Last time here we looked at the utterly incomprehensible enormity of the universe. This week we take a look at some of the philosophical views that spring from that vastness.

One view takes a slightly depressing slant on it all. You might recall from last time the size comparison of the universe to the earth: If our planet represented the size of the entire visible universe, then planet Earth would be about the size of a single tiny, invisible atom. You would be ten thousand times smaller still.

That is small. Too small for some. How can we have any significance, how can life have any meaning, if we are nothing but a speck in the cosmos? The vastness of the universe genuinely sends some into a nihilistic funk. 

There are a couple logical problems with that conclusion. One is that size does not determine worth. A 6-foot-tall human is not more important than one only five feet high. A house is not worth more than a child because it is bigger than that child.

And the volume of the space one exists in does not determine one's worth. If I walk from my small classroom into the gigantic gym, my significance does not diminish suddenly because my "living space" just got way bigger. 

Still, that's not enough for some. So I'd ask you to try this on for size.

For you to be reading this right now, the universe has to be the size it is now. If it were bigger or smaller, the likelihood of our very existence decreases rapidly. Here's why.

We live in an expanding universe, one that has been growing rapidly since its birth more than 13 billion years ago. If our universe were smaller, assuming we are the same age, that means our expansion rate would have been slower. So what?

Well, a slower expanding universe is not a good thing. If we were to have expanded more slowly, the great bunches of stuff that our universe was made of then would have collapsed together under the influence of gravity, not having had enough time to spread out and away. 

There would not have been generations of stars to spew out the periodic table of elements. There would have been no formation of planets and all other consolation prizes like trees and rocks and you and me. We would have a lot of black holes and not a whole lot else.

And if we had expanded any faster to be bigger, most stars would never have had time to form in the first place, matter having spread out now too far too fast. No stars, no solar systems, no earth, no us.


This universe, it turns out, is not too big, not too small, but just right. 

When we see the vastness of space, some of us recede into the depression of perceived insignificance. But others see an enormous universe of grandeur and beauty and design. Study the universe and it seems almost tailor-made for a tiny planet peopled with human beings. That, dear reader, is significant.