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written and edited by alexx pacifici

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This is an excerpt from one of my sociology reflections. I was talking about how I think it's very important to teach biological evolution in school. This was a footnote I wrote:

My ego, if I had one , would definitely not be negatively affected by the fact of evolution. My self-esteem, however, is positively affected. In fact, I find it more empowering. How bland is it if a guy named God, who left no room for improvement, brought you into existence in just one day, exactly as you are? How disparaging is it to know that everything you've ever achieved, learned, and understood wasn't because of your own doing, but because of God. But more importantly, does that make any sense whatsoever? Getting back to my point of empowerment, evolution makes you see far back into the past where proto-humans climbed down from trees, walked upright through the African savannahs, and studied the world with nothing more than their five senses. It's compelling to know that Homo Erectus learned how to make fire and stone tools on their own, without divine intervention. And now, millions of years later, the same genes that made them make us, only we build computers and skyscrapers instead. Indeed we've come a long way from these primitive beings and nothing can be more profound. But why would people be so averse to evolution? Well because it no doubt equates us to chimps and bonobos, and for some reason many people can't accept that. The human ego is far too strong and wants to be atop everything else. The "ignorant masses" shout, "the universe was made for us," or, "how can a human come from an ape?" completely leaving out the millions of years of infinitesimal variations on which natural selection can act on. But creationists do not believe in millions of years and thus can never be persuaded. I, on the other hand, feel enlightened knowing that I'm part of this long stream of carbon-based life forms, where all life forms on earth, and perhaps in space, are my cousins. Expanding even more, the heavy elements that constitute organic life on Earth and the physical Earth itself (oxygen, nitrogen, carbon, etc...) did not always exist. They were all synthesized under the immense pressure and temperature in the heart of stars that died billions of years ago. Once these stars' lives came to an end, they exploded in massive supernovae, spreading their "enriched guts" all over the galaxy, to later condense into second-generation planets and stars comprised with the newly ubiquitous heavy elements. Thus not only do you live in the universe, you are the universe. Truly beautiful it is to be one with the cosmos.

Hello everyone! This is my attempt to give you some perspective on your life, and the world you live in! You are so young. Enjoy, and feel free to comment and correct any mistakes you find. If you find a calculation error, let me know! Thanks

Relative Age of the Homo Sapiens Species

I've always stated that human beings are an infant species. Hence, we are prejudice, racist, ignorant. But how young are we really? I've decided to calculate our approximate relative age. I condensed the entire lifespan of Earth into a single human lifespan - roughly eighty years. Then I proportionally condensed the lifespan of the entire homo sapiens species (150,000* years) into a single human lifespan. I then compared the two.

Info:

the age of earth = 4.5 billion years old (4,500,000,000)
age of homo sapiens = 150,000 years old
longevity of average human life = 80 years

If we were to condense the timespan of the entire time homo sapiens have been around to a single human lifespan, represented by the time Earth has been here, how old would we be? Infant, toddler, adolescent, adult, etc...?

I cross multiplied:

Cross multiply the real age of Homo Sapiens with the age of a single human lifespan.

xxxxxx 150,000 years
------ = ---------------
80 years 4.5 billion years

Then take that result and divide it by the real age of our planet.

(150,000 x 80) / 4.5 billion = 0.002666666666667

but we'll use 0.0026

x = 0.0026

For example: 0.01 (1%) of one year (365 days) = 3.65

BUT!

The result received was 0.0026

thus, 0.0026 (< 1%) of one year; 0.0026 x 365 = 0.949

0.949 = a little under one SINGLE day.

Yes, that's right. Our species, Homo Sapiens, is less than a single day old. So if the timespan of the Earth's existence were to be condensed into 80 years - a mature old adult -, then our species would be only a little under 24 hours old; or 9/10 of a day old. We would be ranked as infants.

It is now no wonder why we are ignorant; for we have just been born.

