8. Humanity: The Current Epoch

“We are just an advanced breed of monkeys on a minor planet of a very average star. But we can understand the Universe. That makes us something very special.”

― Stephen Hawking

Finally, we arrive at the current Epoch of the Universe. Sitting at the cutting edge of Q4P is us. We are the most complex expression of Q4P to date. As to why that is true, there are a great many things to consider.

We shall discuss each here, but the true complexity of humanity is that we incorporate all these newest and novel abilities into a single creature. You’ve only to look around you and see how we are unique. There is no, and never has been, a living being as complex as we are.

I will say, as a modest disclaimer, we are the most complex creatures we are aware of. The universe is a vast place – with some estimated 200 billion galaxies in the universe and hundreds of billions of stars in every one of them. So, we’ve no

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real assurance we are the only beings in this state of complexity or even the first ones. In our observable world, we stand above all other living creatures in our order of complexity to the point that we represent a true Complexification event.

If there is any life elsewhere in the universe that can match our complexity, it does not lessen what we represent - it would only be another offshoot of the same C+ event that brought us into existence. As to other intelligent life, it is Birnbaum’s stance that it could exist. Its existence or absence would not change the SuperFormula that guides universal evolution. So, we shall set this aside and focus on what we do know exists – humanity.

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