Introduction
The world we live in today is progressing at a rate never before seen in the past. The pressures to progress yourself and contribute to society are at an all time high and can often times feel overwhelming. In juggling hundreds of activities on a daily basis, we often times loose track of the big picture; of where we came from and where we plan to go.
I have many blog posts discussing how to improve your current situation as well as how to prepare for the future, but none on the past. With this post, I hope to shed some light on our shared history, on who we fundamentally are and the similarities and differences ingrained in us through generations. The majority of the dates are rounded to make them easier to remember but the chronology is not impacted.
The Beginning of the Universe
13,800,000,000 years ago - The Big Bang
As far as we know, this is the origin of everything that exists, the beginning of space-time. A lot of people ask the question "But what happened before the Big Bang?" and the answer is quite interesting. To answer this question, we need to understand the fact that "For something to occur before something else, time must already exist." Therefore it should be clear that "before the start of time" doesn't make sense because time didn't exist before time due to the fact that "For something to occur before something else, time must already exist." It is the same as asking the question "What is 2+Apple with a pinch of salt on a mountain in India from 0 to 5?" There is no answer because the question itself doesn't make sense. The question "What happened before the Big Bang?" sounds sensible but when we really analyze it, we see that it doesn't make sense.
So then what? Perhaps we can ask "What exists outside of space-time?". But analyzing this, we see it doesn't make sense because the notion of space must exist for something to be outside something else. As we are beginning to see, it's difficult to conceive of a reality that isn't space-time (excluding Mathematics)...let alone ask questions about this reality. A better question is to ask "How do we reconcile that which we cannot conceive of?", a question where many people tend to answer with God, however there have been formal attempts to ponder this question. Now this is getting quite philosophical, but if you are further interested in tackling these ideas, there is a branch of Philosophy called Metaphysics that investigates this topic extensively.
13,200,000,000 years ago - Emergence of the Milky Way Galaxy
The universe is arranged into millions of clusters of around 100 galaxies held together by gravity, but each of the million clusters are drifting away from each other at extremely fast speeds. The way I visualize this is considering a big balloon that is constantly getting air pumped into it and expanding over time. Within this big balloon that is the universe, there are millions of smaller balloons - clusters of galaxies, that are getting air sucked out of them and contracting over time. Our galaxy is apart of the Virgo Cluster and is expected to collide with the Andromeda Galaxy in approximately 4 billion years from today (Don't worry, we'll all be long dead). Each galaxy within each cluster consists of millions of solar systems (stars and planets).
At this point, all that exists in the universe is the four fundamental forces: gravity, electromagnetism, the strong and weak nuclear forces and the two most basic elements Hydrogen and Helium. If you're interested in knowing the details of how further complexity like stars and planets arose from this basic stuff, the study of Physics and Cosmology investigates this topic extensively.
4,500,000,000 years ago - Emergence of our Solar System & Earth
Just like the sun is at the center of our solar system with 8 planets orbiting around it, each galaxy consists of a black hole at it's center with millions of solar systems orbiting around it. As you can see, it took the first 9.3 billion years for the universe to start creating stars from the four fundamental forces interacting with the two basic elements. But after stars were created, it didn't take much longer for planets and all sorts of complex life to evolve.
4,000,000,000 years ago - Emergence of Life
Shortly after the formation of Earth, we begin to see signs of life at the bottom of the ocean. Now we aren't talking about anything visible to the human eye, the life that existed during this time was in the cellular form. Billions of elements (mainly Carbon) arranged in complex structures called DNA and RNA surrounded by a cell membrane with the sole purpose of reproduction. If you're interested in knowing the details of how life arose, the study of Biology and Chemistry investigates this topic extensively.
500,000,000 years ago - Emergence of Recognizable Life
For 3.5 billion years, cells were replicating and reproducing with minor mutations occurring each time. Eventually single cellular life realized it was beneficial to share DNA with another cell resulting in multi-cellular life. Only 500 million years ago did we start to see signs of something that resembled a fish - billions of cells interacting with one another to reproduce on a larger scale.