*NOTE: The age for Homo Sapiens is closer to 200,000 years than 150,000. So if we were to use 200,000 instead we would receive an age of 1.3 days. Thanks to Chris Bain for doing the math. As one may notice, it is not much of a difference - a mere 0.4. Thus we still remain in the "infant" rank.

hey everyone, this is another artist page i have. if any of you have reverbnation you can become a fan!

you can listen and download as well.

http://www.reverbnation.com/36pixels

The Relevance of Everything

For over a decade now I've been gazing into the night sky in awe trying to comprehend everything I see. When I was younger I didn't know as much about the cosmos as I do now but I always knew they were important. The universe is a beautiful thing; magnificent and grand. And it is so impossibly large that even the sum of all the brilliant minds on Earth would still not be able to understand a fraction of a percent of its greatness. It has been with us since the dawn of time itself roughly 14 billion years ago. Its energy helped build matter that in turn built stars, galaxies, and life as we know it here on Earth. The chemical elements that could only have been created under the intense conditions at the heart of stars (through the strong force) are the building blocks of our planet and of its life. That being said, we do not only live in the universe but rather, we are the universe.

The common man will not know about his origins or about the universe he lives in. He can live his entire life not knowing a single fact about the stars or about the importance of our sun and he'll still manage to physically live well. But what about his mind and soul? Like knowing your family tree, it is also good to know your biological roots. And though most people would say that our biological life started here on Earth, it didn't. It was the size of the sun and of the Earth, and the distance they shared with one another. It was just the right distance to create complex molecules like proteins and DNA and was just the right temperature to have an abundance of liquid water - a very important constituent of life. Thus life emerged as a result of luck and pure chemistry working at its finest.

Another thing that I've taken into account is the absence of God. The God humans know does not and cannot exist. This is because the God we know is only perceived through our animal senses (sight, hearing, etc...) and our brains. When we (humans) were young (we're still young but I mean younger than now), we needed God to help explain things we couldn't. We made God anthropomorphic (human-like) and even gave "him" a gender - much like how humans have genders. But we live in a different time now where we know that it is highly probable that if the conditions are just right in another solar system, life other than Earth's may exist. If that is the case, evolution will take its course and create other beings. And depending on their environment, size of planet, type and size of star, they will evolve differently from us. And if there so happens to be intelligent life, they will most probably look and act completely different from us. They may or may not have senses and may or may not have the "conventional" brain we do. This means that they would interpret God differently and view "him" in their image if they believed in God. These hypothetical life forms may only reproduce asexually having only a single gender. Or perhaps they would have more than two genders. If humans and this hypothetical race were to meet there would be heavy discrepancy when talking about God. The wonderful thing though is that we would both be able to agree that we both live on planets created out of chemical elements, we both orbit stars, we both get our energy from stars, and we both live in the universe (and are the universe).

Realizing this I've come to conclude that biological life itself is absolutely meaningless. It is not divine at all. Rather, it is just a possible outcome for a planet. Most planets do not harbor life but ours does solely because of our place in the solar system. Now what we make of life is different and there can be meaning to human life. But speaking strictly in the biological sense, it is pointless. This is because if we were to remove life from planet Earth or if it were never to exist, the universe would still work just as well.

Knowing that life is pointless shouldn't be interpreted as something pessimistic. It should be viewed as optimistic. This is because like all the other planets in the solar system, Earth didn't need life - it would have been just as fine without it. But it happened and went through four billion years of work just to get to extremely intricate creatures like ourselves. So this should be cherished. Knowing that you don't have to exist but do should make you realize how fortunate you are to be able to sit here and read this right now. Listening to your favorite music, holding your significant other, playing the sport you love, having the ability to have sex all emanate from chemical reactions that took place on Earth four billion years ago using the energy from the sun. In other words, the Earth went through so much work to get to you (the human being) when it didn't even have to.

The human being may possibly be one of the universe's most complex structures. We are living things; an upshot of unmitigated serendipity. Our unimaginable brilliance would lead people to believe that the human is a miracle, when it is actually and beautifully the exact opposite. The human being is the product of chemistry working the way it should. The human being is the answer to the earth's geology and its place in space.

