of ponderosa pines. I loved watching the fireweed grow up in the meadow and the birds sitting on the deck railing. I loved walking out the back door to take the dogs for a walk every evening on public land. So I know well the draw of living on the edge of "civilization"—close enough to enjoy the resources of a city yet distant enough to enjoy the beauty and peace of the woods. I understand people's attachment to their spot in the WUI. This is personal for me, and my reaction to it is complex.

With that as background, here's how Storm King spoke to me today:

I started my walk early to beat the heat, and I immediately noticed the paradoxical beauty of morning in this place. Yesterday's rain drops on the leaves, beautiful red cliffs in the morning light, wildflowers along the trail—and even, as I reached the valley where the fire had raged, burned stumps as lovely as sculptures. 

I was also struck as I climbed by the odd reality that just below the hill where fire took 14 lives, the traffic on I-70 sped busily along, and rafters floated happily down the river. Of course, this is how the world is: beauty often keeps company with horror, and the everyday business of the world continues in the face of death. But the contrasts heightened for me the impact of this place and its story.

I was passed on the way up by a group of young men. The writing on their t-shirts identified them as Forest Service firefighters. I met another such group on my way down. I wondered whether this is a regular part of training for (at least local) potential wildland firefighters—a difficult hike to a place where the worst outcome possible in their profession happened. To learn about fire from this scene, to get clear about the dangers of this work, to pay respects to fallen comrades. The first group were at the observation point (which provides an overview of the fire scene and marks the end of the steep and rocky but "maintained" trail) as I approached. They seemed to be in deep thought—maybe even prayer—so I hung back for a while.

I stopped at the observation point to read the interpretive signs. Across the valley I could just make out the thin, horizontal line—now largely overgrown—that marked the fire line, the route of the futile attempt to outrun the fire. I continued along the (not maintained, extremely steep and rugged) trail leading to the sites where some firefighters escaped and others died. This part of the hike truly felt like a pilgrimage. I was climbing the very hill where the firefighters worked and died. The hillside is now overgrown with dense stands of oak, nearly impenetrable except for the narrow path created for access to the memorials. Occasional bare trees suggested the piñon forest that grew here before the fire. 

I climbed to the ridgetop where the attack on the fire originated, some distance from where the fire began farther along the ridge. On the other side of this crest is another drainage (shown in the picture on the left)—a division that became literally a matter of life and death. As I approached the ridgetop, I remembered sections of the book describing what happened here, and my heart slipped deeper into sorrow.

At the crest was the first of many monuments to the firefighters. This one, like the others, was surrounded by random items left behind by other visitors—coins, flowers, flags, water bottles, snuff cans, a garden elf. I moved on past the spot where many of the firefighters escaped over the ridge and dropped into the east drainage just before the flames overtook them. I recalled the stories of hair on fire, burned arms, shelters used as capes to protect from the licking flames, screams to "Run, run!"

Walking along the ridge, I came to "the tree"—a skeleton of a tree that served as a meeting point, marking the top of the fire line that the teams were carving through dense underbrush, oak, and piñon. The tree, like the memorial I passed earlier, was festooned with all manner of mementos—small items like before, plus shirts, caps, knapsacks, boots, jackets.

Near the tree, I found the start of the fire line, which dropped directly down the steep slope and into the oak. A burned stump here framed the firefighters' view of Canyon Creek Estates, the development that their work here was intended to protect. 

                                                           

Just a short distance down the fire line—maybe 20 yards below the ridge—I was startled to see the first memorial, a lone cross, decorated with an assortment of pilgrims' belongings. I knew the memorials would be here, but I hadn't quite imagined what it would be like to see them. This, I thought, is how close one firefighter got to safety before the flames got so close he deployed his shelter. And died, alone, facedown, head toward the ridge. 

