The Big Yellow One Is The Sun!

[An Officer]

This thread is heavy, man. *puffs*

Gravity, dude. This whole shit is heavy.

 

[Zulu Romeo]

This thread is heavy, man. *puffs*

Gravity, dude. This whole shit is heavy.

"There's that word again, 'heavy'. Why are things so heavy in the future? Is there a problem with the Earth's gravitational pull?"

 

[Amaris]

You brush your teeth from the water hose, too? (I'm kidding ).

Yeah, they let me out at night. I like to take a wonder around while I brush...

There are times when just the pure awesome grand beauty that is the universe just makes you stop in your tracks.

Oh, and sorry if I'm posting too prolifically, I love talking about this kind of stuff!

Threads are like plants, they need tending to. And I don't see you double posting, so keep going!

Thanks.
Oh, and I wander around while I use mouthwash, but only so I'm not tempted to spit it out because it burns.

My "oh wow" realization comes in the form of how fast we're moving through the universe. I don't know all the figures, but I know that even as I sit here, the planet is spinning extremely fast, while revolving around the sun even faster, while the whole solar system zips thru the galaxy - all in different directions. Why aren't we all perpetually dizzy? Sometime, go find a place where you can lie on your back and look at the sky, then ponder your universal speed, and see if you don't have the urge to clutch the ground beneath you before you fly off the earth!

I also occasionally find myself marveling at colors. The sky is blue, people! Almost every day! And it's a perfect shade, every time, whether it's the pale blue of a hot summer day, or the clear, piercing blue of fall. And the multitude of shades of green in the plant life that surrounds us! And how the greens and blues NEVER clash with one another. Then add in all the other colors and I have a hard time breathing. *sigh* And then I wonder if red looks the same to other people as it does to me - do our brains' interpretations of light waves match? If you could see the world through my eyes, would blue be red? Is that why we all have different tastes and favorite colors? Then take it to taste and smell and ever wonder HOW people can eat that food that you just canNOT stand the smell or taste of? Maybe their senses work differently from yours - if you smelled/tasted what they smelled/tasted, you'd like broccoli too!

Does the wind blow in your mitochondria?

That is scary, because I did that when I was little. I remember being in elementary school science class and my teacher told me the earth spun around at thousands of miles per hour, and I just remember going out on the playground, laying in the grass and holding on for dear life.

This thread is heavy, man. *puffs*

Totally. *puff* *puff* *pass*

I also think about how Humanity came to be like this, having evolved the ability to use tools and master his environment. Just incredible to see that this creature with so much potential eventually did go on to great things, turn basic expressionism into advanced culture, transform their use of the world around them into multiply-layered industry from basic mining and farming to mass manufacturing of coat-hangers, explore their fledgling capacity for spirituality and self-identity and turn it into religion, and fulfil their basic instinct to protect and survive by creating systems of government to address the needs of the people in whatever way their leaders see is right for them.

And yet, just as the basic expressions of conflict were there in the past, so they evolved with the development of civilization: disapproval of expressionism leads to censorship and intolerance, abuse of the environment and tools leads to corruption and greed, disrespect of belief leads to fundamentalism and religious hatred, and disputes over the best interests of the people lead to wars and death. In many ways, despite the changes in technological and sociological terms, we haven't really changed our basic nature - just given different names and definitions for them.

That's true. Your reference to history also makes that point, that not only do we learn our personal histories, but also the history of our species. We actually see into and reconstruct our ancient past, something that was, at one time, unfathomable.

J.

 

[Zulu Romeo]

I also think about how Humanity came to be like this, having evolved the ability to use tools and master his environment. Just incredible to see that this creature with so much potential eventually did go on to great things, turn basic expressionism into advanced culture, transform their use of the world around them into multiply-layered industry from basic mining and farming to mass manufacturing of coat-hangers, explore their fledgling capacity for spirituality and self-identity and turn it into religion, and fulfil their basic instinct to protect and survive by creating systems of government to address the needs of the people in whatever way their leaders see is right for them.

And yet, just as the basic expressions of conflict were there in the past, so they evolved with the development of civilization: disapproval of expressionism leads to censorship and intolerance, abuse of the environment and tools leads to corruption and greed, disrespect of belief leads to fundamentalism and religious hatred, and disputes over the best interests of the people lead to wars and death. In many ways, despite the changes in technological and sociological terms, we haven't really changed our basic nature - just given different names and definitions for them.

That's true. Your reference to history also makes that point, that not only do we learn our personal histories, but also the history of our species. We actually see into and reconstruct our ancient past, something that was, at one time, unfathomable.

