Average lifespan of a human being is 100 years. This is quite negligible when we consider how old is the Universe i.e. 13.7 billion years, It is quite negligible even when we compare it to the age of our Solar system or the Earth for that matter. As a human being we do a lot of things during our lifespan. And that creates a lot of memories. The sense of life and consciousness of being present comes after the age of five on an average. But the questions that come to our minds are - What actually is Life? What is Consciousness? Why do we have a sense of being present? We are a race of intelligent species, which is why we question our existence. This leads us to think - Does other living creatures have a similar sense of life and consciousness of being present? Our thoughts do not stop there. The main thought that everyone have had atleast once in their lifetime is – What was there before we were born? And, what will be there after we die? In all these thoughts where does the Universe play its role!
Well,
before we were born, as we are taught in history classes, there were other
humans and living creatures and a lot of things have happened before we were
born. And many different things will happen even after we die. But here, we are
talking from a different perspective. In this context, we are curious about -
What happens to an individual, personally, before and after physical form of
life! It is the only thing that is considered beyond science. Again, here we’re
not talking about the biological body of an individual before he was born or after
he dies. One might get confused among these three different phenomena. Let’s
say as Historic, Biological (Scientific) and the one that we are interested
about, let’s say the Philosophical one, and relating it to the Science of the
Universe that we know right now!
According to the Big Bang Theory, our Universe have evolved from a singularity. We don’t know the exact composition of that singularity, but, we assume it is of infinite density and energy. The explosion released a lot of energy and within fractions of seconds, the Universe expanded. At this moment there was abundance of Hydrogen, which became the primary element for creation of other elements that followed. As the years passed, stars, planets, and galaxies were formed. On a one tiny planet of a huge Solar System, the Science took a different curve and a single cell life came into existence; and that was Earth! The unicellular life evolved into the multicellular plants and organisms. One species developed intelligence qualities. They are called Homo Sepian or Humans! That is when the questions and curiosity of life and consciousness began. This curiosity grew out of the fear of not existing after death and the billions of years that passed by without the existence and consciousness of being present and alive.
The
Universe is primarily composed of Energy and Matter. Everything in our Universe
is made up of some kind of matter – Solid, Liquid, Gas, Plasma, etc. and has a
specific amount of Energy. The energy can be exchanged between different
objects and surrounding anywhere in the Universe but the total energy in the
entire Universe always remains constant and cannot be created or destroyed. In
a similar way our body is also composed of certain basic elements of matter and
contains some specific amount of energy. This energy drives our body directed
by the most important organ – the brain. We constantly provide our body with external
sources of energy in forms of solid and liquid food and oxygen. If this supply
of energy stops, our brain stops functioning and hence our body stops
functioning, and the person id declared brain dead. Therefore we can say, brain
is the organ that gives us a sense of being present. This sense in particular
is felt due to our five primary sense organs. But without our body, we can’t
have that sense and that is why we feel consciousness and being present at the
moment.
Yet
we are left with the question of before and after life existence. This is the
question to which science has no answer to, but researchers are still trying to
find out. The closest field that could relate to the end of existence are the
near death experiences and very old people who are close to completing their
journey of life. The people who have confronted near death experience due to
some accidents, have said that moments after the accident has occurred, they
see a very bright light and a sense of leaving the material body, but suddenly
they wake up in their body. They have also said that the feel of the whole
experience cannot be explained but it was the best feeling. Old people on the
other hand have said that, at the age that they are, they feel satisfaction of
having lived a long life and are comfortable to end the final chapter of life. Religiously,
although different religions follow different God, the after death scenario is
somewhat similar. After the death, the soul/consciousness experience a path
towards a very bright light and confronts the judgement based on the
performance in the materialistic world, and they are either rewarded or
punished. The faith and religion of an ultimate power is the sole answer
believed by many, to answer the question of existence before and after life.
Scientifically,
as we discussed, the Universe is made up of matter and energy, we can say that
the matter and energy that we add to our body comes from the matter that we
consume in form of food and energy is retrieved through various processes that
take place to break down this food, and that is how we grow from infancy to old
age. And after we take the final breath, the matter that our body is made up
of, starts decomposing and eventually returns to nature. In a similar way, the
energy that was driving our body also becomes a part of the Universe, without
breaking any law of Science – Energy can neither be created, nor destroyed, but
one form of energy can be transformed into another form!