Humbled by the Universe

[Rufus Gwertigan]

All I know is, in a moment of complete panic and with a genuine belief of being about to die, my whole body relaxed and accepted it. Is that our body's/brain's way of coping with imminent death, or is it a sign of something else?

I have heard people talk about experiencing similar on a number of occasions. It could be a self defence mechanism to protect the body or spiritual resignation to death. I have no idea and to me it hardly matters. I used to listen to my dads story of when he was on a trawler that sunk. When I went to sea with him I was terrified of the prospect of drowning. Him and a few others would say if it does happen you dont fight it. They all reported a calm and general "contentedness". Dad used to recount when he heard the last message from a trawler called the Ross Cleveland that went "I am going over. Help me I am going over. Give my love and the crews love to our wives and families". The ship sunk and 19 of the crew were lost. But my dad said the message was just so calm. I think most of us would be terrified and panicing, but obviously something had clicked in this mans head. I think it was something a little more than "flight or fight" and the release of adrenaline. Mind you fishermen are very superstitious anyway.

[worm]

Is that our body's/brain's way of coping with imminent death

No, it's just what acceptance feels like.

I'd say that delusions are a way of continuing the fight or drifting off to another conscious level once acceptance of death has been internalised. Though with regards to spirituality and such like, I do find the similarity between our current experiences of myths and delusions and those uncovered from our cultural past to be something of a fascination.

[Ed209]

Good article on venus, and specifically the transit coming up on 6th June Edited March 26, 2012 by Ed209

[windy_miller]

If I ever win the Euromillions Ill pay whatever to get up there and see the earth from that station. Just stunning.

Thats providing I've any money left after the 6 month coke and Colombian whore binge Ill be going on.

There's quite a good article here about the first picture ever taken of the earth from space

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/forty-years-since-the-first-picture-of-earth-from-space-1297569.html

I'm sure I read someone else that they were only supposed to take pictures of things on a pre-determined list as they only had so much film, but the image of the earth rising over the moon's surface was so asounding, they took a picture of it anyway.

I think if I saw the earth from space it would reduce me to a blubbering wreck.

[windy_miller]

[windy_miller]

Someone just posted an xkcd strip in the Homeopathy thread and it reminded me of this

http://xkcd.com/482/

and this

http://xkcd.com/505/

Edited March 27, 2012 by windy_miller

[windy_miller]

Amazing zoomable photo of the milky way

http://djer.roe.ac.uk/vsa/vvv/iipmooviewer-2.0-beta/vvvgps5.html

And BBC article about it here

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-17539315

And remember, this is a photo of only one galaxy.

[The Nal]

Amazing zoomable photo of the milky way

http://djer.roe.ac.u...ta/vvvgps5.html

And BBC article about it here

http://www.bbc.co.uk...onment-17539315

And remember, this is a photo of only one galaxy.

Christ. Thats madness.

Mars very visable in the sky tonight.

[Yoghurt on a Stick]

It's easy to forget how insignificant we are.

[Yoghurt on a Stick]

I think I wrote that without thinking it through. Because you are right - the older I get the more and more I realise that the end game approaches and that nobody gets out alive. This restores a truer perspective of significance.

[Ed209]

blimey... it's quite big, and busy, and sort of overwhelming...

Yup, you could say that. There's 300 000 000 000 stars in the milky way.

And its 100000 lightyears across, or in other words it would take concord 50 000 000 000 years to fly from one side to the other (that's about 5 times older than the age of the universe!!!)

the *nearest* neighbouring galaxy to the Milky way is andromeda, that's 2.6 million light years away! which would take concord 13 000 000 000 000 years to get there (a thousand times the age of the universe)

The Milky way and andromeda are just two of well over 170 000 000 000 galaxies in the universe

That's how insignificant we are

Edited March 29, 2012 by Ed209

[Yoghurt on a Stick]

Those figures are mind blowing. Really mind blowing. Just wondering though, you mention a thousand times the age of the universe - how does anybody know the age of the universe? If the answer involves maths then don't waste your time because I'll never understand.

[Ed209]

There's actually a number of ways, and all of them yield similar results. One of the simplest ways is think of the universe as an expanding balloon. Take two points on a balloon. Then as we blow it up these points move away from each other. So by looking at pairs of points, by measuring how fast they are moving apart from each other we can measure how quickly the balloon is expanding. Extrapolating back then we can figure out when the balloon started to be blown up (i.e. when was the big band)

There's other ways as well like being able to date the oldest stars

[windy_miller]

It's easy to forget how insignificant we are.

Watch the Pale Blue Dot video I posted above. Or here is the transcription, taken from http://en.wikipedia....ctions_by_Sagan

We succeeded in taking that picture [from deep space], and, if you look at it, you see a dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever lived, lived out their lives. The aggregate of all our joys and sufferings, thousands of confident religions, ideologies and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilizations, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every hopeful child, every mother and father, every inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every superstar, every supreme leader, every saint and sinner in the history of our species, lived there on a mote of dust, suspended in a sunbeam.

The earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that in glory and in triumph they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of the dot on scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner of the dot. How frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds. Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity – in all this vastness – there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves. It is up to us. It's been said that astronomy is a humbling, and I might add, a character-building experience. To my mind, there is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly and compassionately with one another and to preserve and cherish that pale blue dot, the only home we've ever known.

[Yoghurt on a Stick]

There's actually a number of ways, and all of them yield similar results. One of the simplest ways is think of the universe as an expanding balloon. Take two points on a balloon. Then as we blow it up these points move away from each other. So by looking at pairs of points, by measuring how fast they are moving apart from each other we can measure how quickly the balloon is expanding. Extrapolating back then we can figure out when the balloon started to be blown up (i.e. when was the big band)

There's other ways as well like being able to date the oldest stars

I get it. That balloon analogy was very helpful. Thanks for explaining.

[Yoghurt on a Stick]

Watch the Pale Blue Dot video I posted above. Or here is the transcription, taken from http://en.wikipedia....ctions_by_Sagan

Those words are so true and eloquently written. Going to have to copy them for future use as a reminder to myself every now and again of how to view life, and this planet.

[Ed209]

Solar tornado .... sweet

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NWzfJDgOh3I

Edited March 30, 2012 by Ed209

[windy_miller]

Solar tornado .... sweet

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NWzfJDgOh3I

Supposedly, that thing is the size of the earth

[kaosmark2]

This thing is pretty cool:

http://www.htwins.net/scale2/

got some nice short bits of information about stuff as well.

[Ed209]

Not the universe per se, but probably the best place to post it

http://gizmodo.com/5909889/awesome-picture-perfectly-shows-how-little-water-there-is-on-earth

There's not as much water on the planet as you imagine

[The Nal]

Wow!!

http://vimeo.com/45878034

[worm]

You know, I've never been humbled by the universe. I'm often humbled by the experience of it. I'm humbled by emotions. But then, isn't humility an emotion; an experience.

The universe is just a concept to me.

[eFestivals]

The universe is just a concept to me.

much like all you say is fantasy to everyone else.

[worm]

much like all you say is fantasy to everyone else.

It's been a while.

[eFestivals]

It's been a while.

It's all right, you don't need to tell me why.