Before Human Consciousness:

Have you ever thought about the time before human consciousness? Most people just worry about their own existence or possibly their family line. They don't usually worry about survival of the species because there are so many humans.

Our kind has only existed for around two million years. It seems like forever, but geologically it is relatively short. Life began here about four billion years ago and during 99.95% of that time, there were no humans.

If there was a time before human consciousness, there will almost certainly be a time after it has ceased to exist. Most scientists believe it was an asteroid impact that dethroned the dinosaurs as the dominant life form on earth. They had a good run, approximately a hundred times longer then humans have existed.

But even if we dodge the asteroids, the sun will eventually become a red giant and incinerate the earth. It's going to be pretty tough to survive that.