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The belief that we have a certain sense of the universe and in the process has promulgated a number of times, the idea of cooperation in other fields. Upgradeware Adam outdated by the dust; the Greek Heraclitus wrote, "All Things are a" I depict people in China and the natural world, as a rule of the principle of a single ( "I call on the TAO") and a belief in human solidarity with the universe is generally preliterate people, as evidenced by the Indian Chief Seattle suquamish, WHO announced on his death bed said: "All things are connected, like a blood unity, and this is all hope that one, I tell you."           Humankind and the Universe     The scientific developments [of the recent centuries] have worked, however inadvertently, to implicate and involve our species in the wider universe. Astronomy, in shattering the crystalline spheres that had been said to seal off the earth from the aethereal realms above the moon, placed us in the universe. Quantum physics cracked the metaphorical pane of glass that had been assumed to separate the detached observer from the observed world; we are, we found, unavoidably entangled in that which we study. Astrophysics, in determining that matter is the same everywhere and that it everywhere obeys the same rules, laid bare a cosmic unity that extends from nuclear fusion in stars to the chemistry of life. Darwinian evolution, in indicating that all species of earthly life are related and that all arose from ordinary matter, made it clear that there is no wall dividing us from our fellow creatures on Earth, or from the planet that gave us all life—that we are such stuff as worlds are made of.   The conviction that we are in some sense at one with the universe had of course been promulgated many times before, in other spheres of thought. Yahweh fashioned Adam out of dust; Heraclitus the Greek wrote that "all things are one"; Lao-tzu in China depicted man and nature alike as ruled by a single principle ("I call it the Tao"); and a belief in the unity of humankind with the cosmos was widespread among preliterate peoples, as evidenced by the Suquamish Indian chief Seattle, who declared on his death-bed that "all things are connected, like the blood which unites one family. It is all like one family, I tell you." But there is something striking about the fact that the same general view has arisen from sciences that pride themselves on their clearheaded pursuit of objective, empirical fact. From the chromosome charts and fossil records that chart the interrelatedness of all living things on Earth to the similarity of the cosmic chemical abundance to that of terrestrial biota, we find indications that we really are a part of the universe at large.   This scientific verification of our involvement in the workings of the cosmos has of course many implications. One of them... is that, if intelligent life has evolved on this planet, it may have also done so elsewhere. Darwin's theory of evolution, though it does not explain away the ancient conundrum of why there is such a thing as life, does make it clear that life may arise from ordinary matter and evolve into an "intelligent" form, at least on an Earthlike planet orbiting a sun-like star. As there are plenty of sun-like stars (over ten billion of them in the Milky Way galaxy alone), and, presumably, more than a few Earth-like planets, we can speculate that we are not the only species ever to have studied the universe and wondered about our role in it.   Our comprehension of the relationship between mind and the universe may depend upon whether we can make contact with another intelligent species with which to compare ourselves. Seldom has science done very well at studying phenomena of which but a single example was available: Newton's and Einstein's laws would have been far more difficult—perhaps impossible—to formulate had there been only one planet to test them against, and it is often said that the central problem in cosmology itself is that we have but a single universe to examine. (The discovery of cosmic evolution eases this difficulty, by proffering for our consideration the very difficult state of the universe during the first moments of cosmic evolution.) The question of extraterrestrial life, then, goes beyond such issues as whether we are alone in the universe or may look forward to cosmic companionship or need fear alien invasion; it is also a way of examining ourselves and our relationship to the rest of nature.            — Timothy Ferris, Coming of Age in the Milky Way, Chapter 19 – Mind and Matter               Indexes/11