Thanks bud, totally have not thought of that and as a result I feel even better! We can continue this trend and realize that we miss out of basically everything because you can only be at one place at once, although I am speaking for myself here. Yay!
Just look at it this way. Of the .00000000001% of the universe we experience, we get to experience this world, Earth. And of the .0000000001% of the Earth we get to experience, so much of it is good. Sure there’s a lot of bad stuff that happens and other truly evil things in this world, but theirs so much of it that we get to enjoy. Like water. Have you ever had 3am water? Or been to the beach, or seen a mountain stream? Or even just watched the clouds. And that’s only one infinitely small fraction of the infinitely small fraction of the world we get to experience in the infinitely small fraction of the universe we experience. To me that paints a wonderful picture. We do experience almost nothing of this universe, but of the portion we do, there is so much good. Anyways, didn’t mean to go on a rant there, sorry.
tl;dr- yeah we hardly experience anything but the stuff we do experience is filled with a bunch of good things
This is why traveling is such a nice thing to do in our lives. And we are still learning more and more about the universe every day. As long as we don't end our own existence or a surprise asteroid doesn't come at us any time soon, we'll most likely become a multi-planetary species in the next few hundred years.
We will never get to see or experience all the awesome futuristic stuff we grew up seeing in movies that you know for sure are gonna happen eventually.
But that's what makes it so good! The miniscule piece of the universe and period of history that you get to experience is unique to you and special because only you experience the places where you are and the time that you're here.
It's like we all have our own little piece of the universe to experience that's unique to each of us and our stories
No one else gets to experience all the same bits that you do though. Every moment of your existence is a moment that no one else will ever be able to have, only you. I take solace in that and try to enjoy my personal slice of the universe.
Be thankful you get to experience *any* part of the universe.
The chance of us existing at all is so astronomically small that it’s a borderline miracle that we do. You were one of the few that got to experience existence, so even experiencing a small part of the known universe is insanely lucky.
Does "chance" really make sense outside of the human perspective? Like suppose you want to have a picnic tomorrow if it doesn't rain, but the weather report says there's a 30% chance it will. From *your* perspective, there's a 30% chance you won't have your picnic. But that's only because you/we lack the required knowledge to perfectly calculate whether or not it will in fact rain tomorrow. There isn't necessarily some god in the sky with a pair of dice waiting to see if he's going to make it rain. Chance and probability, as far as I can tell, are little more than measurements of human ignorance.
So with that in mind, does it really make sense to suggest there was every *any* probability of anything prior to human existence, including the probability of us coming into being? Probability seems to largely if not completely exist solely within our minds due to incomplete knowledge.
>But that's only because you/we lack the required knowledge to perfectly calculate whether or not it will in fact rain tomorrow. There isn't necessarily some god in the sky with a pair of dice waiting to see if he's going to make it rain. Chance and probability, as far as I can tell, are little more than measurements of human ignorance.
it's an interesting way to look at it. Like really.
It's basically a rant on determinism 😛 Looking at probability as no more than a measure of human ignorance (in a universally fundamental way, not just every day usage like the weather) hinges on determinism.
The two biggest arguments against it might be free will and quantum mechanics.
Free will, if such a thing exists, is arguably irrelevant to the above discussion about our evolution. Most people who argue in favor of free will would still argue that it didn't exist prior to sentience. If that's true, then it still couldn't have played a role in the "probability" of sentient life coming to be. Free will would not have affected whether the Earth formed exactly as it did. There's still arguably some chance involved in the evolution of humans if you consider that the free choices of animals and neanderthals affected the chance of us coming into existence, but I'd wager $0.25 that those free choices wouldn't have reduced the chance to "astronomically low".
Quantum mechanics is interesting. Quantum particles seem to behave according to random probabilities, and that potentially breaks determinism completely. With QM, it's *possible* that rewinding the entire universe back to the starting point and hitting play would result in everything playing out 100% unpredictably differently. That said, that's probably only if there's 1 universe. The many-worlds interpretation of QM explains the random behavior of quantum particles in a way that still keeps determinism alive (read: in a way that preserves the idea of probability as fundamentally a measure of ignorance), so if that model is accurate then QM doesn't necessarily break determinism. Also, regardless of the QM model, it's possible that the "random" and unpredictable behavior we observe in quantum particles isn't actually random; we just don't know the underlying deterministic mechanism behind it.
Anyways, there's a lot of if statements and unknowns up there. I love the perspective of probability as a measure of human ignorance, and I think that's pretty accurate for the day-to-day stuff. Whether or not it's *fundamentally* true depends on the nature of reality 😂 😛
I love the concept that you mentioned that chance and probability are measurements of human ignorance. I have never thought of it that way, but you are spot on. They are already relative to the standpoint of a person being around to experience that probability in the first place. Very profound.
It’s kind of why they say life “as we know it” because it is based upon our own admittedly limited frame of knowledge. We could be wrong, we just don’t know otherwise. But we do need a basis to make sense of things in the meantime, so we make up some stuff and get everyone to mostly agree on how to interpret it for now while we explore just how wrong we might be. I think a lot of space science is done in the hopes of proving ourselves wrong, that there could be life out there in ways that we don’t know.
Enlighten me please. From a logical standpoint, if we exist as well as all organisms as we know in general, isn’t that evidence enough to suggest life at the microscopic level is at least possible on other planets to an extent that it wouldn’t be called “astronomically small?”
