Maybe It's a Matter of Scale #141

I’ve spent a lot of time the past couple of months thinking about life, death, the afterlife, and aliens. The alien part seems out of place in the list, but one has to admit that there has been a lot of talk of space aliens and other life in the universe. Stay with me as this weblog is going to jump around a lot. Next jump:

In pre-historic times, when a tribe of hunter-gathers encountered a stranger the outcome was uncertain as this stranger basically was an “alien” because the tribes were so isolated. A newcomer might be welcomed, might be cautiously included, or might be killed. The tribe just didn’t know anything beyond their own universe. Next jump:

There’s a scene in the movie Animal House in which a college student tries marijuana for the first time and the conversation turns to considering that our solar system could be an atom in some giant’s fingernail. Hilarity doesn’t ensue, but the characters get thinking in weird ways about their place in the world as they know and the universe and more as it could be. Next jump:

Could it be that the earth was a universe unto itself rather than a world? Maybe the different peoples in the different continents believed they were the whole world. Therefore, any encounter with people who looked different from them, i.e. race, would be considered to be an “alien.” I certainly don’t have the answers, but the last several weeks have led to introspection and trying to figure out our place in the universe. Maybe the earth, world, and universe is a matter of scale.