After spending some time there, I moved on down the hill, now anticipating another memorial. After a few yards, I looked up to gauge what was ahead, and my heart stopped as I saw cross after cross after cross dotting the hill below me, all surrounded with mementos. I stood fixed to the spot, tears running down my cheeks. Slowly, I regained enough presence to ease my way down and visit them all. Other than the first memorial, all of them were in groups of two or three. People died with someone they knew nearby. They wouldn't have been able to talk over the roar of the fire. Lying in their shelters, they would have been alone, unable to touch one another. But nearby would have been another person who knew them, knew where they were and what was happening. Who could witness—as all those who have come since have tried to do—their sacrifice. I took pictures to record for myself the immensity of what I was seeing. I knew right away that I wouldn't post the pictures of individual memorials here, opting instead for the collective, spontaneously evolving ones shown above. To show the individual crosses would feel to me like I gathered them as souvenirs. But I wanted to take something of the place with me. I want to remember.

As I started back up the fire line, up the hill toward the ridge, I tried to imagine the terror that fueled those people's effort to "Run, run!" for their lives up this impossibly steep pitch, this God-forsaken hill. When I reached The Tree at the top, I understood totally the impulse to leave something. To say, "I was here. I came to pay my respects. I want a part of me to stay here as witness to what happened." The hike back to the trailhead was one long meditation on what I'd seen and what they must have experienced that day.

And now I'm back in Glenwood, comfortably ensconced in a coffee shop and settled into telling this story. Just as important as this one, though, is the broader topic I've been stewing about for weeks: wildfire and its disastrous human costs.

Several things contributed to this preoccupation. First, of course, was Fire on the Mountain. Then came a guest speaker in my class on "The American West." And then came Yarnell and its media aftermath. Together, these things provided a new (and totally unexpected, un-sought-after) frame for me to think about fire.

Late in the class, Dr. Limerick had a guest speaker, Mike Daluz, who used to work for the U.S. Forest Service, initially as a “hot shot” crewman and later as a fire ecologist. Daluz was also involved in the follow-up after the fire on Storm King Mountain. Having seen up close the personal costs of the task these young people had undertaken on behalf of other people’s property, he had some very strong views about the growing tendency to build in the WUI—and to do so expecting that, in the case of trouble, someone would come along to save the day. About people's apparent indifference to the fact that, in Patty Limericks words, they were betting young people’s lives against their enjoyment of living in the WUI. To illustrate his point, he showed overhead slides of homes that had been, in his words, “surgically implanted” in the midst of dense stands of trees. Looking at the pictures from the recent fire in the Black Forest, I could swear his pictures were taken there—before the fire. People know there’s a risk in building there, living there, he said. They agree to take that risk, insisting at meetings intended to teach fire mitigation that they are willing to take the risk in exchange for the beauty, the peace. But when fire comes, he said, they want something done, by someone else, and fast.

With these earlier experiences as background, the media coverage after Yarnell was almost mesmerizing for me. So much of it echoed what I’d learned from that class and from reading about Storm King. The New York Times ran several really excellent articles (I recommend them highly; read them here, here, and here). The first of these addressed very directly the question that should be on the mind of everyone who chooses to live in the WUI: “What did they die for?” The author, Timothy Egan, writes:

Once again, the question hangs over another of the oft-lovely places where fire is at the top of the predator chain: what did they die for? Young men trained to be the best of the best are not supposed to take their last breaths inside the oven of a foil shelter, facedown in hot ground, gasping through the roar of a blowup…

Every homeowner in the arid lands owes these fallen men an answer. More than ever, wild land firefighters die for people’s summer homes and year-round retreats. They die protecting property, kitchen views, dreams cast in stucco and timber.

You can’t blame people for living amid the chaparral and piñon pine in the sweep of Arizona where the land rises up from the ceaseless heat of the valley to the cooler air of the plateau…. Nor can you blame people in Colorado for living with the sweet fragrance of a forest at 9,000 feet. 

The homeowners know that living in fire country is different from living in the heart of a city. They know the elements—timber, grass, brush, wind, heat, lightning—and the difficult terrain mean that shiny fire trucks cannot arrive at their smoking doorstep on a minute’s notice. They’ve made a pact with combustible nature, a gamble.

