Seeking Awe within a Galactic Supercluster
“We fit the universe through our brains, and it comes out in the form of nothing less than poetry. We have a responsibility to awe.”
— Jason Silva
I love this idea. We have a responsibility to awe — to seek it out and not leave it to chance.
But why seek awe?
- Fun. Personally, I get bored easily and love seeking out information and/or scenarios that challenge my perspectives on life. So…. fun is a sufficient reason by itself in my book.
- Compassion. A Stanford study shows that “awe can ease impatience,” make you more willing to volunteer time, have you prefer experience over material goods AND increase your overall satisfaction in life.
- John Boyd. Who? Boyd was a military strategist and US Air Force fighter pilot best known for the creation of the OODA Loop, a process for decision making and learning. Much like Charlie Munger, Boyd is a firm believer in developing a latticework of mental models and then deconstructing and rebuilding them. He called this processes “destructive deduction” and “creative induction”. This is where awe comes in…
Awe
Jason Silva defines awe as “an experience of such perceptual vastness you literally have to reconfigure your mental models of the world to assimilate it”. He also quotes the book The Wondering Brain saying “one of the ways we elicit wonder is by scrambling the self temporarily so the world can seep in.”
It seems then, awe can be used to break down our current world-view and create paradigms shifts which, in turn, help us to adapt our mental models for new and more challenging situations.
One way I seek awe is by geeking out on the vastness and complexity of the universe (if you haven’t seen the video Science Saved My Soul I highly recommend it).
Here’s a few thoughts, links, and ideas that blow my mind:
The Universe
The age of our Universe is currently measured to be approximately 13.8 billion years. This immense amount of time seems to have passed instantaneously from our perspective.
“… now try to imagine what it was like to wake up having never gone to sleep.”
― Alan W. Watts
We observe time as it passes at the speed of consciousness, building off of old ideas while making discoveries by way of exploration, experimentation, and insatiable curiosity. As the great physicist and mathematician Sir Isaac Newton humbly said “If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of Giants.”
It’s remarkable to think that in 1903 the first flight was 12 seconds long and for a total distance of 120 feet.
Now, 112 years later, we have car-sized robots exploring Mars transmitting information to orbiting spacecraft and/or directly back to Earth.
The speed and radical openness of information is also astonishing. It’s easy to take for granted but how crazy is it that I am able to embed a video of an astronaut explaining to comedian Joe Rogan the process of going from zero miles-per-hour to orbiting Earth and it’s accessible to millions of people?
Pretty crazy, right? I can only imagine how intense that 9 minutes would be. Now check out this clip of an actual blast-off.
Put on some headphones and TURN IT UP.
Speaking of Orbit
As Earth orbits the Sun, our solar system is also orbiting the Galactic Center of our galaxy, the Milky Way, every 225–250 million years. This is known as a galactic year.
To put this in perspective, the dinosaurs died out about 65 million years ago, approximately 1/3 of a galactic year ago.
“Gravity explains the motions of the planets, but it cannot explain who sets the planets in motion.”
― Isaac Newton
Note: The facts from the original video of this gif have been challenged extensively. One claim, among others, is that the planets should be tilted at a 60° angle (not 90°).
I just love how it demonstrates our solar system ripping through the cosmos while orbiting the Milky Way.
The Milky Way
Our galaxy, the Milky Way, is home to more than 100 billion stars and thought to be at least 100,000 light years across. It’s also part of a cosmic web of galaxies.
Just last year (September 2014) our place in the universe was redefined to a much larger supercluster than previously thought called Laniakea which means “immeasurable heaven” in Hawaiian.
Check out this 4 minute video to get a glimpse of this cosmic web. This stuff blows my mind.
Meanwhile, aliens.
If you missed it, an Atlantic article by Ross Andersen published on October 13th of this year explains the bizarre findings from the Kepler Space Telescope of a star within our galaxy.
Kepler looks for dips in light emitted by stars to find orbiting planets that could be earth-like. Among 150,000 stars, one stood out.
Keplar observed the star, KIC 8462852, emitting a very strange pattern of light. Theoretical physicist Michio Kaku claims “this star is breaking all the rules.”
This has sparked great interest and raised speculation of the possibility of an alien megastructure such as a Dyson sphere causing the bizarre observation.
That said…
“Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.”
― Carl Sagan
The next step is to point a massive radio dish at KIC 8462852 to eavesdrop and see if it emits radio waves at frequencies associated with a technological source.
Regardless of the outcome, this whole scenario fascinates me.
Closing thoughts
The upshot of awe-striking moments is the perspective shifts that make a huge difference in the way we live our lives.
Carl Sagan delivers a fantastic viewpoint on the world in his ‘Pale Blue Dot’ quote. (Check out the Soundcloud track below for the full quote)
“This is the rhapsodic, ecstatic, bursting forth of awe that expands our perceptual parameters beyond all previous limits. And we literally have to reconfigure our mental models of the world in order to assimilate the beauty of that download. That is what it means to be inspired. The Greek root of the term means to breathe in… to take it in…”
— Jason Silva
Take it in… and remember, we have a responsibility to awe.
Go.
Blow.
Your.
Mind.
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P.S.
There may be some wisdom we can attain by mimicking the physics of the Universe. Take for example this passage from the book “Money and the Meaning of Life” by Jacob Needleman.
Because so many aspects of life seem to have a paradoxical nature, this idea of orbiting problems and challenges might be a helpful one. When we come at this situation with some patience and curiosity, viewing it from many angles, we become more knowledgeable and more fit to make conclusions.
“If I have ever made any valuable discoveries, it has been due more to patient attention, than to any other talent”
— Isaac Newton