To be honest, I was actually playing Civilization IV this evening, and thought that thought.

 

[Jetfire]

I look at the stars and wonder who is looking back to our star.

 

[Amaris]

I look at the stars and wonder who is looking back to our star.

Oh,... that's a good one.


J.

 

[An Officer]

And for those who believe in reincarnation, have you sat and looked upon those stars almost as long as they have been up there, through the different ages, in different guises?

 

[Mysterion]

Here's some perspective for you:

http://drexfiles.wordpress.com/2009/12/23/reality-check-channel/

 

[Amaris]

Here's some perspective for you:

http://drexfiles.wordpress.com/2009/12/23/reality-check-channel/

That was marvelous.



J.

 

[Zulu Romeo]

I think we take people for granted too much.

You know: the loved ones, family, friends, acquaintances, colleagues, even the people we meet once who help us out and never see again. The ones you laugh with, cry with, get angry with, and the ones whose problems you yourself also help and assist. The ones we experience all of these things with because we care about them and believe in their abilities and their value to others.

And yet it's easy to forget what it is we like about them, easy to forget how we value them, and of course easy to forget that they help us and care for us and are warm and friendly towards us because they choose to do so. It's true about that old cliché that says that we don't know what we've got until it's gone. If we lose contact with those people whom we take for granted, we'd start to miss them so deeply and wonder how we got on without them.

So here's a suggestion:

Next time you meet with someone you care about, someone who has helped you in any small way, tell them these words, and even though you've probably said those words to them hundreds of times before, or if you've never had the courage to say them, say it like you mean it... because we really do mean it. Tell them these words:

I love you.

 

[TheLonelySquire]

One of my best views of the night sky was from my in-laws farm in a remote part of Brazil. No city lights whatsoever made for a fantastic view. It was really something. I'm actually looking for a telescope now to take with me to Brazil in March. Antares might be good for viewing then I think.

 

[RJDiogenes]

The immensity of existence impresses me all the time, since I've spent most of my years immersed in thoughts of History, Astronomy, Physics et cetera. The growing decades of my life turning into studied folklore, the centuries of defining events that have molded the world we live in, the millennia of civilizations that have left sad and silent ruins, their tiny personal moments of laughter and tears that were so intensely important to them now lost and irretrievable, the millions of years stretching out behind Humanity, full of wonderful living shapes that morph and grow and split and lumber and fly and slide and swim. The dynamic evolution of the Solar System, spinning and swirling, torn by catastrophe and healed by gravity. And all of it repeated billions and trillions of times out among the stars, a nearly infinite storm of matter and energy, settling here and there into tiny temporary solidity, stars coalescing and exploding, nebulae flowering and collapsing, galaxies whirlpooling together and pinwheeling apart, and sprinkled throughout it all countless moments of life and wonder that we can never know, that exist as ephemerally as our own brief awareness. And beyond all this, what context contains everything that we conceive as reality, what simple and profound formula lies at the centerpoint and encompasses the multi-dimensional Mandelbrot Set of the infinity beyond infinity?

 

[captcalhoun]

your mobile phone has more computing power than the entire Apollo space program.

frightening isn't it?

all that reality check video told me was:

you are an insignificant being living on an insignificant planet orbiting an insignificant sun in an insignificant galaxy in a FUCKING HUGE universe. try not to let that fry your puny mind.

 

[Jadzia]

your mobile phone has more computing power than the entire Apollo space program.

frightening isn't it?

At one time 1 megabyte was a lot of memory, and a 1 MHz bus clock was a lot of computation. They still are though. What has changed in 30 years is just our opinion of them.

So much computing power is wasted nowdays. Programmers tend to write sloppy code without much attention given to optimisation. The mentality is "as long as it works on the minimum targeted system", which invariably has a fairly modern specification. Optimisation and making more efficient is only an afterthought if a product doesn't achieve this.

This has two undesirable effects:

(1) The user multitasking more than one application isn't usually planned for in software design.

(2) With inefficient programs being the norm, the common perception of what is possible is lessened. Even for many programmers.

