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We’re the ape-like inhabitants of a tiny rock in a vast cosmos.
How did we actually get here?
Only as recently as within our lifetimes has science written the story of us — and the universe as a whole.
📖 The story of us
Welcome and congratulations.
You’re one of the most unique and complex beings in the known universe. The atoms of your body are ancient, having been made in an ancient star.
The form of your body was inherited from countless ancestors who survived in the most extreme conditions; and passed their genes on to you.
You also live in a time where humans have become basically superhuman; with the ability to travel around the world, communicate with anyone, or read just about any work ever written.
Maybe you’ve had moments when you’ve wondered: “Wait, what is all this?”
These moments are no less than a jewel of the cosmos becoming an eye, one small part of the cosmos becoming aware, and turning to look at itself.
It's only because of humankind’s incredible abilities of science that we have an answer backed with evidence, and we are one of the first generations to hear it.
This is the story of us, which is also the story of the universe. It’s a story about emerging complexity, which we can categorise into thresholds:
8. Modernity
7. Agriculture
6. Humans
5. Life
4. Planets
3. Elements
2. Stars and Galaxies
1. The Big Bang
Imagine we can look across the universe and see thresholds being reached.
3x4
Zooming into our own part of the universe,
Timeline
The timeline give some fundamental dates for the modern origin story, using both approximate absolute dates, and recalculated dates, as if the universe had been created 13.8 years ago, instead of 13.8 billion years ago. This second approach makes it easier to get a sense of the chronological shape of the story. After all, natural selection did not design our minds to cope with millions or billions of years, so this shorter chronology should be easier to grasp.
- David Christian, Origin Story
Reference Origin Stories for the graph
There is not yet clear criteria on how to define a threshold, and we don’t have data on any life or civilisation existing outside of Earth, despite its potential to exist.
1. The Earth is the only planet we know of with life, and humanity is the only species we know of with an advanced civilisation. As we discover more about the Universe, our understanding of Big History will grow with it.
Sometimes complexity declines and disappears
https://jbh.journals.villanova.edu/index.php/JBH/article/view/2723/2584
💡 Big ideas
Humanity's best minds have conceived "big ideas" that explain parts of the universe, like atoms, gravity, and evolution.
They’re helpful to know when learning the story of the universe, so this extra section explains them simply.
View all ideas
This is our intellectual lab, where we write ideas in public. If the ideas above are a gallery of finished paintings, this is the workshop floor.
✍️ About this site
We inhabit a planet in the universe that is brimming with strange and incredible things, like a real-life Wonderland.
But over time the excitement of discovery tends to fade, and the miraculous becomes mundane.
I hope to help people rediscover the wonders of nature, space, and our modern world that have always been there – and which are often more spectacular, complex, and beautiful than we could have ever imagined.
Our Story
My name is Ben McCarthy and I’m the creator of this site.
Back in 2010 I had a psychedelic experience which was one of my life’s most influential moments.
A single leaf seemed like a miracle, a sophisticated structure of millions of cells with a chemical mechanism more complex than anything we’ve ever engineered, despite being made out of just dirt and air.
On the ground a line of ants strolled past, like an alien civilization going about its business right under my feet.
Above my head the atmosphere rolled over the landscape, like I was beneath an ocean made out of gas.
Everything around me had a depth of complexity and beauty that I had never seen before.
Most significantly, I could feel that we were all ape-like creatures on a muddy space rock, directly descended from the very origin of life, ~3.5 billion years ago.
I later found this quote that summed up my experience:
“The proper response to reality is astonishment.” - Terence McKenna
Reading and discovering things about the universe has been a lifelong passion. But after this experience I combined my 10,000+ notes on books and articles I’ve read into this site.
The idea was to make a resource where anyone could understand the big picture of scientific human knowledge, which is the systematic study of the universe, including the story of those apes.
I aspire to have everything checked by a team of fact checkers, but most remain a layman’s explanation. Reference them on your exams at your own risk. 😉
I’m also the founder of an online community that’s about sharing the wonders of nature and space, called Discover Earth. I’d encourage you to drop in and tell us about your own discoveries about the universe.
Best,