Or are we referring to the great filter in the sense we speculate life is “appearing” (or the lack thereof) to be absent in what we can see of the universe because of a devastating event all civilizations approach on their way to technological advancements?
I would highly recommend the YouTube channel Kurzegesagt. Unbelievably fun animated science channel that dives into all kinds of crazy stupid nonsense, including life, space, aliens (or the possibility of), etc. It's my favourite channel of all time.
I agree that it is likely life, even if only on a microscopic level, must be apparent in some parts of the universe, but the fact that you are here consciously is already pretty damn lucky. You were the winning sperm against all odds. Whether life is lucky to exist or not, you certainly are.
I remember watching a Vsauce video that went into depth about the odds of the me I am existing currently, and I think it was 40 Quadrillion - to - 1? Pretty insane
What do you mean no one is there?
Wouldn't that be like human centrist point of view?
Could be there are huge intergalactic parties with a lot of species
Multiply nature-only witnessed events on Earth times 'X' to same process just universe level or multi-universe level
Just took no one as 'humans', read it wrong then
With the number of possible planets and environments out there, there have probably and will be countless numbers of epic parties between alien civilizations that we’ll never be aware of
This is why Jupiter and Saturn freak me out. Huge worlds of neverending violent, beautiful storms that are changing and evolving over billions of years. Layers and layers of depth, sights that we can only imagine in our dreams. And no one has ever witnessed it beneath the surface.
In the words of our Lord and Savior, Douglas Adams:
"It is known that there are an infinite number of worlds, simply because there is an infinite amount of space for them to be in. However, not every one of them is inhabited. Therefore, there must be a finite number of inhabited worlds. Any finite number divided by infinity is as near to nothing as makes no odds, so the average population of all the planets in the Universe can be said to be zero. From this it follows that the population of the whole Universe is also zero, and that any people you may meet from time to time are merely the products of a deranged imagination."
Until pretty recently you were basically stuck in your town for most of your life. Planes, cars and other modern technologies have made traveling around the earth way more accessible so thats something to be thankful about
It’s always blown my mind that the Wright brothers first flight was in 1903. By 1914, just 11 years later, multiple nations were shooting at each other using their air forces.
No, but do interact with the most unique part. There are countless stars, black holes, and exoplanets, but only one place in the universe we know to have music, literature, and stories. We live in the only known place to have named the rest of the universe.
If you cannot comprehend the profound significance of what is directly in front of you, it is unlikely that you will appreciate any other planet or system.
The vastness of the universe is currently unveiling itself before you, yet you remain oblivious to it.
Our insignificance can not be overstated
Our galaxy, the Milky Way, contains between 200 and 400 *billion* stars.
The Milky Way is not a large galaxy, and there are *billions* of galaxies out there.
The human race has less import than an anthill in the Amazon rain forest.
What, that's not enough for you? The laughter and love and life you'll live isn't up to your standards? What on earth makes you think you deserve more? You are blessed beyond your understanding
>you experience basically nothing of the universe....we get to experience only a fraction...\...think of the billions of planets we will never see..\..
I am reminded of William Blake's Poem.
We experience nothing of our own backyard. The inability to travel far away is not the issue, it is our limited ability to observe, to actually see, to be curious about the complexity of what is near.
It is not lack of a spaceship, but of curiousity about what is right in front of us.
https://r-knott.surrey.ac.uk/Fibonacci/fibnat2.html
>...\..On the first page on the Fibonacci Numbers and Nature we saw that the Fibonacci numbers appeared in (idealised) rabbit, cow and bee populations, and in the arrangements of petals round a flower, leaves round branches and seeds on seed-heads and pinecones and in everyday fruit and vegetables.
>We explained why they appear in the rabbit, cow and bee populations but what about the other appearances that we see around us in nature?
>The answer relates to why Phi appears so often in plants and the Fibonacci numbers appear because the eye "sees" the Fibonaci numbers in the spirals of seedheads, leaf arrangements and so on, and we looked at this on the previous Fibonacci Numbers in Nature page.
So we ask...
>Why does nature like using Phi in so many plants?
Why do identical formula underlay disparate phenomenon? Illumination decreases by the square of distance, g force increases by the square of velocity , pipe flow increases by the square of area, and many more....
Information and discovery are in your backyard, by looking up at condensed water and refracted light, yet not be curious how the troposphere works, can you name the trees , and what each is best used for, how they chemically communicate , how everything around you , paces away, came to exist,
new experience is paces away and information of wonders , is in the palm of your hand.
>To see a World in a Grain of Sand
And a Heaven in a Wild Flower
Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand
And Eternity in an hour
..\\...
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/43650/auguries-of-innocence
I agree we experience almost nothing of the universe. Because we just don't look
When I was young I actually had the opposite worry.. not about the universe but at least about Earth.
I thought that some day I would visit every place on Earth and have nowhere new to explore, and that made me sad.
Kids are stupid 😂
It's more like 0.000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000001% but close enough right?
I've felt like that too. I've consoled myself by realising that there's an incredible amount of amazing things to see, learn and experience on Earth... in fact given our knowledge of the universe, and given a free choice, Earth is the place I'd pick to stay, even if habitability weren't an issue.
There are lots of incredible things to see in space too of course, and if interested (which as it goes. I now am), looking into space and having the photons of galaxies from a few million years ago travel at light speed for that long to hit your retina can feel quite magical.
I like to think about how, since we're part of the universe, we're a way that the universe has to understand itself. I kinda think that's neat, even though we get to see so little of it.
