Protagoras Takes on the Universe

Al White, Professor of Philosophy at U. W. Manitowoc, tried to explain our relative significance in terms of exponents.  If you had $1,000 or 10³, it would take 17 minutes to spend $1 per second. If you received 10⁶ or $1,000.000 it could last a lifetime or if you had to spend $1 per second it would take just short of 12 days.  If you had 10⁹ or $1,000,000,000, it would take just under 32 years to spend $1 per second. It is a matter of distribution of cash.  If a billionaire donated $1 million to charity, it's the same as $1 out of a 1,000.  The number of grains of sand on an average mile stretch of beach is about 10¹⁷ or a 100,000 trillion.  There are about 10,000 miles of coastal beach in the world - so about a billion trillion (10²¹) grains of sand on the beaches of earth.  It is estimated from the number of galaxies we see that there are around a trillion trillion (10²⁴⁾ stars.  That is the number of grains of sand on the beaches of a 1,000 earths. Now pick up one grain of sand (the sun) and take a microscope to look at the tiny mite on it. Breathe on the mite to produce a film of condensation.  All the life we know on earth exists as in that film on the mite, on the one grain of sand among the grains of sand of the beaches of 1,000 earths.  When you think about it, this is our relative significance.   Intelligent life exists on earth (and possibly elsewhere) and we can conceive how just insignificant we really are.