Questions No One Knows The Answers To

During a typical day at school, the focus is often on learning the answers to questions. However, let's take a different approach and explore the questions that have unknown answers. As a child, I used to ponder various mysteries: What would it be like to experience life as a dog? Do fish and insects feel pain? Was the Big Bang a mere accident? Does a higher power exist? And if so, why is it commonly referred to as a "He" instead of a "She"? Why do innocent beings suffer? Is there a predetermined plan for my life? Is the future unwritten, or is it already predetermined but beyond our perception? Furthermore, do I possess free will? Who am I, really? Am I just a biological machine? And if so, why am I conscious? What exactly is consciousness? Will robots eventually attain consciousness? I had assumed that someday I would be provided with answers to these questions, but to my surprise, nobody knows. In fact, these questions puzzle me more now than ever. Yet, delving into them is exhilarating because it takes us to the boundaries of knowledge, offering the potential for unexpected discoveries.

Let's explore two questions that nobody on Earth currently knows the answers to. Firstly, consider the question: How many universes exist? When I look out from a plane window during a long flight, marveling at the vastness of our planet, I can't help but realize that the object we see every day, the Sun, is so immense that it could contain one million Earths within it. However, within the grand scheme of things, the Sun is merely a tiny speck among approximately 400 billion stars within the Milky Way galaxy. On a clear night, we can observe the pale white mist of the Milky Way stretching across the sky, consisting of countless stars. To compound the awe, there are estimated to be around 100 billion galaxies that our telescopes can detect. If each star were represented by a grain of sand, the stars within the Milky Way alone would fill a 30-foot by 30-foot stretch of beach three feet deep. The number of stars in the entire universe would require beaches that extend for hundreds of millions of miles. This vastness is mind-boggling.

However, modern physics theories, including string theory, suggest the existence of countless other universes constructed with different particles, properties, and laws. Although most of these universes might not support life and may have short lifespans, combined, they form a vast multiverse comprising an astonishing number of possible universes, potentially existing in up to 11 dimensions. The prevalent version of string theory even predicts a multiverse containing 10 to the power of 500 universes, an unimaginably colossal number. Even if each atom in our observable universe had its own universe, and this cycle repeated for several iterations, we would still be far from reaching the total number of universes. However, this number pales in comparison to the concept of infinity, as some physicists suggest that space-time itself is infinite, hosting an infinite number of pocket universes with diverse properties. The mind boggles at these ideas.

Now let's turn to another perplexing question: Where is the evidence of extraterrestrial life? Enrico Fermi famously asked, "Where is everybody?" considering the vast number of planets in our galaxy alone. The Kepler space observatory has discovered hundreds of planets around nearby stars, leading to an estimate of half a trillion planets in our galaxy. Even if a small fraction of these planets could potentially support life, there should be millions of life-harboring planets in the Milky Way. Considering the vast age of the universe, it seems probable that intelligent civilizations could have arisen and developed advanced technologies over millions or billions of years. If that were the case