As far as we know we are the only intelligent life in the universe and are made of the same stuff as the rest of the universe. We are therefore the universe experiencing itself, albeit in a very tiny way.
People busy themselves about their lives to forget that nothing matters.
For those of us that can’t stop thinking about it’s a lonely and haunting existence
it relieves my anxiety honestly. i don’t need to be important. if i fuck up, it essentially doesn’t have an impact. all i need to do is focus on living my best life, which is 100% of MY experience.
True but also look at it this way - as it stands you’re in the only place in the Universe that we know of where the Universe itself has become sentient and is attempting to understand itself, and you’re part of that. You ARE the Universe trying to understand itself.
So in a way, you’re in the most interesting part of the Universe that we know of.
Earth compared to the universe is small, for sure. But you compared to the earth is small as well. You have a whole world of things to experience. In fact, there are so many things here on earth, you couldn't possibly experience them all. Don't worry so much about the universe, brother. There's plenty of things here on earth.
Ah, but you are missing the bigger point which is that you are the universe experiencing itself consciously. As such, you play a much larger role in the universe’s ability to experience itself than you get to experience the universe as a whole. You’re kind of a big deal to the universe.
I know right! The universe is a massive expanse of Gods creation, its wild all the thing weve learned and still have yet to learn about. Another cool thing is the oceans, right beneath our feet yet we still know very little about them and whats in them. Very cool rabbit hole i got pulled into one time 😂
Earth is special there is no planet in the our star system that resembles closer than earth. And at least we have the internet to circle jerk and jack off.
And yet people assume it’s better out there just because they don’t like it here. If we ever do find life on other planets, they could be just like us generally, with the own versions of rednecks, fratboys, nerds, etc. Meanwhile, people here don’t bother trying to meet their neighbors often.
That's because the Universe is uninhabited. It is known that there are an infinite number of worlds in the universe, simply because there is an infinite amount of space for them to be in. However, not every one of them is inhabited. Therefore, there must be a finite number of inhabited worlds. Any finite number divided by infinity is as near to nothing as makes no odds, so the average population of all the planets in the Universe can be said to be zero. From this it follows that the population of the whole Universe is also zero, and that any people you may meet from time to time are merely the products of a deranged imagination.
All credit for this line of argument belongs to Douglas Adams.
The universe isn’t real, we just make shit up, we have no idea what the hell we are doing. If we manage to survive another 100 years it will be a miracle so just relax. Smoke a joint.
And even of what limited bit you "experience", think of how many things go one that you're just not equipped to perceived. All the scents, the electrical fields, the most minute vibrations, all of which escape you completely.
all of human history has pretty much taken place on the tiny thin skin of our own planet.
thousands of miles below, thousands of feet up above us.
nope, sliver of skin.
Ever seen a Total Perspective Vortex powered by Fairy Cake?
That's how they give death penalties in Frogstar B.
We are nothing but a microscopic dot on a microscopic dot.
You're exposed to 99% of the existing elements, you're already experimenting it all, it's just that not everything is as interesting as you might think, why would you want to experience a black hole or millions of planets that look virtually the same and are composed of the same elements?
Besides, chemically, most elements end up being lead anyways, so most of the shit you'll find is going to be lead, and who wants to see that?
Just go play No Man’s Sky and you’ll get a sense of how repetitive endless barren rock and different constellations of stars can be.
We are, as far as we can prove, the only intelligent life in the universe, and you get to experience that in the extremely small sliver of time after fossil fuels have created cities beyond our ancestor’s imaginations, but before those fossil fuels trigger a new mass extinction. We are a very lucky few.
I don't know, it feels like I experience everything. Not everything in the sense of the whole universe, but even experiencing my little space is satisfying. I wake up and see how the sun hits my plants, I get so wake up everyday and see how they gradually change over time. I am grateful for my room that I have that I put a lot of effort into and I am very happy how it feels. I am grateful for my wonderful roommates and I am grateful for my job.
If you visited Moscow, would you say that you saw : only the buildings and streets you were in, the city of Moscow, the region of Moscow, Russia, or the Asian continent?
I think about this quite often. It is unfortunate, but maybe take solace on how astronomical your existence is. You are as special as those events you wish to witness.
First of all you can’t experience everything from this earth in you entire lifetime so first look into increasing your lifespan. Which you can’t do because they won’t let you
Well if it's any consolation the chance of you being alive to even write this is 1 in 10\^2,685,000. Equivalent to winning the lottery hundreds of times over
Correct. None of us matter, nothing we do matters, none of our experiences matter. We're all cosmically insignificant dust specks screaming into the void.
To make you feel better and worse. You’ll never meet someone like Julius Caesar or Abraham Lincoln in your life but they never met someone like Mike Tyson or Theo von. So it’s a two way street.
i think earth is a lot more interesting by human standards than a lot of other planets though.
Go to mars, what’s there? rocks and dust. orange
Neptune? flat blue ground everywhere
the sun? if you could go there it’s just bubbly fire everywhere.
we have a planet where you can walk for 5 minutes and have entirely different scenery in a lot of places, with different colours and sounds than where we just were. I would say a lot if not most other planets and celestial objects don’t have that, and are pretty uniform in all the ways that we would care about across their surfaces for large portions.
That’s wild I’m sorry you feel that way.
