It was once said that life is an atom's way of knowing about other atoms.
But putting the issue of life on hold for a moment, we need to consider the universe as it stands around us. All in all, it seems to be a rather neat and orderly thing.
Our solar system is just perfect to support life. The Earth is just far away to benefit from the Sun's heat without being too close to get fried or too far away to freeze. Jupiter's gravity deflects passing cosmic debris. Our moon keeps the Earth's axis from tilting too far. There's enough of an atmosphere to protect us from the sun's ultra-violet. Everything hangs in a delecate balance.
The universe operates on a predefined set of rules that don't seem to come and go. When we discover an anomoly, it is usually because we are on the verge of discovering another rule of the universe we just weren't accounting for previously.
How long would it take for someone underwater to discover water? Most likely not until they surfaced and discovered the absence of it. How long did it take for us to discover air? When we found the absence of it, an anomoly. The Catholic church once said there was no such thing as a vacuum and made threats to those who said there was.
Everything seems to be operating in some kind of delicate balance, the whole nature of existance in itself is puzzling. Why on this one planet alone does this thing called life seem to exist and flurish?
It is pretty conceited to assume that we are the only ones out here among it all. This is something else we will need to explore.
