Things that don't give me nightmares #11.

The beauty of the universe.



First of all, just plain look at that.

Humbling, yes?

Secondly, as shown in this vid, the universe is an engine for grinding up ego and solipsism.

As huge as the visible universe is, it's a sliver compared to all the dark matter out there.

And all the matter, dark or otherwise, is a sliver next to all the dark energy.

The universe is mostly dark energy.

So, we're sitting in a little blue speck, that orbits a generic star, in a generic solar system, on the outer spiral arm of one of billions of galaxies, within a booger of visible matter, in a sea of dark matter, which in turn is a booger in a sea of dark energy.

And...the superstitious-minded amongst us have the cosmic gall, to imagine all of this stuff was"finely tuned", to specifically create us, and that the universe literally revolves around them.

Wow....

And they say in the same breath they're "humble".

Humans.....aren't they neat?

Well...yeah, actually....

As briefly mentioned in this post, just imagine all the sperm & egg combinations that could have been born instead of you, just with your set of parents, and then imagine how unlikely it is that those two particular parents met, and then magnify those odds for your whole family tree, and you quickly realize how cosmically lucky you are to even be alive.

Now, pull farther back, and look at the whole evolutionary tree of life.

Now, these same superstitious folks get all incredulous and indignant , and say "oh we just can't be JUST a bunch of molecules", well first, your feelings on the matter doesn't annihilate the truth, and make something else true, but secondly, what's so undignified about that?

I find that fucking incredible.

That if you leave an ocean teeming with the right chemicals, and the right weather conditions, bubbling for a few billion years, you can end up with us.

We're molecular-chemical androids from the year 5 billion.

Top that, science fiction.

And this shit happened.
You're here reading this.

A molecular-chemical android from the year 5 billion, with emotion circuits, self-repair systems, and a core processor that computer science has yet to match.

And this is something to have the fucking blues about?

Get with it, my fellow monkeys.

Now, stack on top of all of this, that all the elements higher than hydrogen in our bodies were forged in the furnaces of supernova, and as Sagan said, we are literally star-stuff.

We are the universe observing itself.

And you get to be alive in this time of discovery to know all this.

...but that's not enough for some people, for some reason.

They want to anthropomorphize the universe, and for it to give them a hug.

...I've never wanted for that, it's not a need I've ever had, so I can't fathom that mindset.

Except externally, as a series of brain phenomena.

But, even that is fascinating.

A lifeform with a neural-net so sophisticated, it can create its own internal worlds that are more real to it than the external world.

Let's see a laptop do that, eh?

Yeah, it's great to be alive, and it's a great time to be alive.

Look at all the great stuff we're doing, y'know?

Heh, when we're not letting bullshit waste that potential.

Yeah, overall, I'd rather be alive than not.

So should you.

:)