400,000,000 years ago - Emergence of Land Life
After 100 million years of fish reproducing and evolving in the ocean, eventually competition for resources became so fierce that some fish attempted to journey to land to survive. Eventually learning to eat the grass on the land and evolving to have feet replace fins, we get the dawn of the era of dinosaurs. For the next several million years, there will be various forms of dinosaurs occupying the land and various forms of fish occupying the ocean. If you're interested in knowing the details of how life evolved, the study of Evolutionary biology investigates this topic extensively.
60,000,000 years ago - Emergence of Mammals
Until now, dinosaurs ten times the size of a tiger dominated the land competing with each other for resources. Any mammals that existed were food for dinosaurs so they hid away until an asteroid hit the planet and caused the dinosaurs to go extinct. At this point, mammals slowly started populating more areas of the land.
15,000,000 years ago - Emergence of Apes
Just like fish evolved into more complex life forms in the ocean over millions of years, it took mammals almost 50 million years to get complex life forms as diverse as tigers, zebras and apes. As you can imagine, we share more similarities with gorillas than we do with tigers and more similarities with tigers than we do with sharks due to the fact that sharks diverged from us further ago than tigers did on the evolutionary tree, and tigers diverged from us further ago than gorillas did.
2,500,000 years ago - Emergence of Abstract Thought
Until 2.5 million years ago, apes weren't much different than other mammals, they followed a standard daily routine and the better the mammal performed the routine, the greater the chances of survival and reproduction. Only at this point do we start to see signs of abstract thought. An ape would see his dad banging a rock on another rock in hopes to accomplish some task, and only 2.5 million years ago did the child consider that maybe...just maybe...sharpening one of these rocks would yield a better outcome. Fast forward 100 generations and you get a hammer and a nail, another 100 and you get a spear...you get the idea. This marks the dawn of apes having rapid brain development known as the Expensive Tissue Hypothesis.
The Beginning Of Humans
200,000 years ago - Emergence of Homo Sapiens
The first signs of apes that had the exact same body structure as people today. Although their cognitive abilities would still be significantly behind ours for the next 150,000 years, dressing one of these apes up in clothes and taking a picture of them would make them indistinguishable from a modern day human. These humans originated in Ethiopia, Africa but would very soon make their way across the planet to dominate all life forms.
50,000 years ago - Cognitively Modern Humans
For the past 150,000 years, Humans were continually developing their brains generation after generation. Prior to 50,000 years ago, if you tried to raise a baby in modern society - they would have extreme difficulty interacting with others and behaving normally. Approximately 50,000 years ago was when humans could behave as we do today, they simply lacked the social structures to do so.
20,000 years ago - Humans Populate All of Earth
For the past 60 million years, species of all kind were competing with each other to survive. Due to humans primarily developing cognitively as opposed to physically - with the help of abstract thought, communication and cooperation - humans were able to dominate all other species within only 200,000 years. Even though other species evolved to be much larger, stronger or faster - rapid brain development proved to be the key to dominate all other species.
10,000 years ago - Emergence of Agriculture
Until now, humans hunted animals and gathered fruits from the environment. Animals generally eat the land or each other, therefore when an area of land was harvested - the animals must move to new land that has the resources that they want to consume. Due to this nature of how animals consumed resources to survive, humans naturally moved from place to place...following the animals wherever they went.
Only 10,000 years ago did we learn that we could build a fence around the animals and make them reproduce at a rate that feeds us indefinitely, provided there is enough land for the animals to eat (after grass is eaten, it takes a long time to regrow!). This gave rise to agriculture in what is called the Neolithic Revolution which meant humans no longer needed to live in the lifestyle of "hunters and gathers" and could stay in one place. Agriculture could only occur in very specific environments where the lands were fertile (where the grass regrew rapidly) therefore we see independent civilizations arise in various locations around the globe.
Only 10,000 years ago did we learn that we could build a fence around the animals and make them reproduce at a rate that feeds us indefinitely, provided there is enough land for the animals to eat (after grass is eaten, it takes a long time to regrow!). This gave rise to agriculture in what is called the Neolithic Revolution which meant humans no longer needed to live in the lifestyle of "hunters and gathers" and could stay in one place. Agriculture could only occur in very specific environments where the lands were fertile (where the grass regrew rapidly) therefore we see independent civilizations arise in various locations around the globe.
