imagine you were god and you had created the universe. but imagine that no organisms were supposed to do any more than eat other organisms and poop and nap. have you ever baked something, and you added the wrong ingredient, and the oven filled up with what was supposed to be cake? no? well, perhaps you've seen it in a movie from when you were younger? can we move on in spite of your lack of baking history? what i'm getting at is that the universe could have been a recipe. the stars and galaxies are moving away from us ...accelerating away from us like stage hands pulling back the curtain, and i can't help but feel that the abject darkness that will one day fill the skies - an endless darkness with not a single star cluster to be seen - all light swallowed up by dark energy, leaving us to look at the sun and moon, and maybe venus - was possibly what was intended to be seen. maybe the recipe was meant for us to not see anything of the universe. to have no clue how it works. and instead, because we've seen into a lot of it, we're able to rearrange atoms and turn them into entirely new things. if that was not what was intended, imagine how terrifying that would be to look down on. "well, so far so good. the ones without claws or fangs are staying in this thing. you guys, pay up. everyone thought they would die off immediately. oh ...well, this is weird. they're making tools. and they're examining their dead ones to see how they're made. well, that's unsettling. now they're mining minerals and other elements from the soil ...and ....oh crap - they're turning them into lasers and bombs! they're growing replacement ears on rats! what the hell is this?! they were supposed to just stab the furry ones with pointy sticks. oh, i see. i added too many brain cells. why do i always do this? how do i turn this thing off? this is too horrific to watch." but if there is no god, it's kind of sad that no one gets to see all this stuff we've figured out.