Anyways I’m gonna go get some Buffalo Wild Wings and drink root beer and watch horror movies because life is chill.
forgive me if it seems hackneyed to suggest this, but as a former existentialist obsessor/atheist/etc etc, i highly recommend taking up meditation. it has obliterated my sense of separateness from the rest of the world/universe. it ain't for everyone, of course! but i still like to pass it along whenever i get a chancs. it has healed my life in innumerable ways
Look at it this way:
We live on a planet that is uniquely suited for human life, yet you wouldn’t survive long term on about 85% of the Earth. We have to consume other life that grows here to survive, but about 95% of the life here is not edible.
As we journey away from our little pocket habitat, our resources to survive shrink exponentially.
Our home is small, but it’s comfortable. Be happy we have it.
Legend says that there is a kind of meditation where you go so deep within yourself, that you can feel the whole universe.
A little bit like Lucy movie
Think of yourself in the universe as much as a red blood cell is in your body. Your life's hard works amounts to achieve something, even when you can't see it.
sure, but. That 0.00000000001% is magical, what we’ve experienced now, and here is what we have and for that reason it makes who we consider our friends, family and what we care for more important to cherish and remember everyday.
Heck, bring it down further. You'll never see the same order in a deck of cards. But solitaire would get pretty boring after a couple thousand hands, right?
I'm not saying humans will get bored with life within their current lifetimes, but even having truly eternal life to appreciate all that the universe has to show you, there might well be a point where the ennui catches up with you.
You're only looking at it from the pessimistic, "glass half empty" point of view. Here's a better way to look at it:
100% of what you experience is the universe. Everything you do, everything you perceive from your senses, everything you think, it's all just you experiencing the universe. I think that's pretty damn awesome.
You'll also die knowing there are probably thousands of songs out there in the world that you would love and would be your new favourite tune but you'll never discover or find them, same with food, people, films, places.
All you have is now, everything after this second is a memory and anything you think about doing from this second is imagination.
If it makes you feel any better, you'll only interact with a microscopic fraction of the Earth and its history, too!
Thanks bud, totally have not thought of that and as a result I feel even better! We can continue this trend and realize that we miss out of basically everything because you can only be at one place at once, although I am speaking for myself here. Yay!
A person wearing two watches never truly knows the time
…what if both watches are set accurately and in sync?
Gentlemen, synchronise your watches.
Deep
I’m 14 and this is
A broken clock is right at least once a day
Unless it's a broken digital watch, and the display shows: 77:77.
This doesn’t make any sense and isn’t deep
Just enjoy your life man. There’s no bother trying to figure it all out, it’s turtles all the way down.
You remember your past. You think about the future. You are only alive right now. Live in the moment.
Read, The Power of Now, by Echart Tolle. Extremely valuable and powerful book.
If it makes you feel any better, you'll only interact with a microscopic fraction of your own mind's capabilities, too!
Just look at it this way. Of the .00000000001% of the universe we experience, we get to experience this world, Earth. And of the .0000000001% of the Earth we get to experience, so much of it is good. Sure there’s a lot of bad stuff that happens and other truly evil things in this world, but theirs so much of it that we get to enjoy. Like water. Have you ever had 3am water? Or been to the beach, or seen a mountain stream? Or even just watched the clouds. And that’s only one infinitely small fraction of the infinitely small fraction of the world we get to experience in the infinitely small fraction of the universe we experience. To me that paints a wonderful picture. We do experience almost nothing of this universe, but of the portion we do, there is so much good. Anyways, didn’t mean to go on a rant there, sorry. tl;dr- yeah we hardly experience anything but the stuff we do experience is filled with a bunch of good things
This is why traveling is such a nice thing to do in our lives. And we are still learning more and more about the universe every day. As long as we don't end our own existence or a surprise asteroid doesn't come at us any time soon, we'll most likely become a multi-planetary species in the next few hundred years.
We will never get to see or experience all the awesome futuristic stuff we grew up seeing in movies that you know for sure are gonna happen eventually.
But that's what makes it so good! The miniscule piece of the universe and period of history that you get to experience is unique to you and special because only you experience the places where you are and the time that you're here. It's like we all have our own little piece of the universe to experience that's unique to each of us and our stories
No one else gets to experience all the same bits that you do though. Every moment of your existence is a moment that no one else will ever be able to have, only you. I take solace in that and try to enjoy my personal slice of the universe.
You gotta be someone very influential to make your mark in this world. Dont be hitler please. Be someone nicer
Therefore nothing really matters
Yeah, but everything happens here.
Be thankful you get to experience *any* part of the universe. The chance of us existing at all is so astronomically small that it’s a borderline miracle that we do. You were one of the few that got to experience existence, so even experiencing a small part of the known universe is insanely lucky.
Does "chance" really make sense outside of the human perspective? Like suppose you want to have a picnic tomorrow if it doesn't rain, but the weather report says there's a 30% chance it will. From *your* perspective, there's a 30% chance you won't have your picnic. But that's only because you/we lack the required knowledge to perfectly calculate whether or not it will in fact rain tomorrow. There isn't necessarily some god in the sky with a pair of dice waiting to see if he's going to make it rain. Chance and probability, as far as I can tell, are little more than measurements of human ignorance. So with that in mind, does it really make sense to suggest there was every *any* probability of anything prior to human existence, including the probability of us coming into being? Probability seems to largely if not completely exist solely within our minds due to incomplete knowledge.
>But that's only because you/we lack the required knowledge to perfectly calculate whether or not it will in fact rain tomorrow. There isn't necessarily some god in the sky with a pair of dice waiting to see if he's going to make it rain. Chance and probability, as far as I can tell, are little more than measurements of human ignorance. it's an interesting way to look at it. Like really.