The Beginning of Society
3000 BCE - 1500 CE - Emergence of Civilization
Now that we have a group of humans living together in a similar location, there naturally arose rules and cultures for different regions of humans, this gives rise to civilization. The first civilization emerged in 3000 BCE near Pakistan and India called the Indus Valley Civilization. Civilizations kept emerging through this period and since 3000 BCE to 1500 CE, the main goal of a civilization is to sustain it's people which inevitability leads to connecting and/or conquering other civilizations, similar to how humans compete and/or cooperate on an individual level. Around this time was when we first created a formal language of writing which marks the dawn of documented history. Below is a list of all major events occurring during this time period, but if you are interested in knowing a more comprehensive list, the study of History investigates this topic extensively.
- 1000 BCE - 4 major civilizations are Romans, Arabs, Indians and Chinese. Although these 4 labels didn't exist yet, they are geographically semblance.
- These 4 civilizations are the origins of the major countries that exist today
- Roman civilization eventually split into the various countries of Europe and North America
- Arab civilization eventually split into the various countries of the middle east today
- Indian civilization continued to thrive in the area we know today to be India
- Chinese civilization eventually split into the various countries in Asia
- All other countries (like Russia and countries in Africa) are mixtures of the nearby civilizations above
- 800 BCE - Hinduism originates near India - largest impact on Indian culture
- 500 BCE - Buddhism is founded by the Buddha - largest impact on Asian culture
- 300 BCE - Birth of Socrates, Plato and Aristotle in Rome - founders of logic and reason which had the largest impact on global culture
- 1 CE - Jesus crucified leading to widespread Christianity - largest impact on Roman culture
- 600 CE - Islam is founded by Mohammed - largest impact on Arabian culture
- 1250 CE - Genghis Khan (Mongol leader) closest in history to world domination
- 1500 CE - Discovered North America leading to civilization of entire planet
1500 CE - Present - Modern History
In 1500 CE, we attempted to sail from Europe to India but discovered North America on the way. There is an ongoing debate on whether the people living there were civilized or not, but either way - we killed the majority of people living there (by spreading disease) and colonized/civilized the Americas leading to human society dominating the entire planet. This marks the dawn of humans being a major influence on the global issues like animal extension and global warming.
It took over 100,000 years for hunter-gatherer humans to dominate the planet, but within a mere 4,500 years of civilization developing, civilized humans were able to dominate all other forms of human lifestyles.
Major events since 1500 CE are as the following:
- 1700 CE - The Scientific Revolution - Attempt to understand the world through math and science as opposed to religion
- 1800 CE - The Industrial Revolution - Attempt to use technology to replace human physical work
- World War I(1914), World War II(1939), the first global identity established - the UN (1945)
- Advent of the World Wide Web (1991), cell phone popularized (1998)
- Microsoft, Google, Apple, Facebook, Skype, Twitter become popular marking the dawn of an "Online Profile", "Smart Phones" and "Social Media" (2004)
- 2005 - The Digital Revolution - Connect the world as opposed to having isolated cultures and attempt to use technology (Artificial Intelligence) to replace human mental work
- ISIS and Refugee Crisis (2015), Donald Trump becomes president (2016)
Conclusion
If there is one overarching theme throughout all this, it is rising complexity. Whether it's star formation through forces interacting with elements, humans dominating the planet through complex brains or the development of civilization, the universe shows time and time again - complexity keeps rising and occasionally there are events like the ones above that cause an explosion in complexity.
With the recent connectivity of the world occurring only this generation, rising complexity has once again broken another barrier and as we are the first generation to deal with this change. It only makes sense that we occasionally feel overwhelmed with all the challenges of life. The universe is once again moving extremely rapidly to embrace the explosion in complexity that is robots, and as we are apart of the universe; it can often times feel difficult to keep up.
So the next time you feel overwhelmed with the hundreds of activities you need to do today, just take a deep breath and think about the big picture.
