'Matter with curiosity'

     For instance, I stand at the seashore, alone, and start to think. There are the rushing waves...mountains of molecules, each stupidly minding its own business...trillions apart...yet forming white surf in unison.
     Ages on ages...before any eye could see...year after year...thunderously pounding the shore as now. For whom, for what?...on a dead plant, with no life to entertain.
     Never at rest...tortured by energy...wasted prodigiously by the sun...poured into space. A mite makes the sea roar.
     Deep in the sea, all molecules repeat the patterns of one another until complex new ones are formed. They make others like themselves...and a new dance starts.
     Growing in size and complexity...living things, masses of atoms, DNA, protein...dancing a pattern ever more intricate.
     Out of the cradle onto dry land...here it is standing...atoms with consciousness...matter with curiosity.
     Stands at the sea...wonders at wondering...I...a universe of atoms...an atom in the universe.

from ‘The Value of Science’ in The Pleasure of Finding Things Out by Richard Feynman

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