Starman

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One of the prompts that John has given us for this week’s Writer’s Workshop is this:

If evidence of intelligent life elsewhere in the universe were discovered, would it alter your core beliefs or sense of self?

As regular readers will know, I’m not exactly renowned for my deep, insightful thinking, so I took this one on as a challenge to try to write something meaningful for once. Better late than never, I guess. And I’m already wondering if this was a good idea!

To begin with, can I define my sense of self and my core beliefs? For many I imagine that will involve a religious foundation, but that doesn’t work for me. I was brought up in the Church Of England, but have long since subscribed to the thought that a divine being guiding our lives is a concept that doesn’t work for me. I count myself as agnostic, still remaining to be convinced – I would never go completely down the route of atheism in case something happened to prove me wrong. But I really do have trouble believing that a caring, omniscient being could allow so much suffering and so many troubles in the world.

So how would I relate this to John’s question? When I was a kid I used to love the stories in comics about spacemen and visitors from other planets: Dan Dare taking on the Martians was an essential part of my week when I was at primary school, but I then progressed into more grown-up reading. That was when I read H.G.Wells’ The War Of The Worlds, probably when I was around 12 or so, and I’m not ashamed to admit that it terrified me! But it got me thinking. We assumed that we were an intelligent race, and when the 1969 moon landing didn’t find any evidence of the man on the moon that rather confirmed what many believed: we were the only form of intelligent life in the universe. How arrogant and ignorant is that! Just because we haven’t found signs of intelligent life on other planets doesn’t mean that it can’t exist: that belief is as much an admission of our shortcomings as it is a firm statement of fact.

So, if intelligent life were discovered elsewhere in the universe it would neither surprise me nor change my view on life. Who is to say that there aren’t other entities out there looking at us on Planet Earth, and laughing themselves silly at how we believe that we are alone in being capable of intelligent thought? And, given some of the choices we have made throughout history, who could blame them? In recent years the UK has voted for Brexit and for Boris Johnson as Prime Minister, while the US has twice voted in a criminal maniac as their President. These are hardly good examples to hold up of what intelligent thinking can produce, are they? And all the way through history there are so many examples of human stupidity that we really should stop thinking that we are superior to what and whoever might be ‘out there.’

Much of what I put on my blog is music-related, and it is fair to say that there have been many songs that have taken ‘outer space’ or ‘other worlds’ as their themes, some less seriously than others. Relax, I’m not about to play The Carpenters’ Calling Occupants Of Interplanetary Craft – it is hardly a serious piece of human thought, is it! I could also go for songs like Bowie’s Space Oddity or Reg’s Rocket Man, but again they miss the mark for me. The lyrics of another Bowie song are more closely aligned to my uncertainty about what is out there, though – this one:

Why not? Who can say with any degree of confidence that this couldn’t happen? I thought about playing some more songs in similar vein, but decided against it. This one sums up my thoughts perfectly: there may well be life forms on other planets, who may at some point decide to pay us a visit, if they haven’t already. You could hardly blame them for taking a look at our world and deciding that theirs might be better, can you!

In some ways, I rather hope that life is found in other worlds: it would keep that self-interested moron out of the news for a while!

I started this piece by saying that I wanted to produce something a little more deep and meaningful than my usual offerings. I guess I’ll have to keep trying … 🤣

 

32 thoughts on “Starman”

  1. Pingback: One Month Done | Take It Easy

  3. HI Clive, I see no reason to believe there isn’t other life out there somewhere. Why not? The universe is huge and our solar system relatively small by comparison. Other life forms could vary in their development and could be less advanced or more advanced that humans. Nice David Bowie song.

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  4. I came looking for John and found David.🤔🤣God did not make man, it was man that made God. That is why she is so imperfect.

    I believe electrons have agency so there’s that. But in this book it said that in the begining there was a void, a nothing, 0, perfection. Then there was light, time, everything ,infinity, perfection. In the space between all and nothing something thought it was and then it was so now there was one. No matter the infinitesimal small chance that there is one, once there is ONE the odds that there are TWO is 50 50. There could be life on every planet. I wouldn’t take this theory to the casino though.😉

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  5. I’m definitely an Atheist – no doubt in my mind that God is a myth. However, like you, I’m convinced that there must be other life forms out there in the vast universe. And I agree with this as well:

     ‘we really should stop thinking that we are superior to what and whoever might be ‘out there.’

    Can’t go wrong with Bowie! 👌

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  6. When I read the question you posed from John, my first thought was … Nope. My core beliefs and sense of self are intact. I always thought “man” was pretentious to think we were the only beings in existence in the entire universe. Whether I meet an alien one day (not likely at my age!) or not makes no difference to me. Although to be honest, I would rather not. 🙂

    Love Bowie! I may have told you a while back, but I saw him in concert in the 70s. Best show ever!

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    • I’m with you on that. I also think there is arrogance in our belief that we are the only intelligent life form – but how could we know!

      Glad you enjoyed the tune too. I also saw him – early 1973 on his Ziggy Stardust tour, second row seats. Amazing show!

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  8. I see it like you. Only because I have not seen or there is no evidence for other entities doesn’t mean that there aren’t any. We only explored so little of the universe. But it would be interesting to hear them tell us about their history. Were/are there wars? And if not, how did they manage to work together. We have not managed yet to learn from our own history…

    Thank you for sharing Starman. I like it a lot but have not heard it in a while!

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