“Once we overcome our fear of being tiny, we find ourselves on the threshold of a vast and awesome Universe that utterly dwarfs—in time, in space, and in potential—the tidy anthropocentric proscenium of our ancestors. We gaze across billions of light-years of space to view the Universe shortly after the Big Bang, and plumb the fine structure of matter. We peer down into the core of our planet, and the blazing interior of our star. We read the genetic language in which is written the diverse skills and propensities of every being on Earth. We uncover hidden chapters in the record of our own origins, and with some anguish better understand our nature and prospects. We invent and refine agriculture, without which almost all of us would starve to death. We create medicines and vaccines that save the lives of billions. We communicate at the speed of light, and whip around the Earth in an hour and a half. We have sent dozens of ships to more than seventy worlds, and four spacecraft to the stars.
We are right to rejoice in our accomplishments, to be proud that our species has been able to see so far, and to judge our merit in part by the very science that has so deflated our pretensions.”
— Carl Sagan, Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space
“Once we overcome our fear of being tiny, we find ourselves on the threshold of a vast and awesome Universe that utterly dwarfs—in time, in space, and in potential—the tidy anthropocentric proscenium of our ancestors. We gaze across billions of light-years of space to view the Universe shortly after the Big Bang, and plumb the fine structure of matter. We peer down into the core of our planet, and the blazing interior of our star. We read the genetic language in which is written the diverse skills and propensities of every being on Earth. We uncover hidden chapters in the record of our own origins, and with some anguish better understand our nature and prospects. We invent and refine agriculture, without which almost all of us would starve to death. We create medicines and vaccines that save the lives of billions. We communicate at the speed of light, and whip around the Earth in an hour and a half. We have sent dozens of ships to more than seventy worlds, and four spacecraft to the stars.
We are right to rejoice in our accomplishments, to be proud that our species has been able to see so far, and to judge our merit in part by the very science that has so deflated our pretensions.”
— Carl Sagan, Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space
We are right to rejoice in our accomplishments, to be proud that our species has been able to see so far, and to judge our merit in part by the very science that has so deflated our pretensions.”
— Carl Sagan, Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space
“Once we overcome our fear of being tiny, we find ourselves on the threshold of a vast and awesome Universe that utterly dwarfs—in time, in space, and in potential—the tidy anthropocentric proscenium of our ancestors. We gaze across billions of light-years of space to view the Universe shortly after the Big Bang, and plumb the fine structure of matter. We peer down into the core of our planet, and the blazing interior of our star. We read the genetic language in which is written the diverse skills and propensities of every being on Earth. We uncover hidden chapters in the record of our own origins, and with some anguish better understand our nature and prospects. We invent and refine agriculture, without which almost all of us would starve to death. We create medicines and vaccines that save the lives of billions. We communicate at the speed of light, and whip around the Earth in an hour and a half. We have sent dozens of ships to more than seventy worlds, and four spacecraft to the stars.
We are right to rejoice in our accomplishments, to be proud that our species has been able to see so far, and to judge our merit in part by the very science that has so deflated our pretensions.”
— Carl Sagan, Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space
It's true that we are tiny. One look at the sheer number of star systems in the universe should be enough to break our sense of scale.
But it's also true that we're massive. Tens of trillions of individual cells working in concert in a way that's kind of insane to think of, and a chain of life that's lasted billions of years through multiple mass extinction events.
The universe is so massive, but at the same time it's so tiny, and in that context we're like a massive megastructure, like seeing a supernova from billions of light years away. There's forms of life so small you can't even see it with light, but we're so large that each microstructure looks like one giant individual instead of trillions of individuals.
And we carry entire ecosystems we don't even know or care about. There's an entire galactic empire in our digestive tract, and global civilizations in our mouth, our ears, our nose, and around our skin.
Some of our cells only purpose is to be born, grow, and die, and the corpses become national walls to protect against others.
Imagine that people think that a 4 billion year old micro-civilization of tens of trillions of lives working in a unison so powerful that it can produce the phrase "Cogito ergo sum" and mean it is small and meaningless. Imagine people that think such a micro-civilization ought to stop that 4 billion year fire.
And the stuff we're made of, it's a miracle by itself. Energy so immense that it structured itself into something we call matter, something so intense it literally warps the universe around it in what we call gravity. Then everything that wasn't hydrogen in our bodies was born in the heart of a star, fused together into a new thing, and that star died of old age and scattered the corpse throughout the universe, slowly aggregating into the complex structures capable of supporting this micro-civiization. A single atom is a thing of wonder, and we're made of so many of them that the human mind can't imagine the number properly.
But it's also true that we're massive. Tens of trillions of individual cells working in concert in a way that's kind of insane to think of, and a chain of life that's lasted billions of years through multiple mass extinction events.
The universe is so massive, but at the same time it's so tiny, and in that context we're like a massive megastructure, like seeing a supernova from billions of light years away. There's forms of life so small you can't even see it with light, but we're so large that each microstructure looks like one giant individual instead of trillions of individuals.
And we carry entire ecosystems we don't even know or care about. There's an entire galactic empire in our digestive tract, and global civilizations in our mouth, our ears, our nose, and around our skin.
Some of our cells only purpose is to be born, grow, and die, and the corpses become national walls to protect against others.
Imagine that people think that a 4 billion year old micro-civilization of tens of trillions of lives working in a unison so powerful that it can produce the phrase "Cogito ergo sum" and mean it is small and meaningless. Imagine people that think such a micro-civilization ought to stop that 4 billion year fire.
And the stuff we're made of, it's a miracle by itself. Energy so immense that it structured itself into something we call matter, something so intense it literally warps the universe around it in what we call gravity. Then everything that wasn't hydrogen in our bodies was born in the heart of a star, fused together into a new thing, and that star died of old age and scattered the corpse throughout the universe, slowly aggregating into the complex structures capable of supporting this micro-civiization. A single atom is a thing of wonder, and we're made of so many of them that the human mind can't imagine the number properly.
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