It is said that, on his deathbed, Albert Einstein said something along the lines of "In the final analysis, it all comes down to one question...is the universe a friendly place? Your answer will determine the kind of life you lead."
Is the universe a friendly place? I would have to say no, the universe is not a friendly place. It is a cold, random, void that lacks any type of compassion for our incredibly lucky existence. The thought of the universe being friendly implies some sort of consciousness, a determined act to watch out for us or itself, and that goes directly against the purely mathematical, harsh world in which we live. It is sad to admit this.
Randomness
I don't think we appreciate what a random event really is. Lets say we draw playing cards, one card out of 52. If the cards were shuffled properly, we would have a 1 in 52 chance of drawing any card. This is easy to understand because of the low number of cards. Now how many chances would there be in the universe...an infinite or a huge number? What are the chances that the big bang assembled all the atoms in just the correct manner that they are what they are today. You would think it would be 100%, but that is not true, it only seems that way because it is all we can comprehend. Astrophysics says the big bang could have assembled atoms and atomic forces in any way possible, and the fact that it did it the way it did makes our universe a one in an infinite shot.
To understand this, you have to know that if for some reason gravity was 0.00000001 percent stronger, we would not be here because all the matter in the universe would collapse back on itself. If it were that same number weaker, we would not be here because matter would not be attracted to itself in the same way and therefore would not allow for the formation of stars or plantets. This illustration holds true not only for gravity, but strong and weak nuclear forces (the force that keeps neutrons and protons together in the nucleus of an atom), and electromagnetism (allows for chemical reactions). If any factor was off by even the slightest fraction, existence would not exist.
Okay, so its amazing the universe turned out the way it did, but how does that have a direct impact on US? We are made of atoms too, the same atoms that make everything. Somehow these atoms assemble into molecules and those molecules into other structures like amino acids and DNA and such, and no one really knows why or how. Sure, they understand chemical forces, but don't know why those forces are there keeping strand after strand of DNA functional and capable of transcribing messages to RNA and therefore turning those messages into proteins. Also for some reason unknown to anyone, these proteins have four structures. First they bind to themselves, then to other proteins and continue to rap around themselves until they are a giant bundle of perfection. There may be over a million completely different but needed protein structures, but again no one is sure yet.
Anyway, as you can see, there is a very tiny amount of all this that could be called random in the true sense of the word. It is true it did not start like this but took billions of years and trillions of tries to get it right through evolution. Over and over again life lived, took on new shapes and persisted despite great odds and as far as we know us humans have become the pinnacle existence in an unfathomable universe.
So, is the universe a friendly place...I almost want to change my answer to yes, at least I hope it is. Somehow through vast chance everything lined up for billions and billions of years to allow us to exist. It drives me crazy. Why...why did carbon form within 6 microseconds after the big bang to set its molecular weight at 12? Why is the earth the perfect distance from the sun to allow liquid water? Why were all the elements that were needed to form an atmosphere already here before us, creating a electromagnet forcefield from the sun? Why did that asteroid hit Earth, killing all the dinosaurs and allowing for mammals to thrive and why did the changing weather patterns turn the jungles in Africa into deserts which forced the apes out of the trees and eventually leading to YOU. AHHHHH, its freakin crazy. Crazy like it wants life to happen, over and over again. So, even if the universe is not friendly it is at least accommodating...and I think I can live with that.
