| I.6 The Individual, In Whom the Universe has Become Conscious of Itself, Is in the Center of Things, But is Subsumed by Larger Social Relations and Physical Entities. |
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The Individual The Family The Community
The United Nations Planet Earth The Solar System The Sun--Our Mother Star, and the Planets The Milky Way Galaxy Our Home Galaxy, contains 200-400 Billion Stars. The Universe Or Nature Is Self-Existing, Self-Organizing, Infinite in Extension, Eternal, and Contains Billions of Galaxies
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| Summary: The Physical World This section demonstrated that the universe is explainable and thus comprehensible. It had a beginning in time some 13.7 billion years ago and consists of various manifestations of matter and energy, which are convertible into each other. Macro cosmic processes, for instance, the life and death of stars, governed by the regularities or laws of nature, brought forth planet Earth about 4.65 billion years ago. And here on Earth, micro evolutionary processes, again governed by the laws of nature, gave rise to life out of inanimate matter beginning about 3.7 billion years ago. This rise to life is amazing, but still more astonishing is the fact that the life processes, the workings of trial and error with survival of the fittest, produced large brains in humans that allowed self-consciousness and higher thought. Hence, The Brain-Mind Event is the topic of the next section. |