 

[Amaris]

The immensity of existence impresses me all the time, since I've spent most of my years immersed in thoughts of History, Astronomy, Physics et cetera. The growing decades of my life turning into studied folklore, the centuries of defining events that have molded the world we live in, the millennia of civilizations that have left sad and silent ruins, their tiny personal moments of laughter and tears that were so intensely important to them now lost and irretrievable, the millions of years stretching out behind Humanity, full of wonderful living shapes that morph and grow and split and lumber and fly and slide and swim. The dynamic evolution of the Solar System, spinning and swirling, torn by catastrophe and healed by gravity. And all of it repeated billions and trillions of times out among the stars, a nearly infinite storm of matter and energy, settling here and there into tiny temporary solidity, stars coalescing and exploding, nebulae flowering and collapsing, galaxies whirlpooling together and pinwheeling apart, and sprinkled throughout it all countless moments of life and wonder that we can never know, that exist as ephemerally as our own brief awareness. And beyond all this, what context contains everything that we conceive as reality, what simple and profound formula lies at the centerpoint and encompasses the multi-dimensional Mandelbrot Set of the infinity beyond infinity?

There's only one way I can respond to such a wonderful, nuanced statement:

"You use your tongue purdier than a twenty dollar whore." [/Taggart]

your mobile phone has more computing power than the entire Apollo space program.

frightening isn't it?

all that reality check video told me was:

you are an insignificant being living on an insignificant planet orbiting an insignificant sun in an insignificant galaxy in a FUCKING HUGE universe. try not to let that fry your puny mind.

I wouldn't say frightening, but definitely incredible how far we've advanced in such a very short time.

At one time 1 megabyte was a lot of memory, and a 1 MHz bus clock was a lot of computation. They still are though. What has changed in 30 years is just our opinion of them.

So much computing power is wasted nowdays. Programmers tend to write sloppy code without much attention given to optimisation. The mentality is "as long as it works on the minimum targeted system", which invariably has a fairly modern specification. Optimisation and making more efficient is only an afterthought if a product doesn't achieve this.

This has two undesirable effects:

(1) The user multitasking more than one application isn't usually planned for in software design.

(2) With inefficient programs being the norm, the common perception of what is possible is lessened. Even for many programmers.

Agreed. I marvel at how large a simple internet browser has become. When I first started using the internet, you easily could measure the size in KB without needing a larger unit of measurement. You could fit a browser on a floppy diskette.

J.

 

[Holdfast]

On the other hand, I'm also reminded of this speech from the end of Watchmen, chapter IX:

Thermodynamic Miracles... Events with odds against so astronomical they're effectively impossible, like oxygen spontaneously becoming gold. I long to observe such a thing.

And yet, in each human coupling, a thousand million sperm vie for a single egg. Multiply those odds by countless generations, against the odds of your ancestors being alive, meeting, siring this precise son, that exact daughter...

.... of the thousand million children competing for fertilization, it was you, only you, that emerged.

To distill so specific a form from that chaos of improbability, like turning air to gold, that is the crowning unlikelihood.

The thermodynamic miracle.

... For you are life, rarer than a quark and unpredictable beyond the dreams of Heisenberg; the clay in which the forces that shape all things leave their fingerprints most clearly.

That makes me feel even better.

I've never read Watchmen, so don't know if this issue is revisted later in the story, but in isolation, the logic of quote is internally flawed, because it assumes there's something unique about you existing, as opposed to any of the other possible yous. The odds are equal (leaving aside actual biological reasons shifting the balance of the odds, which goes against the spirit of the quote for other, more obvious, reasons) for any version of you, so no, you're not some unique thermodynamic miracle. It's equally likely anyone else would have existed instead.

In fact, you're only unique because you CHOOSE to be (and therefore compute the odds for YOUR existence in particular, albeit in a flawed retrospective way). That human ability present in each of us to control our own perceptions and to DEFINE a personal meaning, is to me a far more life-affirming fact than an awe at the vastness of the universe, time or probability. Those are just external concepts, not actually meaningful unless we assign meaning to them. eg the OP's choice to look at the sun and think about what that might mean for him. Humans assign degrees of importance in our relationship with the universe, not the other way around.

 

[RJDiogenes]

you are an insignificant being living on an insignificant planet orbiting an insignificant sun in an insignificant galaxy in a FUCKING HUGE universe. try not to let that fry your puny mind.

We are just the opposite of insignificant. There is no beauty without appreciation. The Universe and all within it would be utterly without meaning if we were not here to see it.

There's only one way I can respond to such a wonderful, nuanced statement:

"You use your tongue purdier than a twenty dollar whore." [/Taggart]

And I get paid far less for it.

The odds are equal (leaving aside actual biological reasons shifting the balance of the odds, which goes against the spirit of the quote for other, more obvious, reasons) for any version of you, so no, you're not some unique thermodynamic miracle. It's equally likely anyone else would have existed instead.