The remarkable thing is that human beings did not always resemble and function the way we do today. We were not told or taught what to do. Humans stemmed from the same gene pool as bonobos, chimps, apes, and monkeys which in turn came from (going backwards) lizards, fish, single-celled organisms. We come from the order of primates. It was almost certain that humans would later develop intelligence because of our physical characteristics. We had opposable thumbs, we were bipedal, our eyes were in front of our head giving us accurate depth perception, our larynx dropped allowing us to make language, and we had an extremely large brain. The further development of tools and the discovery of fire helped us progress physically and mentally. Natural selection favored an enlarged skull in humans which subsequently gave more room for the frontal lobe to expand (this is because proto-humans started walking upright which stretched out our back giving it more room than any other primate's, allowing for a human fetus' brain to have enough room in the adult female). The frontal lobe is where all the high processing takes place. It is in charge of memory, voluntary behavior, and conscious thought. The brain has over 100 billion neurons (brain cells) and about a trillion synaptic connections all working under the speed of millions to billions of micro processors.

When you walk down the street today please look at the sky, check out the sun, and realize its significance and importance. For without it there would be no warmth, no light, no food, and no solar system. And when you look at yourself in the mirror tonight before you go to bed, LOOK at yourself carefully. You are an organic being. You are alive. And in the end you're just an array of billions and billions of molecules and billions and billions of atoms, just like the sun and the stars.
You are the universe.

HUBBLE ULTRA DEEP FIELD

Hey everyone,

since my song "My Love" has been getting great feedback, i;ve decided to put a video up showing how to play it. It's very easy and will take 5 minutes to learn. Enjoy!

thanks newgrounds and to The Swain for getting it popular. I just show you guys how to play it.

Part one: Am7, D7, Gmaj7, Bm7,Bbm7, (2x)
Part Two: Am7, D13, Gmaj7, C13, Fmaj7, F#maj7, Gmaj7 (2x)

end on Gmaj 9 (include the major 7 and the major 2)

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hey guys,

check out my hip-hop side project with my friend gianni. he raps and writes lyrics and i produce the music.

http://projectintrumental.newgrounds.c om/

HAPPY 420 from montreal! I made a video of my friends and I chilling at Mount Royal in Montreal, Quebec.
Filmed and Edited by: Alexx Pacifici

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By: Alexx Pacifici

"In Grand Fits of Rage"

You see,

I am unbelievably baffled in the fact that the most intelligent organism on the planet with a distinct voice-box capable of making sounds, and subsequently language, would still rather resort to violence to resolve an infantile quarrel. I am angrily perplexed at the mere certainty that a sophisticated animal like ourselves would throw a wrapper on the floor and justify himself by saying "the janitor will pick it up."

Why is it that man cannot see the bigger picture? Perhaps because it is too big. In fact, it's far too big to be seen completely, but can't we at most try to see part of it? So what is this gargantuan picture you ask?

Everything.

Picture for a minute the entire universe and know that it hangs in the balance. It is nothing more than giant objects rotating around other bigger objects. This universe of ours is so unimaginably vast that if our minds were able to comprehend how vast it is, they would simply explode. And in this blissful darkness lies a planet whose attributes are like no other. This planet of course is the one and only Earth - home to millions of species. What a beautiful thing.

It saddens me to know that there are innumerable amounts of Earthlings out there who don't even know that McDonald's coffee is hot -let alone the whole universe existing. They go about their daily business refusing to acquire knowledge in "certain fields" because they presume they won't "use it" in their lives. By saying this, it allows man to find an excuse not to learn, followed by the inability to understand, and thus resulting in ignorance. No man should learn because of his profession or place in the world, but because he has a brain and it is his sole privilege and obligation to know.

Maybe if man knew that he was no more than an array of billions of microscopic cells assembled in the perfect order would he truly appreciate life. Perhaps if man was aware about a tree's air-replenishing system. Perhaps if man knew what the planet had to go through in the last 4 and a half billion years just so then monkeys could walk about it - eventually evolving into man. Only then would he acknowledge life's beauty.

Imagine if man knew that he was simply a fluke of nature. Imagine if man realized that through the course of his evolution he developed a beautiful, fully-functioning brain capable of recognizing its own existence. If man knew this, he would be happy. But man believes in money, and in power, and in violence. And in a world flooded with material it is at the utter impossibility for us to see what life is truly about: Living and Learning.

So please, in grand fits of rage, I vocalize to you: learn.