We are on a planet.

I don't know how humanity can function properly within the constraints we've created for ourselves knowing a simple little fact we seem to take for granted in our day to day lives.

We are alive, on a planet.

A planet. that circles a star.

reading those words, it just doesn't do any justice,
we've been handed an illusion of something much less impressive.

when I think about,

money, violence, hatred, taxes, government, war...

they all seem to fade away,
like they shouldn't exist in the same thought as being alive in something like the universe.
our time here, as limited as it is, should be directed to anything but what we have it focused on now as a collective.

individually, people are striving for great things, and grand ideas, but we are too seperated, divided by old institutions, and promises of a better life, in exchange for our will to live freely to the best of our natural abilities, on a natural planet.

I thought it was more like a coffee table on the back of a turtle? on the back of a turtle
on the back of a turtle
on the back of a turtle
on the back of a turtle
on the back of a turtle
on the back of a turtle
on the back of a turtle
on the back of a turtle
on the back of a turtle
on the back of a turtle
on the back of a turtle?

I believe that sometimes words can only take away from epiphanies. Sometimes when I think about these things , I am as frightened as much as I am filled with awe, incredulity, and wonder.

Originally posted by paleorchid13
I believe that sometimes words can only take away from epiphanies. Sometimes when I think about these things , I am as frightened as much as I am filled with awe, incredulity, and wonder.

I see you suffer from Apeiro-Chelonaphobia as well.

reply to post by purplemonkeydishwasher




No ..no fear of turtles ...but infinity ..yes perhaps.

Originally posted by paleorchid13
reply to post by purplemonkeydishwasher

 

No ..no fear of turtles ...but infinity ..yes perhaps.

i would be slightly unnerved to see an infinite number of turtles, but ultimately intrigued.

Originally posted by yourmaker

we've been handed an illusion of something much less impressive.

.

don't forget, this is just a simulation/illusion as well. =)

reply to post by yourmaker


All this spinning and orbiting....

No wonder I'm dizzy.

Stop the world, I want to get off now.

Oh, wait, it's just the alcohol.

But for the majority on this planet it doesn't make any difference. They don't feel anything to be in this place and at this time. They are not in awe and are just ditching out their everyday activities. There is no reason why they do not feel this sensation that we belong in something more bigger than ourselves. All it takes for us is to somehow go to space and look at our planet. Hope that will fix our flawed perspective someday.

I wish that people would stop allowing themselves to be taken advantage of and this includes the U.S. It seems that the U.S. is dumping Billions of Dollars into countries where their own citizens cannot get along or are at war or are threatening to do this or that.

The problem is...if the U.S. ever went back to a position of Isolationism...the whole damn World would be at each others throats. We tried to be isolationists after WWI and look what it got us...WWII. We even warned the European Governments that the War Reperations they were imposing on a defeated Germany were too heavy and practicly SCREAMED at them to reduce the reparations before Germany that at the time had people dying of starvation...would become resurgent with nationalism and another war would break out. They didn't listen to us and we got WWII.

I want our tax dollars to go into rebuilding our own Country...it is time we helped ourselves instead of everyone else. Split Infinity

reply to post by yourmaker


My thoughts exactly OP.

We worry about the silliest things, when in the grand scheme of things, it would be like worrying where you put a bottle cap on your desk. It's about as important to the rest of the world as.... well not at all important.
Do you think anyone today cares, or even knows, of someone worrying about what to wear say 300 years ago? Good grief! no!

We are a system inside of a system inside of another system and therefore we lose focus on whats really going on and our place in everything.

We are just having a human experience. There's nothing to worry about. Eventually you will end up dead like everyone else. I always ask myself, "Will this(any worries/stress) matter 5 years from now?" If not then I stop worrying about it.

This clip from the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy (radio version) gets the point over rather well...

Originally posted by purplemonkeydishwasher

Originally posted by paleorchid13
I believe that sometimes words can only take away from epiphanies. Sometimes when I think about these things , I am as frightened as much as I am filled with awe, incredulity, and wonder.

I see you suffer from Apeiro-Chelonaphobia as well.

edit on 20-4-2012 by purplemonkeydishwasher because: (no reason given)

edit on 20-4-2012 by purplemonkeydishwasher because: (no reason given)

Funny, i went to google Apeiro-Chelonaphobia and all i got was one hit and it was this post and nothing else.

Originally posted by purplemonkeydishwasher
I thought it was more like a coffee table on the back of a turtle? on the back of a turtle
on the back of a turtle
on the back of a turtle
on the back of a turtle
on the back of a turtle
on the back of a turtle
on the back of a turtle
on the back of a turtle
on the back of a turtle
on the back of a turtle
on the back of a turtle?

edit on 20-4-2012 by purplemonkeydishwasher because: (no reason given)

You know, I am usually good at grasping concepts in physics...But when Stephen Hawking described the universe in this way, I just could not grasp his meaning...And I still don't.

You seem to understand what he meant...Would you be willing to dumb it down for me?

Great video from Hitchhikers! I like this one for perspective too We live on a planet! Amazing!





The Galaxy Song (Monty Python)

reply to post by yourmaker

I kind of see what you're saying.

We know that we're on a planet that circles a star that circles around something else, ultimately resolving to circling around clusters of galaxies and whatever else is out there.

This demonstrates that 1mm X 1mm held at 1m distance has (at least) 10,000 galaxies:
en.wikipedia.org...