And yet, once a galloping afternoon wind transforms a smolder into a sprint of flames, these homeowners expect the best of the best to be on the scene…. In a panic, homeowners rage and scream: do something! 

Folks know the risk, and they say that they’re willing to take that risk, the possibility of losing everything, in exchange for living in their chosen idyllic place. Yet, when the risk becomes reality, when the danger actually arrives, they want to hand the risk off to someone else. Perhaps they assume that wild land firefighting is like city firefighting—the people in charge have the personnel and the equipment to handle it. Injuries are rare, deaths rarer still. But that is simply not the case with wild land fires. In remote fires, wild land firefighters have to carry all their gear, all their food, all their water with them as they hike to these places. And no matter how well trained they are, their only means of escape if the fire gets out of hand is to "Run, run!" Unfortunately, that moment doesn’t announce itself. The moment when the fire overcame those young men in Arizona earlier this month or the men and women in Colorado nearly 20 years ago—those moments came on suddenly and without enough warning for escape. The sudden waves of flames that overtook the firefighters in Arizona earlier this month and at Storm King in 1994 were both estimated to be moving at 24 miles per hour. No safety plan can protect you from flames moving that fast.

For me, this already personal issue became more personal today as I walked Storm King. I recall all those years living in the mountains when I didn’t even think about this issue. I was never confronted with the immediate possibility of wild land fire near my home. We prepared for the eventuality—cutting down some trees because of beetles and others specifically to reduce the threat of fire. We cleared brush near the house and stacked the firewood away from the house. We even planned what to do in case a fire came close enough that we would have to evacuate—how to get the pets out to safety, how to get various vehicles to a safe place, what to take along. But we never had to worry, because no fire ever got that close, whether we would lose all of the possessions we had left behind.

But more to the point here, I never even considered the possibility that young people might be called upon to defend the little corner of paradise where I had put down roots. It’s not that I dismissed it as unimportant—it simply never crossed my mind. And it never crossed my mind that, even if that happened, anyone would be put at risk. I hadn't thought about it much since, except to empathize with people who lost their homes to fire.

How would I have felt, I ask myself now, if I had lived in Canyon Creek Estates, the enclave at the base of Storm King that 14 young women and men died trying to protect? If I had been watching from Yarnell, Arizona, as the flames were kept at bay, my home protected at the expense of 19 more young lives. How did those people feel? My partner and I found one answer to this question when we drove to and through Canyon Creek Estates. The neighborhood association has built a memorial park, with 14 plaques carrying the firefighters' names mounted on large stones. At the entrance is a dedication plaque. The small print along the top reads, "This special area is dedicated in memory of the firefighters who gave their lives while protecting our homes."

"Their lives" ... "our homes." It was chilling. As my partner pointed out, the equation just doesn't work. Honoring them as heroes does not free us from our responsibility to see the grotesque inequity of this trade-off. Heroes they may well be, but they were also martyrs. And to what cause?

Still, I know it's more complex. Any of these people would likely have insisted, before and after the fact, that no structure is worth a life. Yet, the potential for that very trade-off is exactly what we sign up for when we live in the WUI. I can't condemn these people because I honestly don't know how I would have responded in a similar situation. Would I have said, "Do something! Fast!" had that moment actually arrived?

When I lived in the mountains, I expect I would have done just that—because I simply hadn't thought about it deeply enough. And how would I have felt back then, I now ask myself, if I had learned that someone died trying to protect my home in the woods? Could I ever be simply, deeply grateful to them, honor them as “heroes,” install a monument and move on? Or would I forever feel a sense of pained, futile responsibility for their deaths?

I’m not saying that everyone who lives in the WUI should abandon their dream homes. But I am saying that we need to think about this differently, think about it deeply. We need to take responsibility for the gambles we’re taking, the bargains we’re making. In the immediate future, that means much more careful planning for new construction, much more careful fire mitigation for existing buildings (even though it’s not a sure fix, it might help). 

