He is a physicist and believes in measurements. Yet enjoys listening music from the 5% THD Tube amp and horn speakers.
“The problem is we don’t measure the right things. We probably don’t know what to measure”
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I dont think any of us will live long enough to figure it out but it is fun to think about all of the possibilities.
A lifelong friend and I have these conversations on a regular basis.
How did we get here?
Where are we “from”?
How is it that we have been here for hundreds of thousands or millions of years but just had rapid development in the last 400 years or so?
Hmmmmmmmmmmmm. 
And the speed of technological development continues to increase exponentially.
I find @Baldy 's question interesting. If we have been here for 40,000 even 10,000 years, why didn’t our rapid scientific and economic development start earlier? (If so, might my 2 channel system sound better?)
The fact that the modern era electrical grid has only existed for 100 years or less and 150 years ago we were still burning whale fat for light and also using it for lubricating oil brings a little of the very recent advancements into focus a little better.
There is a lot of evidence of things being done here on Earth that we still don’t have a way to explain or duplicate that it makes you wonder.
I have always been of the mind that the relatively modern man is the product of ET breeding with what existed here at that time but of course there is no way to prove it one way or the other. (Elk feel free to edit as needed)
I know why we are so enamored with water as is needed for life as we know it but our wanderlust and space quest also has to have some deeper meaning.
Thanks for the link Ted, I was not aware of the PBS Space Time series. I will find some time to watch! Totally agree with anything done by the Discovery network, too much entertainment and too little hard science. I still watch some of it, but don’t seek it out either. Sadly, Nova has adopted some of that entertainment style. I recall Nova being pretty hardcore 20 or more years ago. The current offering is still good, but we can wish for more hard content and little less flash.
With respect to the bigger picture, we still have much to learn on how the universe works and what our part in it is. It will be very interesting to see what the James Webb telescope brings to our understanding.
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Based on what I have read and watched about evolution, diet may be the one thing that led to human advancement. As humans evolved they became better at feeding themselves and better nutrition contributes to increased brain size. This wasn’t a rapid change, more of a subtle change over millennia. The typical feast/famine cycle of early humans and many other creatures can limit development, when humans got better at breaking that cycle, we developed increasingly more brain power. The increased brain power led to humans working as a team to take down large prey, eventually with tools that were steadily improved. Early humans also worked cooperatively to gather available native plants and fruits for later use, and eventually grow our own food which, together, helped maintain a steady food supply. The snowball effect took over and the pace of development has just gotten faster and faster. Exponential as Elk said. Seems hard to believe we can keep it up, but I’m sure the same was said over and over though the millennia. Now that next tough nut for our growing brains to crack is cheap and pollution free energy. After that, space travel. We need to have a chat with those aliens who left their DNA!
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One factor is we learned to feed ourselves well enough we had free time to think and invent.
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My wife is fond of saying the humans who migrated to what is now northern Europe had lots of time to think in the long winter nights! And of course, there is the old saying “necessity is the mother of invention”. In order to stay warm and see what you were doing in those long nights brought about many inventions.
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Probably odd but I’ll stream this for hours sometimes.
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Not odd, really.
I find remote cams fascinating for the near real time aspect and the chance to view different parts of this ever shrinking world. For nature viewing, Cornell University has multiple cams viewing all sorts of birds in many parts of the US. There are organizations with cams in the deserts of Namibia, the forests of Lithuania, sundry spots in Britain - all over. Viewing, can be at times harrowing.
One case in particular occurred during the 2020 Northern Californian fires. The California Condors Association had a camera on a Redwood tree nest that was occupied by a 4 month old chick. You could actually see the fire approaching, then traveling up that very tree with the poor creature trapped inside and in a panic before the wires to the cam burned, cutting off the feed. It was heart breaking.
When the fire subsided, conservators rushed out to the nest and found the chick alive, a bit befuddled, but no more worse for its experience. It was rather interesting taking note of the amount folks who were regular viewers of this particular channel and the out pouring of relief that things had turned out as they did.
Being a “Telstar” kid, and finding that to be a “miracle of science” at the time, remote cams are, for me, in that same category. 
Here’s a fun one.
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I had never heard that explanation but it does make sense. I am not giving up on the space derived DNA helping things along either. It is a very interesting and philosophical subject.
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Can you imagine what the first travelers to the north thought the first time that it started snowing? What have we gotten ourselves into now!!
The cultures that do not have written language have many very interesting stories of their history too. Hopefully those elders can keep the spoken history alive for a while longer so it can be properly translated and studied.
I think we mostly Caucasian European invaders could learn a lot from them too. I think a lot of that history has been forever lost.
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From mans worst to mans best. Carlin’s outlook on life is perfect.
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