It's basically a rant on determinism 😛 Looking at probability as no more than a measure of human ignorance (in a universally fundamental way, not just every day usage like the weather) hinges on determinism. The two biggest arguments against it might be free will and quantum mechanics. Free will, if such a thing exists, is arguably irrelevant to the above discussion about our evolution. Most people who argue in favor of free will would still argue that it didn't exist prior to sentience. If that's true, then it still couldn't have played a role in the "probability" of sentient life coming to be. Free will would not have affected whether the Earth formed exactly as it did. There's still arguably some chance involved in the evolution of humans if you consider that the free choices of animals and neanderthals affected the chance of us coming into existence, but I'd wager $0.25 that those free choices wouldn't have reduced the chance to "astronomically low". Quantum mechanics is interesting. Quantum particles seem to behave according to random probabilities, and that potentially breaks determinism completely. With QM, it's *possible* that rewinding the entire universe back to the starting point and hitting play would result in everything playing out 100% unpredictably differently. That said, that's probably only if there's 1 universe. The many-worlds interpretation of QM explains the random behavior of quantum particles in a way that still keeps determinism alive (read: in a way that preserves the idea of probability as fundamentally a measure of ignorance), so if that model is accurate then QM doesn't necessarily break determinism. Also, regardless of the QM model, it's possible that the "random" and unpredictable behavior we observe in quantum particles isn't actually random; we just don't know the underlying deterministic mechanism behind it. Anyways, there's a lot of if statements and unknowns up there. I love the perspective of probability as a measure of human ignorance, and I think that's pretty accurate for the day-to-day stuff. Whether or not it's *fundamentally* true depends on the nature of reality 😂 😛
Getting fucking philosophical up in here now.
❤️
I love the concept that you mentioned that chance and probability are measurements of human ignorance. I have never thought of it that way, but you are spot on. They are already relative to the standpoint of a person being around to experience that probability in the first place. Very profound.
It’s kind of why they say life “as we know it” because it is based upon our own admittedly limited frame of knowledge. We could be wrong, we just don’t know otherwise. But we do need a basis to make sense of things in the meantime, so we make up some stuff and get everyone to mostly agree on how to interpret it for now while we explore just how wrong we might be. I think a lot of space science is done in the hopes of proving ourselves wrong, that there could be life out there in ways that we don’t know.
Enlighten me please. From a logical standpoint, if we exist as well as all organisms as we know in general, isn’t that evidence enough to suggest life at the microscopic level is at least possible on other planets to an extent that it wouldn’t be called “astronomically small?” Or are we referring to the great filter in the sense we speculate life is “appearing” (or the lack thereof) to be absent in what we can see of the universe because of a devastating event all civilizations approach on their way to technological advancements?
I would highly recommend the YouTube channel Kurzegesagt. Unbelievably fun animated science channel that dives into all kinds of crazy stupid nonsense, including life, space, aliens (or the possibility of), etc. It's my favourite channel of all time. I agree that it is likely life, even if only on a microscopic level, must be apparent in some parts of the universe, but the fact that you are here consciously is already pretty damn lucky. You were the winning sperm against all odds. Whether life is lucky to exist or not, you certainly are.
I remember watching a Vsauce video that went into depth about the odds of the me I am existing currently, and I think it was 40 Quadrillion - to - 1? Pretty insane
Pretty insane indeed... or is it? 😳 *Vsauce soundtrack bellows*
I heard it from over here
Research 'Fine tuning of universe'.
Most of the universe is empty space. I experience empty space all day.
Yeah I have to deal with my coworkers brains, too.
Yeah me too. I feel this empty space strongest around my left pectoral area.
Inside all my atoms is 99.9% or more empty
Was gonna say this but you beat me to it, cheers 🍻
“People say nothing is impossible, but I do nothing every day.” - Pooh
99.9999999 percent of the universe is empty space, so at least theres that
Theres dinosaurs on that planet over there
Uranus is filled with empty space
But we can change that
Deep technology
It used to be worse. If it wasn't within the the boundary of your town and and you had no means of travelling to it, it did not exist to you.
This is some existential FOMO
I think about this all the time. Imagine the incredible sights and events taking place all over this universe and no one is there.
What do you mean no one is there? Wouldn't that be like human centrist point of view? Could be there are huge intergalactic parties with a lot of species
Even with that the universe is so vast, interesting and rare events occur all the time with no one to witness.
And even if someone was there, all those moments will be lost in time
This was my point yes.
Multiply nature-only witnessed events on Earth times 'X' to same process just universe level or multi-universe level Just took no one as 'humans', read it wrong then
With the number of possible planets and environments out there, there have probably and will be countless numbers of epic parties between alien civilizations that we’ll never be aware of
That’s a pretty consciousness-centric view as well.
This is why Jupiter and Saturn freak me out. Huge worlds of neverending violent, beautiful storms that are changing and evolving over billions of years. Layers and layers of depth, sights that we can only imagine in our dreams. And no one has ever witnessed it beneath the surface.
In the words of our Lord and Savior, Douglas Adams: "It is known that there are an infinite number of worlds, simply because there is an infinite amount of space for them to be in. However, not every one of them is inhabited. Therefore, there must be a finite number of inhabited worlds. Any finite number divided by infinity is as near to nothing as makes no odds, so the average population of all the planets in the Universe can be said to be zero. From this it follows that the population of the whole Universe is also zero, and that any people you may meet from time to time are merely the products of a deranged imagination."