Then we need to talk about how we can change our policies and our practices so that others’ lives aren’t lost protecting our dreams. And we’d better hurry, because the problem is only getting worse, what with climate change, the reduction in money for fire mitigation and firefighting, and the growing number of homes being built in the WUI.

Today, I stood in tears before the memorials for 14 people who died saving "our homes." Although they didn't die saving my property, they might have. And given what I know today, I’m certain that if I were faced with this situation, I would struggle mightily with the possibility that I could be betting my property against someone else's life.

I wonder if it would be a good idea to require a hike to Storm King as a prerequisite for living in the WUI.

On being and nothingness, which are enough

We just got home from a funeral service for a friend who died last week while we were at Chautauqua in New York. On Friday, we’ll be attending a memorial gathering for another friend who died on the same day. Not surprisingly, matters of mortality are on my mind. I’ve awakened the last few days feeling off balance, and songs about living and dying have been running through my head. I realize that this is likely how my life will often look from here forward—at least until it’s my turn. It is my peers who are dying now, not our parents (mostly) but ourselves. Despite my outwardly sanguine approach to the end of life, I think I have to consider that these events not only feel sad, they also feel frightening.

This is not a new train of thought for me. You’ve seen bits of it before in my discussions of aging and the meaning of death. But it came up again, big time, this past week. First, unexpectedly, during my course on astrophysics, “The Elegant Universe.” And then again with the news of these friends’ deaths.

Last time I wrote, I promised blogs about three topics from my trip to Chautauqua: the experience of Chautauqua itself, thrilling stories of the universe, and musings on Being and Nothingness (to borrow Sartre’s capitalization). I’ve actually started writing blogs on the first two topics, planning to save Being and Nothingness for last. But events of the past week and the encouragement of some friends prompted me to get on with it. So here you have it: musings on the meaning of Being and Nothingness, life, death, and community.

It all started with a speaker who got stuck in Chicago. First, some back-story: Chautauqua in New York has programming all day, every day, some of which follows the theme for the week. During the week I was there, the theme was “The Elegant Universe,” so several speakers addressed that topic from various perspectives. One of these speakers was Jim Holt, a philosopher, whose topic was “Why Does the World Exist?” I was excited to hear this talk. It promised an exploration of weighty matters of existence, chance, and purpose, and I’m an old philosophy buff, so I love this hyper-abstract stuff. But severe weather marooned him in Chicago. Still intrigued, I went to the local bookstore and bought his book by the same title.

The early chapters considered a series of positions on the question of why the world exists (as opposed to not existing—i.e., Being vs. Nothingness). Most suggested that without a divine entity to create reality, eternal nothingness (the void) would prevail. I skimmed the next  few chapters, which were full of “ps” and “qs,” attempts to answer the question of why the world exists through formal logic: Is there a logical reason for the world to exist (or not)? Old philosophy buff or no, my eyes glazed over during this part.

But then, reading around in the last part of the book, my attention was caught by this line:

“Although my birth was contingent, my death is necessary.”

And this:

“The world got on quite happily for eons prior to that unlikely moment when I was abruptly awakened to life out of the night of unconsciousness, and it will continue on quite happily after the inevitable moment to come when I return to that night.”

Holt’s talk was to be Wednesday morning, and by Wednesday evening, I was deeply into the book and reflecting on these ideas. Then, Wednesday evening and Thursday morning, we learned about our friends’ deaths. The near-simultaneous news of their deaths flashed against the background of these lines from the book, and I started thinking a lot about death. The song “May I suggest” (which I have talked about here before) played and replayed in my mind. Clearly, it was time to think again about existence—mine and ours.

Another speaker had made a point that got me thinking anew about a very old question, and these thoughts seemed especially important as I reflected on mortality. The question: How it is that the universe has precisely the characteristics that allow for and sustain human life—not just life, not just intelligent life, but the particular form of life that we embody? Why, in other words, does this particular world exist in this particular form, and what does that have to do with us?

