Are we an exceptionally unlikely accident or is the universe brimming over with intelligence? (It's) a vital question for understanding ourselves and our history,

All inquires carry with them some element of risk. There is no guarantee that the universe will conform to our predispositions.

... the use of our intelligence quite properly gives us pleasure. In this respect the brain is like a muscle. When we think well, we feel good. Understanding is a kind of ecstasy.

Understanding is a kind of ecstasy

The universe is a pretty big place. If it's just us, seems like an awful waste of space.

We have examined the universe in space and seen that we live on a mote of dust circling a humdrum star in the remotest corner of an obscure galaxy. And if we are a speck in the immensity of space, we also occupy an instant in the expanse of ages. We now know that our universe or at least its most recent incarnation - is some fifteen or twenty billion years old. This is the time since a remarkable explosive event called the Big Bang. At the beginning of this universe, there were no galaxies, stars or planets, no life or civilizations, merely a uniform, radiant fireball filling all of space. The passage from the Chaos of the Big Bang to the Cosmos that we are beginning to know is the most awesome transformation of matter and energy that we have been privileged to glimpse. And until we find more intelligent beings elsewhere, we are ourselves the most spectacular of all the transformations - the remote descendants of the Big Bang, dedicated to understanding and further transforming the Cosmos from which we spring