The Core of Reality

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There are some thoughts that I wish to share with you guys. The planet we live on, along with seven other planets, orbit a star that is a member of a community consisting of a hundred billion in a galaxy, that in turn is member of a hundred billion other galaxies. The notion and realization of my ultimate insignificance is no doubt... Depressing.

How to do you cope with this ideal?

This is actually very liberating. Knowing that your life doesn't matter and it's your only one, you want to get the most out of it and have a great time.

It's a pity aspies can't have much fun, like going to parties and socializing like there was no tomorrow. We just have one life and it's a bad one. But it doesn't matter in the grand scheme of things, so who cares.

I'm not really depressed by that at all. If you weren't already familiar, you might appreciate the concept of the plurality of worlds. It was set out piecemeal throughout renaissance history as a means of counteracting crimes against science by the church, as well as an early example of conscious realization of the scale of the human mind. Early astronomy largely owes the relatively amiable social climate it inhabited to the builders of Europe's plague columns, which usually allegorically described heliocentric systems. The idea that those hundred billion distant galaxies have probably been asking such questions of themselves is quite enriching to me. It's the idea that we're not the only planet locked in this discourse before freeing ourselves to explore off-world. Feeling small in such a manner for me is mutually exclusive with feelings of insignificance; to contain the intricacy we can perceive is one & the same with keeping peoples' faith in the ever-growing need for scientific literacy, quite vital work that I for one feel honored & humbled to take on.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conversations_on_the_Plurality_of_Worlds

_________________
"Standing on a well-chilled cinder, we see the fading of the suns, and try to recall the vanished brilliance of the origin of the worlds."
-Georges Lemaitre
"I fly through hyperspace, in my green computer interface"
-Gem Tos

Understanding and seeking knowledge is one thing, but my ultimate purpose on this world is still the question that engulfs me the most. I honestly take comfort in some silly fallacies I make up.

For instance, all of reality is just a product of my imagination, as are dreams. After all, when I close my eyes, everything ceases. It is silly I know.

That makes you a more rigid empiricist than I; to seek knowledge you must first know what knowledge you're seeking, hence it's best to first fan your search out with the help of others before idiosyncratically seeking anything. To do so purposefully requires a commanding knowledge of what must be done with anything you seek to know.

_________________
"Standing on a well-chilled cinder, we see the fading of the suns, and try to recall the vanished brilliance of the origin of the worlds."
-Georges Lemaitre
"I fly through hyperspace, in my green computer interface"
-Gem Tos

Cberg, I apologize for going a little bit off topic, but did you finish a degree in physics or some related discipline?

Helping other explore and understand scientific literacy is in itself a noble purpose, but under my circumstances, it offers no consolation to the question of my ultimate faith. Honestly, I fear the fact that my mortality is inevitable. It frightens me.

Nope I just spend a lot of time hacking or coding & frequently get off topic myself, as much as I'm able in fact. It's your thread by the way so go nuts, that's part of why we have this subforum.

Fear of death is anathema towards a lot of ideals I work to espouse. Having seen a bit too much of that, I worked past it realizing the honored sendoff it might bring me. If I'm honest, the idea of Valhalla is very compelling although that's just one part of it; I think the afterlife we've been discussing isn't bound to time. In fact I fundamentally disagree with strict linearity in the perception of time while I'm alive. I only relate to people on the basis of how I know them canonically.

_________________
"Standing on a well-chilled cinder, we see the fading of the suns, and try to recall the vanished brilliance of the origin of the worlds."
-Georges Lemaitre
"I fly through hyperspace, in my green computer interface"
-Gem Tos

I like to ponder all the cosmic horrors that could be lurking out there, yet undiscovered by man, but always getting closer to finding us.

There's a song about this problem.

Are you worried about the relative size of things in relation to your size? Sometimes things are significant regardless of size. For instance the entire universe was once very much smaller than you. Would that have made it any less significant?

For that matter the universe was once exactly the same size as any of us.

_________________
"Standing on a well-chilled cinder, we see the fading of the suns, and try to recall the vanished brilliance of the origin of the worlds."
-Georges Lemaitre
"I fly through hyperspace, in my green computer interface"
-Gem Tos

Insignificant to what or whom? Though I find that perspective interesting in a vertiginous sort of way, I see it that I cannot be insignificant in that regard as there is nothing there capable of judging my significance. It is, after all, my imagination taking the facts you note and then running with them. I am appearing insignificant to myself, which doesn't really hold. If I were to go far away enough, my house would seem insignificant. When I am sat in it, sheltering from the weather, it is very significant indeed.

If there is something there, capable of observing and of thinking things significant or otherwise, then it is presently insignificant to me, too. At least unless/until it comes here and sucks all our bones out or something.

I am directly significant to some people and a few animals. That's quite enough to be getting on with, for me. Depending on one's views on ethics and politics, I am (or could be, or should be) significant to many more people.

Yes, the Earth really is a grain of sand within our great Universe of ours. And each individual person is merely a (rather large) grain of sand within our Planet Earth.

However, many times, we are able to transcend our relative insignificance as compared to the Earth and the Universe.

I'm sure an ant doesn't think of he/her self as being insignificant within their community!

More sobering is the idea that our planet could be one of the few or only planet to have life. It's all just pointless matter out there without living systems. We might as well be the center of the universe if life is that scarce. There's countless stars out there, but only one planet that we know of so far that can sustain life. If that doesn't make you feel like you're a part of something important then I don't know what will.