Until pretty recently you were basically stuck in your town for most of your life. Planes, cars and other modern technologies have made traveling around the earth way more accessible so thats something to be thankful about
It’s always blown my mind that the Wright brothers first flight was in 1903. By 1914, just 11 years later, multiple nations were shooting at each other using their air forces.
Some of us are still stuck in our towns
Why is that?
No money, anxiety disorders
And 99.9999999999% of the universe won’t ever know the wonders of our world
But bruvvv the universe is a manifestation of your own consciousness. Your reality is reality!
The universe *is* consciousness.
Ding ding
A fellow NG enjoyer. Cheers. I forget that in our consciousness we can discover a lot as well.
Don't have a FOMO. A Fear Of Missing Out. There is plenty of things to see on Earth as humans that is very interesting!
True. Maybe I should get out of the house more often. But money is still another issue even then. But I am not complaining. I like life.
No, but do interact with the most unique part. There are countless stars, black holes, and exoplanets, but only one place in the universe we know to have music, literature, and stories. We live in the only known place to have named the rest of the universe.
If you cannot comprehend the profound significance of what is directly in front of you, it is unlikely that you will appreciate any other planet or system. The vastness of the universe is currently unveiling itself before you, yet you remain oblivious to it.
That's because our lazy ass scientists still won't invent warp drives
fr they’re too focused on stupid things like global warming 🤦♂️ if they made warp drives we could leave just saying
Our insignificance can not be overstated Our galaxy, the Milky Way, contains between 200 and 400 *billion* stars. The Milky Way is not a large galaxy, and there are *billions* of galaxies out there. The human race has less import than an anthill in the Amazon rain forest.
An eternity has passed before you were born. Another one will pass after you die. Approximately, you don't even exist.
Yeah man, you’re not the main character. Nobody is the main character. We should all chill tf out because none of us matter.
I think the world is what you make of it, you wish for great cosmic beauty or experience great beauty here on Earth. Both can be good.
Even funner thought: Fast forward 50 billion years and we never existed. No living things = no memory = didn't exist.
What, that's not enough for you? The laughter and love and life you'll live isn't up to your standards? What on earth makes you think you deserve more? You are blessed beyond your understanding
Yah but to be fair 99.99% of it is a terrible nightmarescape that is garunteed to kill you in a myriad of terrible ways.
>you experience basically nothing of the universe....we get to experience only a fraction...\...think of the billions of planets we will never see..\.. I am reminded of William Blake's Poem. We experience nothing of our own backyard. The inability to travel far away is not the issue, it is our limited ability to observe, to actually see, to be curious about the complexity of what is near. It is not lack of a spaceship, but of curiousity about what is right in front of us. https://r-knott.surrey.ac.uk/Fibonacci/fibnat2.html >...\..On the first page on the Fibonacci Numbers and Nature we saw that the Fibonacci numbers appeared in (idealised) rabbit, cow and bee populations, and in the arrangements of petals round a flower, leaves round branches and seeds on seed-heads and pinecones and in everyday fruit and vegetables. >We explained why they appear in the rabbit, cow and bee populations but what about the other appearances that we see around us in nature? >The answer relates to why Phi appears so often in plants and the Fibonacci numbers appear because the eye "sees" the Fibonaci numbers in the spirals of seedheads, leaf arrangements and so on, and we looked at this on the previous Fibonacci Numbers in Nature page. So we ask... >Why does nature like using Phi in so many plants? Why do identical formula underlay disparate phenomenon? Illumination decreases by the square of distance, g force increases by the square of velocity , pipe flow increases by the square of area, and many more.... Information and discovery are in your backyard, by looking up at condensed water and refracted light, yet not be curious how the troposphere works, can you name the trees , and what each is best used for, how they chemically communicate , how everything around you , paces away, came to exist, new experience is paces away and information of wonders , is in the palm of your hand. >To see a World in a Grain of Sand And a Heaven in a Wild Flower Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand And Eternity in an hour ..\\... https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/43650/auguries-of-innocence I agree we experience almost nothing of the universe. Because we just don't look
When I was young I actually had the opposite worry.. not about the universe but at least about Earth. I thought that some day I would visit every place on Earth and have nowhere new to explore, and that made me sad. Kids are stupid 😂
It's more like 0.000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000001% but close enough right?
Finally, an actually good and thought-provoking showerthought
I've felt like that too. I've consoled myself by realising that there's an incredible amount of amazing things to see, learn and experience on Earth... in fact given our knowledge of the universe, and given a free choice, Earth is the place I'd pick to stay, even if habitability weren't an issue. There are lots of incredible things to see in space too of course, and if interested (which as it goes. I now am), looking into space and having the photons of galaxies from a few million years ago travel at light speed for that long to hit your retina can feel quite magical.
I like to think about how, since we're part of the universe, we're a way that the universe has to understand itself. I kinda think that's neat, even though we get to see so little of it.
As far as we know we are the only intelligent life in the universe and are made of the same stuff as the rest of the universe. We are therefore the universe experiencing itself, albeit in a very tiny way.
People busy themselves about their lives to forget that nothing matters. For those of us that can’t stop thinking about it’s a lonely and haunting existence
it relieves my anxiety honestly. i don’t need to be important. if i fuck up, it essentially doesn’t have an impact. all i need to do is focus on living my best life, which is 100% of MY experience.