For many people, the answer lies in an appeal to a higher power: Clearly, they say, a universe so precisely attuned to us must have been created by a supreme being who intentionally brought both the world and us into existence, who made the world explicitly for us. But my thoughts on this question took me in a different direction entirely. It seems to me that, framed this way, the question circumvents a profound (if perhaps uncomfortable) possibility: It’s not that the world was made for us at all. Why the world is this way has nothing to do with us. Instead, the point is that if the world were any other way, there would be no “us” to wonder about it why it’s here. We humans are an accident, I think, of the particular physical events that arose when the stuff of the universe came together in this particular way. To assume that it happened with a purpose—especially, with the purpose of being perfect for us—seems to me inescapably anthropocentric. Holt paraphrases one philosopher’s position, “Our universe arose by chance from a quantum fluctuation in the void”—and, I would add, it emerged with properties that, by chance, resulted in us.

The latter part of Holt’s book (parts of which are quoted above) spoke directly to these reflections. If neither the universe nor we were created for a purpose, then what is the meaning of Being? And does this mean that the end is simply Nothingness? Remarkably, Holt dared write about the struggle to name the Nothingness we fear (his words are in italics, mine aren’t):

“The dread of death goes beyond the fear that the rush of life will continue without us.” Yet, I must admit that when I read this line, I acknowledged (perhaps for the first time) that some part of my fear is precisely this—the awareness that the world will go on when I die, barely missing a beat.

“It is the prospect of nothingness that induces in me a certain queasiness… How to envision this nothingness? From the objective standpoint, my death, like my birth, is an unremarkable biological event, one that has happened billions of times to members of my species.” Again, he nailed it. How distressing to be reminded that on one level, my death will not be at all special, that it will have no more significance than that of billions of other people.

“But from the inside it is unfathomable—the vanishing of my conscious world and all that it contains, the end of subjective time.” Exactly. How can we grasp, how can we even imagine the end of consciousness. The fact that all experience will simply stop.

It seems to me deeply, personally, albeit painfully, true that our being here—collectively and individually—is a quirk of cosmic chance. Our individual existence is, in Holt’s words, contingent—it might never have happened. But once born, our death is inevitable. And, since I believe that my death will be simply the end of my experience and nothing more (OK, I’d like for my cells to feed some trees or worms or fishes or something), my Being becomes a fortuitous happenstance and my slide into Nothingness an inevitable winking out of that happenstance. Describing the moment when his mother died, with him at her bedside, Holt writes, “I had just seen the infinitesimal transition from being to nothingness. The room had contained two souls; now it contained one.”

Some folks might hear in this a fatalistic, even morbid perspective. But for me, it is the most hopeful possible one, because it reminds me every time I think about it that what happens in these moments between the fluke of my birth and the certainty of my death is my opportunity, my responsibility. I have this time—however long I have between chance and inevitability—to give meaning to my existence. It didn’t come with my birth, no agent had a plan for my life; meaning is mine to create or to squander.

This perspective and the reminder it brings has new substance in the aftermath of these friends’ deaths. Each of them in her own way lived well and fully, gave much to others, thrived on the challenges of a complicated world. And each gathered around herself a broad and deep community. The woman who was memorialized today had already lived a full, productive, generous professional life when she decided, late in her life, to come out as a lesbian and work for the betterment of the LGBT community. She left a remarkable legacy that’s expressed in the work she did and the people whom she loved and who loved her with equal depth. The woman who will be celebrated Friday loved to travel the world, and she always performed good works en route to “spend her privilege” well. The folks who will be singing in her honor Friday know well the importance of community and the gift she was to theirs.

From where I stand, theirs were lives that enriched the world while they were here, and those of us who knew them are the better for their time with us. I have no need to seek an extraordinary origin for them or for the world they inhabited. Nor do I need the reassurance that they continue in some way, other than in the impact they had while they were here and its continuing echo in the people they touched.

For me, the amazing miracle—quantum fluctuation though it may have been—that gifted them to us was enough. And the thought that they were once and will again be star stuff suits me fine.