Coincidence?

I'm going to take a break from political commentary to share a story that raises, for me, some fascinating notions about coincidence and serendipity. Some believe there are no coincidences, which implies that there are unseen forces that guide us. 

It's related to religion, and a variety of superstitions that are part of western culture. I personally don't believe such things, and I had an experience recently that for me profoundly proves that out of randomness can come things that appear pre-ordained, and as such are more remarkable than a belief in supernatural guidance.

While in college a friend and I took a road trip and had a breakdown near a little town in eastern Oregon that necessitated an overnight stay. With some time to kill we walked around downtown, stopping in a antique store where I purchased an emblem from an old car for a dollar. I'm not sure why I was attracted to it, aside from a vague notion of using it as a decoration in my dorm room, something I never did. As it turned out I just hung on to it, something in the box of miscellaneous junk that everyone carries with them as they move from place to place.

Many years later, in 2008, when while going through "the box" I saw the emblem and got the idea to use it in a painting, to do a full size canvas of the car and attach the emblem as a mixed media element. Until this time I didn't know which car it came from, but after a bit of time on the internet I found a picture of a 1939 Ford truck and used it to make the first in a series of works I called "Vehicles". I ended up doing 13 canvasses, had several shows and sold a couple.

Here's "Ford" (Note the chrome emblem on the side), and a link to the series:

"Ford" 

"Vehicles"

This month we took a trip to Washington state to the town of Rosslyn, where the TV series "Northern Exposure" was filmed. It's an old coal mining town and we drove around looking at the little cottages of the miners from the early 1900's that had been preserved. As we turned a corner I saw this old truck parked in front of one of them and immediately recognized the distinctive front grill of the truck from my painting. We stopped and took a couple of pictures.




As we left I noticed that the emblem on the left side of the truck was missing.

It struck me that it was possible that the emblem that I had all those years could have been the one missing from this truck. If true, what are the chances that I would come across this truck so many years later? If someone believes in fate this would be a "sign" that it was "meant to be", that I was directed to this exact spot to have this experience, perhaps to affirm my faith in divine guidance.

But for me this encounter was a delightful happenstance that revealed to me the amazing power of utter randomness. To my thinking the odds of finding this old truck were literally astronomical. Over a lifetime I had journeyed from West to East and back again, had chanced on a little piece of history and incorporated it in a work of art, wandered into a little town I had never heard of and onto a street I could have just as easily passed without ever knowing the connection that waited for me there.

This is how we came to be. Science is leading us through the Universe to learn how its infinite energy is constantly creating events that lead to stars and planets, light and life, you, me and a '39 Ford in a mountain town with a story we never could have imagined.

Feeling' Lucky?

Astronomers estimate 100 Billion planets where life may exist. This number is just a guess, there may be more, as we have yet to explore the entire universe. This apparent abundance makes one wonder, as intelligent life may exist on many of them, why we should believe that our Earth is anything special or different. 

A being looking out at us from one of those planets would see the Earth as just another rock in space. Religion would have us believe, on faith, that the Earth (flat or not) is unique, yet even the possibility of life on other planets would test that belief in several fundamental ways.

A Creator ("C") would have to be given the responsibility to make all those other planets, and we also know C also has made the Universe an unpredictable place. Stars explode, asteroids strike planets, so that any given planet exists faces the possibility of destruction at any moment from some external cosmic force.

The number of possible planets suggests that life, in some form or other, is plentiful in the Universe, unremarkable, just another manifestation of matter, and completely capable of existence without any special effort from C. Life can take a myriad of paths as it spreads across a planet from the primordial spark, and while life is resilient and adaptable there exists an equal number of hazards that can extinguish it.

Some believe C has given man free will, but C is also allowing for the the possibility that on any given planet he will self-destruct, despite biblical exhortations for responsible behavior. This looks like C is hedging his bets on mankind. Even if C has a particular fondness for us it would seem our survival is arbitrary in the grand scheme. C may regret the loss of one planet, but there are plenty more so no worries.

Others hold that man has no free will and C does whatever C wants for he/she/its own reasons and therefore nothing can be done: man is helpless. Another belief is that all science is simply revealing C and leading to some grand reconciliation in the future. These are both positions that that evade a basic responsibility of intelligence which is to learn about our world and our place in it. Religion considers this a closed question, and is threatened by knowledge that challenges it.

Religion bets that The Creator cherishes mankind exclusively and that the Universe was created so man could thrive and prosper, though increasingly the evidence points to indifference at best. More likely the Universe is on its way to its own unknowable, unimaginable fate and we, life, are just along for the ride. Sure, some tinkering with dogma could include other planets, even perhaps other men, in the arms of God,  but they are out there, and we are here.

When (not if) life is found outside of our planet it will present an existential challenge to our belief systems by suggesting that we, humans are likely not unique, and will not necessarily be exempted from the forces that govern the wider Universe.

Our survival on this particular planet is up to us, save divine intervention.

At 100 Billion to 1 I'm not thrilled with the odds.