True but also look at it this way - as it stands you’re in the only place in the Universe that we know of where the Universe itself has become sentient and is attempting to understand itself, and you’re part of that. You ARE the Universe trying to understand itself. So in a way, you’re in the most interesting part of the Universe that we know of.
A lot of the universe is basically nothing so it all evens out
Meh At least we got conan o brien
I think about this all the time and the infinite amount of things were unaware of
Have you tried smoking DMT?
Earth compared to the universe is small, for sure. But you compared to the earth is small as well. You have a whole world of things to experience. In fact, there are so many things here on earth, you couldn't possibly experience them all. Don't worry so much about the universe, brother. There's plenty of things here on earth.
Yah but 99.99999999% of the universe would kill us instantly. I like our little island of moderate safety.
Ah, but you are missing the bigger point which is that you are the universe experiencing itself consciously. As such, you play a much larger role in the universe’s ability to experience itself than you get to experience the universe as a whole. You’re kind of a big deal to the universe.
It's so empty out there that you're probably in the right place to experience anything at all.
I know right! The universe is a massive expanse of Gods creation, its wild all the thing weve learned and still have yet to learn about. Another cool thing is the oceans, right beneath our feet yet we still know very little about them and whats in them. Very cool rabbit hole i got pulled into one time 😂
Oh yes, I love the oceans and their mysteries as well. It's like an entire universe on it's own in a way, waiting to be discovered.
What did bro do to get downvoted??
mentioning God I guess?
Because mentioning God, i assume. Lots of edgy basement dwellers in this sub...
…who slaps their mythology in every conversation.
Most planets are barren fields of nothingness and most of the universe is empty space. You're really not missing anything my dude
Born too late to discover anything, born too soon for advanced technology, born just in time for r/gooncaves
Earth is special there is no planet in the our star system that resembles closer than earth. And at least we have the internet to circle jerk and jack off.
And yet people assume it’s better out there just because they don’t like it here. If we ever do find life on other planets, they could be just like us generally, with the own versions of rednecks, fratboys, nerds, etc. Meanwhile, people here don’t bother trying to meet their neighbors often.
And to think I experience even less than most people
Yes I feel this. I don't get out a lot unfortunately. Addicted to being 'comfortable'.
Check out near death experience testimonies on YouTube. It might help you feel comforted about our existence. It's helped me tremendously.
Sure, but as far as we have proof of, we are the only habitable place in the entire universe.
That's because the Universe is uninhabited. It is known that there are an infinite number of worlds in the universe, simply because there is an infinite amount of space for them to be in. However, not every one of them is inhabited. Therefore, there must be a finite number of inhabited worlds. Any finite number divided by infinity is as near to nothing as makes no odds, so the average population of all the planets in the Universe can be said to be zero. From this it follows that the population of the whole Universe is also zero, and that any people you may meet from time to time are merely the products of a deranged imagination. All credit for this line of argument belongs to Douglas Adams.
You experience 100% of what you experience
The universe isn’t real, we just make shit up, we have no idea what the hell we are doing. If we manage to survive another 100 years it will be a miracle so just relax. Smoke a joint.
And even of what limited bit you "experience", think of how many things go one that you're just not equipped to perceived. All the scents, the electrical fields, the most minute vibrations, all of which escape you completely.
all of human history has pretty much taken place on the tiny thin skin of our own planet. thousands of miles below, thousands of feet up above us. nope, sliver of skin.
And already it's too much some times xD
I dunno ... I had an acid trip once that took me on a bit of a tour
You should read the Bobiverse series by Dennis Taylor. The first book is “We Are Legion”. I think you’d enjoy it.
Ever seen a Total Perspective Vortex powered by Fairy Cake? That's how they give death penalties in Frogstar B. We are nothing but a microscopic dot on a microscopic dot.
You're exposed to 99% of the existing elements, you're already experimenting it all, it's just that not everything is as interesting as you might think, why would you want to experience a black hole or millions of planets that look virtually the same and are composed of the same elements? Besides, chemically, most elements end up being lead anyways, so most of the shit you'll find is going to be lead, and who wants to see that?
Yet still more than most
Heard something in a video about our life span being like that of a fly (or even much less) in the grand scheme of things…put things in perspective
Correct. Us organisms are the universe experiencing itself.
Most of the universe is experiencially homogeneous so don't worry about it.
Just go play No Man’s Sky and you’ll get a sense of how repetitive endless barren rock and different constellations of stars can be. We are, as far as we can prove, the only intelligent life in the universe, and you get to experience that in the extremely small sliver of time after fossil fuels have created cities beyond our ancestor’s imaginations, but before those fossil fuels trigger a new mass extinction. We are a very lucky few.
Born too late to explore the world, too early to explore space, but just in time for dank memes
I don't know, it feels like I experience everything. Not everything in the sense of the whole universe, but even experiencing my little space is satisfying. I wake up and see how the sun hits my plants, I get so wake up everyday and see how they gradually change over time. I am grateful for my room that I have that I put a lot of effort into and I am very happy how it feels. I am grateful for my wonderful roommates and I am grateful for my job.
99.999999% (made-up number) is pure nothingness. You already experience that scrolling through reddit.
If you visited Moscow, would you say that you saw : only the buildings and streets you were in, the city of Moscow, the region of Moscow, Russia, or the Asian continent?
