What is the question?

This post is one of Robert's deep ruminations. Carolyn is much too practical to waste her time on such stuff.

I have been thinking about the "world today ' and have come to several observations.

(1) Most of the mysteries of nature are gone. The only thing left is "Is there life on other planets?" That is an interesting question but not a serious one, because there are no real answers other than hot air speculation that serves only the media. When scientists speak of "life" they are talking about bacteria, not someone with whom you can have a beer.

(2) Climate change is a small mystery, but the climate has been changing long before farting cows and cars. Much of the earth was at one time covered in ice, and the "why" has been accounted for by location of the orbits of the earth and sun. Anyway, the time scale for such conclusions would put you in the same category as a person traveling across the country to buy a lottery ticket everywhere, believing that it will improve their chance of winning.

(3) Beyond the certainty of death, we already know what will kill us and how long it will take. There are no mysteries here.

(4) We know, or believe we know, about other places on the globe and about the people who live in those places. Much of what we know comes from the media shows (why do they do it?) but it does little more than create a context for believing that we are "open" to other cultures and other peoples.
But, what does that mean?

(5) What is left? The impact of the Internet on people and human societies, is still an unknown, and the speculation about impact is in the realm of science fiction, but still interesting. This is the one area where there may be new mysteries, but I doubt that it will ever go beyond "How many friends do I have Facebook?"