Sometimes I think we’re alone in the universe, and sometimes I think we’re not. In either case the idea is quite staggering.

Clarke frames humanity’s cosmic situation as a double-bind of awe: whether intelligent life exists elsewhere or not, the implications overwhelm ordinary scale. If we are alone, consciousness is an extraordinarily rare phenomenon and the responsibility to preserve it becomes immense. If we are not alone, then human history and self-importance are radically relativized by the prospect of other minds, cultures, and technologies. The quote distills a central theme of Clarke’s work—scientific wonder paired with philosophical humility—by treating uncertainty itself as meaningful: the universe is vast enough that either answer forces a rethinking of what it means to be human.