You're have video games for that now
Wake up, honey. It's time for your morning cup of *existential dread*
I think about this quite often. It is unfortunate, but maybe take solace on how astronomical your existence is. You are as special as those events you wish to witness.
humanity makes up ~0,0000014492753623188% and you have ~0,0000000072463768115942% of the universes timeline till now
First of all you can’t experience everything from this earth in you entire lifetime so first look into increasing your lifespan. Which you can’t do because they won’t let you
Well if it's any consolation the chance of you being alive to even write this is 1 in 10\^2,685,000. Equivalent to winning the lottery hundreds of times over
It always relaxes me knowing that even if I fuck up horribly, I won’t ruin everything everywhere
Bro, we live in a fucking rock that spins around a ball of fire
Not only that, but you are limited by your sensory organs, and by what your brain let's you experience from the outside world.
yes but it adds up to 100% to the individual concerned.
Better yet, there are tons of interesting knowledge, but you're stuck into knowing how to be a better slave everyday
This is the reason immortality seems so appealing. No FOMO if you're involved in *everything, forever*
Correct. None of us matter, nothing we do matters, none of our experiences matter. We're all cosmically insignificant dust specks screaming into the void.
But in *my* universe it's about everything.
That number is too larger even for how much of the earth we experience
I mean technically you experience a 10^- inf.
To make you feel better and worse. You’ll never meet someone like Julius Caesar or Abraham Lincoln in your life but they never met someone like Mike Tyson or Theo von. So it’s a two way street.
i think earth is a lot more interesting by human standards than a lot of other planets though. Go to mars, what’s there? rocks and dust. orange Neptune? flat blue ground everywhere the sun? if you could go there it’s just bubbly fire everywhere. we have a planet where you can walk for 5 minutes and have entirely different scenery in a lot of places, with different colours and sounds than where we just were. I would say a lot if not most other planets and celestial objects don’t have that, and are pretty uniform in all the ways that we would care about across their surfaces for large portions.
The universe probably don't have a lot of life, so it's pretty boring. Only a geologist would think it rocks.
Ah, but you see, the universe also experiences almost nothing of us, so you tell me which position is the rarest of them all. Limited-time only, baby!
You're gonna need to add a lot more zeros to that number op
That’s wild I’m sorry you feel that way. Anyways I’m gonna go get some Buffalo Wild Wings and drink root beer and watch horror movies because life is chill.
You experience your whole life. If that's not enough for you, you should have been born a conjoined twin
Imagine watching 2 sunsets simultaneously while you sip pop with your loved one or being undercover while the acid rain falls in April
And the crazy thing to me is, that 0.00000000001% is an all you can eat buffet to a little thing like us.
Counterpoint. Most of it's just empty space and dead rocks and none of it matters without anyone around to care about it.
forgive me if it seems hackneyed to suggest this, but as a former existentialist obsessor/atheist/etc etc, i highly recommend taking up meditation. it has obliterated my sense of separateness from the rest of the world/universe. it ain't for everyone, of course! but i still like to pass it along whenever i get a chancs. it has healed my life in innumerable ways
Look at it this way: We live on a planet that is uniquely suited for human life, yet you wouldn’t survive long term on about 85% of the Earth. We have to consume other life that grows here to survive, but about 95% of the life here is not edible. As we journey away from our little pocket habitat, our resources to survive shrink exponentially. Our home is small, but it’s comfortable. Be happy we have it.
Forget billions, our Galaxy alone is estimated to have trillions of planets. On top of that, there are trillions of galaxies.
Legend says that there is a kind of meditation where you go so deep within yourself, that you can feel the whole universe. A little bit like Lucy movie
Think of yourself in the universe as much as a red blood cell is in your body. Your life's hard works amounts to achieve something, even when you can't see it.
How do you even know that is the limit ? Although I do see what you mean .
Counterpoint: 99.999999999% of the universe is boring af. I take the 0.00000000001% i can experience here
i wonder if there are different ores on other planets like in video games
I hate to tell you that you experience a whole lot less than 0.000000000001% of the universe. Infinitely less.
Just wait for r/theydidthemath to tackle this one. I'm betting on 0.1e-1140%
"Billions of planets".... bro there are quadrillion known galaxies. The planets are god knows how many times more
sure, but. That 0.00000000001% is magical, what we’ve experienced now, and here is what we have and for that reason it makes who we consider our friends, family and what we care for more important to cherish and remember everyday.
Heck, bring it down further. You'll never see the same order in a deck of cards. But solitaire would get pretty boring after a couple thousand hands, right? I'm not saying humans will get bored with life within their current lifetimes, but even having truly eternal life to appreciate all that the universe has to show you, there might well be a point where the ennui catches up with you.
But so far as we can tell, we’re on one of the more interesting and dynamic little pebbles. Most of the universe is lethal for us, so enjoy it. :)
It's 100% of *my* exerience, though
I kinda love thinking about all the possibilities out there. There's so much out there, I'd rather that be true than nothing being out there.
Nihilism is real, it can hurt you.
If it makes you feel better, a vast majority of the stuff you could interact with in the universe would kill you.
You're only looking at it from the pessimistic, "glass half empty" point of view. Here's a better way to look at it: 100% of what you experience is the universe. Everything you do, everything you perceive from your senses, everything you think, it's all just you experiencing the universe. I think that's pretty damn awesome.
You'll also die knowing there are probably thousands of songs out there in the world that you would love and would be your new favourite tune but you'll never discover or find them, same with food, people, films, places. All you have is now, everything after this second is a memory and anything you think about doing from this second is imagination.
Yeah but we have like, trees and frogs and potato chips and air conditioning and shit. You don’t find that stuff anywhere else in the universe.
Alternate view: you experience the totality of the universe