Cheetah’s are uniquely fast and humans are uniquely
articulate – Nature indifferently gave to the one its speed and to the other
its power of thought, even though Nature is indifferent to uniqueness.
We are not indifferent, however. We care.
That we can care about Nature does not require that Nature cares about
us. But that we can care -- about other
people, other creatures, Nature – well, from whence did humans derive this
talent if not from the processes of Nature?
Hidden in the so-call “big bang”; hidden, perhaps, in the
darkness prior to the big bang, lay the potential to bring forth beings that cared,
beings that were not indifferent. We
are fruit of that potential. This ever
present and currently actualized potential – is it not a most curious fact
about Nature?
One can imagine (for Nature has also endowed us with an
abundance of imagination) that Nature wanted to see, so it evolved into
creatures with eyes; it wanted to care, so it brought forth creatures with
sensibility and sensitivity; it even wanted to be able to explore itself, so it
brought forth creatures with brains big enough to build precise telescopes to
search the depths of its endless space.
Perhaps we satisfy some deep itch lodged in that originating
potential of which we are the fruit when we study and contemplate the great
questions of cosmology. There is no way
of knowing; but such imaginings can, I think, remind us that we are without
exception part of Nature’s great process -- and perhaps allow us to feel how
wonderful it is to be able to care about Nature’s abundant indifference.