That's exactly the point. It's equally likely in the abstract, but in reality they don't exist and you do.

That human ability present in each of us to control our own perceptions and to DEFINE a personal meaning, is to me a far more life-affirming fact than an awe at the vastness of the universe, time or probability.

This is very true as well; the two ideas are not mutually exclusive.

 

[Zulu Romeo]

On the other hand, I'm also reminded of this speech from the end of Watchmen, chapter IX:

Thermodynamic Miracles... Events with odds against so astronomical they're effectively impossible, like oxygen spontaneously becoming gold. I long to observe such a thing.

And yet, in each human coupling, a thousand million sperm vie for a single egg. Multiply those odds by countless generations, against the odds of your ancestors being alive, meeting, siring this precise son, that exact daughter...

.... of the thousand million children competing for fertilization, it was you, only you, that emerged.

To distill so specific a form from that chaos of improbability, like turning air to gold, that is the crowning unlikelihood.

The thermodynamic miracle.

... For you are life, rarer than a quark and unpredictable beyond the dreams of Heisenberg; the clay in which the forces that shape all things leave their fingerprints most clearly.

That makes me feel even better.

I've never read Watchmen, so don't know if this issue is revisted later in the story, but in isolation, the logic of quote is internally flawed, because it assumes there's something unique about you existing, as opposed to any of the other possible yous. The odds are equal (leaving aside actual biological reasons shifting the balance of the odds, which goes against the spirit of the quote for other, more obvious, reasons) for any version of you, so no, you're not some unique thermodynamic miracle. It's equally likely anyone else would have existed instead.

In fact, you're only unique because you CHOOSE to be (and therefore compute the odds for YOUR existence in particular, albeit in a flawed retrospective way). That human ability present in each of us to control our own perceptions and to DEFINE a personal meaning, is to me a far more life-affirming fact than an awe at the vastness of the universe, time or probability. Those are just external concepts, not actually meaningful unless we assign meaning to them. eg the OP's choice to look at the sun and think about what that might mean for him. Humans assign degrees of importance in our relationship with the universe, not the other way around.

The issue isn't really revisited later in the story of Watchmen (as it occurs at a pivotal climactic moment in one of the character's story arcs, hence my removal of some of the spoilers from the quotation), but the context of the quotation involved one character looking back on their life and seeing how worthwhile or not it was. The character who made that speech, Dr. Manhattan, has the ability to see past, present and future, but is unable to influence the course of events that he sees - a story device to explore the nature of cause and effect.

The speech isn't about how one expects the Universe to shape one's destiny - to think that is to assume that one has no control of their own destiny - but instead it's describing the odds of one particular human existing in the way they did, and that takes into account both the natural and biological profile and the way he or she is nurtured physically, mentally, socially and psychologically (and the way that person's nature affects his or her nurturing), hence the comment in the speech about particular people meeting each other, etc. leading to the construction of a very unique individual - and I feel it is an encouraging thought to look back and review the sum of all those events and experiences, whether under the control of one's self or others, and how they led to the finished product that we see.

Of course the odds of one person coming to be and becoming Homo sapiens sapiens (which every human is) are going to be the same as anyone else, together with the same odds of successful pregnancies given the wide variety of conditions available in general - I think that in the story, it is acknowledged that this happens all the time, which is why you might think that this is a flawed concept about how everyone's unique (which, to paraphrase another famous movie that took several cues and ideas from Watchmen, is another way of saying that no-one is). But the point is that each person came about under certain delicately poised conditions under varying degrees of control by the person and others, that, if even a single variable was changed, would have led to a different path and end point.

And I think that it is exactly this sort of thing that too many people take for granted when they feel that their life so far has no meaning, and by considering this viewpoint, may galvanise themselves to start thinking for themselves and taking control of their own destiny to see where things might lead in the future.

By the way, if you get an opportunity, Holdfast, read Watchmen. You might like it.

 

[tharpdevenport]

Also, the sky is blue.

 

[T'Girl]

Years ago I was in Hawaii on the top of Mauna Loa, where the big observatorys are, there's this small side mountain that's the actual highest point on Hawaii. It was night and cold and I was feeling a little altitude sickness. But I was looking up at the stars and seeing the milky way with unbelieveable clarity, I thought I'm standing on the tallest part of this island and the island is itself on top of a enormous undersea mountain sticking up out of the floor of the ocean. And suddenly I felt thrust up towards space, surrounded by the stars, not just looking up at them.

I mention I was short of air right?