That's (conservatively) about 130 billion galaxies, as I understand it (according to the link).

But there're bound to be many more as we reach deeper (in fact, the link says there're more).

The sun is like a soccer ball 60+ feet from something the size of 'o' (on your screen). Less than 3% of the actual radiant energy that hits the earth could power the entire planets electrical needs. So just picture in your mind the soccer ball and the 'o' 60 feet from each other and ask yourself: we receive such a sliver of sunlight, yet less than 3% of it could power all of our electrical needs?

So we know that.

But we live our lives like we don't know that.

If this is true, I honestly think it's just the momentum/inertia carried over from previous eras. The power of our imagination to imagine the universe is less than the power of this inertial "force".

This is the main reason I doubt a singularity will ever happen.

Even if we could live as pure energy, we'd probably still have pure energy cars and roads.

Even when we're capable of living off planet, we'll take our planetary way of living with us into space. So it's like taking your home with you wherever you go. After all, home is where your heart is.

Originally posted by gimme_some_truth

Originally posted by purplemonkeydishwasher
I thought it was more like a coffee table on the back of a turtle? on the back of a turtle
on the back of a turtle
on the back of a turtle
on the back of a turtle
on the back of a turtle
on the back of a turtle
on the back of a turtle
on the back of a turtle
on the back of a turtle
on the back of a turtle
on the back of a turtle?

You know, I am usually good at grasping concepts in physics...But when Stephen Hawking described the universe in this way, I just could not grasp his meaning...And I still don't.

You seem to understand what he meant...Would you be willing to dumb it down for me?

Essentially when this metaphor is used it is talking about the fractal nature of reality and how it self similarly repeats itself at all levels of magnification . Watch a zoom of the Mandlebrot set and you'll see "turtle on top of turtle on top of turtle".

The ancient myths that used this to describe reality are closer to the truth and understanding the nature of the universe we live in, than the people who use the concept to mock them.

All old myths/metaphors need to be read as narrative metaphors for the fundamental mechanics of the universe and our minds. Nothing more... but also nothing less (if you catch my drift). Kinda like if you were to describe how a machine works by personifying the parts and talking about how they interact by using social concepts people are intimately familiar with. When the social context changes, the stories cease to make sense and then we scratch our heads (or worse, presume the people were idiots who "believed" them) not realizing the treasure trove of wisdom we're overlooking.

The turtle on back of turtle *is* the dumbed down version, but for an entirely different social and cultural time period. Now we can just say the "fractal nature of reality" and that's a more appropriate metaphor for *our* social culture.

Namaste.

reply to post by ErgoTheConfusion

Smart.

Why does my brain not see things like that? I know a bit about fractals and these sorts of ideas. I was thinking about this the other day when I caught something that my mind had missed previously. I wonder if this reflects my average IQ or is it something else. This "tunnel vision" I have.

On page 33 in Astronomy, January 2010 (magazine), in the article What galaxy superclusters tell us about the universe, Mandelbrot said: "Years ago, the cosmologists said my fractal models don't apply, but now they've changed their minds and said that the models don't apply to the infinitely small and infinitely large." He goes on to say, "There are laws of nature that apply under extremely different conditions. Nature is ruled by the big equations of mathematical physics. Things that seem to be completely irregular are, in fact, very regular. So, there is some big principle of organization in our universe from one scientific discipline to another." (this is not EXACTLY how it appeared in the article, but I took some liberty to skip past the "he said" type breaks and the fluff between comments.)

Originally posted by gimme_some_truth

Originally posted by purplemonkeydishwasher
I thought it was more like a coffee table on the back of a turtle? on the back of a turtle
on the back of a turtle
on the back of a turtle
on the back of a turtle
on the back of a turtle
on the back of a turtle
on the back of a turtle
on the back of a turtle
on the back of a turtle
on the back of a turtle
on the back of a turtle?

edit on 20-4-2012 by purplemonkeydishwasher because: (no reason given)

You know, I am usually good at grasping concepts in physics...But when Stephen Hawking described the universe in this way, I just could not grasp his meaning...And I still don't.

You seem to understand what he meant...Would you be willing to dumb it down for me?

edit on 20-4-2012 by gimme_some_truth because: (no reason given)

He was speaking in rhetoric in his book, I believe, not one to put words or meaning into another's mouth, but a reference to an older time where the people had a much more simplistic view of the universe, it is a reference to infinity - one might say that the globe now is suspended by a gossamer strand that extends from a spider's web above us, which is on a branch, on a branch, on a branch.. etc. The story surrounding the theory is explained succinctly in the following wiki article.

from wiki - Turtles All the Way Down
en.wikipedia.org...

The most widely known version appears in Stephen Hawking's 1988 book A Brief History of Time, which starts:
A well-known scientist (some say it was Bertrand Russell) once gave a public lecture on astronomy. He described how the earth orbits around the sun and how the sun, in turn, orbits around the center of a vast collection of stars called our galaxy. At the end of the lecture, a little old lady at the back of the room got up and said: "What you have told us is rubbish. The world is really a flat plate supported on the back of a giant tortoise." The scientist gave a superior smile before replying, "What is the tortoise standing on?" "You're very clever, young man, very clever," said the old lady. "But it's turtles all the way down!"

reply to post by ErgoTheConfusion


Thanks for fielding that.