Once you understand the scale of the universe and the scope of your personal existance within it, there is no question of your insignificance. There is literally nothing you can do as an individual that will make any lasting mark, nor is the rest of the universe in any way dependant upon your decision or behavior. Far from being depressing or discouraging, this should be liberating. For all of human history we’ve been told that there are gods (or sometimes just one) which are responsible for disasters natural and personal, who pass judgment upon us or demand our obedience or are often wilfully, violently, psychotically vengeful for not following any of a vast number of arbitrary and often undocumentented rules. The people espousing these claims often had an agenda to coerce, control, or otherwise take advantage of a largely illiterate populace trained to believe in this nonsensical superstition and to fear that their every movement and statement is being followed by some invisible man in the sky. (“My words fly up, my thoughts remain below. Words without thoughts never to heaven go.”) Humanity has been fed a series of competing claims, demands, and rules about how to treat one another (often badly), who it is and is not okay to rape or murder (those who look or act differently from you), and where to send yout tithes (to a P.O. box somewhere in Delaware).
However, in the context of what we now know about the universe and our place in it, and more to the point, the absolute and incontestable failure of every single religion that has ever existed to make any detailed substantive claims about how it came to be, functions on a basic level, or is otherwise managed, that have been in any way verified by experiment or observation, it is pretty clear that there are no gods, or at least, absolutely no need to invoke a god or other supernatural being to explain any of the wide variety of amazing and awe-inspiring natural phenomena. From a rainbow to an incondescing planetary nebula, from a cloud formation to a geothermal spring, from a flatworm to a European supermodel, all can be explained with a self-consistent set of basic physical principles, the core of which we are still finding new and miraculous rules to describe. Far from Keat’s laments of natural philosophy serving to “unweave a rainbow,” the knowledge of how such complex behavior emerges from a few simple rules is one of the greatest pleasures and comfort in an ultimate order and reason for everything that occurs, even if it may be too complex and chaotic for us to always predict it. No petulantly splenetic gods are required; no irregular divine laws or arbitrary morality need be imposed; no need to live harshly in this world and give up the fruits of your labor to some robe-splendored troubadors in order to be rewarded in the next. That it is good to treat your neighbors and strangers with charity and compasion is not the direction of some unseen commandment but rather a natural consequence of social grace and enlightened self-interest, nor are you obligated to fear and harm others who don’t fit into your niche or obey your specific creed.
That the entirety of the world is not only much more vast than any authorities of old claimed or predicted but actually larger than we will ever be able to survey or measure is one of the great liberating challenges of existance. That there will never be an “end”–no ultimate revelation or Apocalypse, unless we choose to make one of and to ourselves–means that we are not just animals in the tiny zoo cage of some divine Creation, but rather complex, emergent sentience in a universe so vast and complex that our best attempts to describe it are only course and imperfect models. It means that however amazing whatever we’ve seen up to this point may be, there are with utter certainly many more amazing things yet to come, and will keep coming practically forever without limit as long as we deign to keep looking.
It makes me feel very much loved, a sense of home and belonging, guidance and protection, purpose and growth and unlimited possibilities waiting in and beyond our universe… It is like a comforting blanket all around.
Seeing the vastness of the cosmos makes me feel less insignificant, by making the activities of the people here on this stone seem a lot less important in the overally scheme of things. Which probably tells you how human social activities in general tend to make me feel.
Does the smallness of atoms, electrons and quarks make you feel especially significant? I kind of like being in the center of the large and small scales, although I imagine it’s an illusion just like the ones that we’re in the center of the galaxy or universe. We can only see so far up and so far down, so it seems like we’re in the middle, on an exponential scale, that is.
The incredible vastness of the universe doesn’t make me feel insignificant so much as irrelevant. And that, I feel, is a good thing. It makes me feel free. I’m not beholden to some higher power, I’m not the lynch pin of the entire system, no gods or devils are fighting over my soul. I’m my own man.
“Space is big. Really big. You just won’t believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is.”
I prefer to deal with the Total Perspective Vortex, myself
But I agree, the point is to do away with the hubris of thinking It’s All About You. You get over that and you can enjoy being in the middle of all of the wonder to feel and the things to experience.
Appealing to the cosmos is overkill. I find I can get a similar effect in rush hour traffic, a large sports arena, or going to a hill overlooking a large city. Yep, I’m just another asshole in a sea of assholes. No matter what you do, one billion Chinese don’t care.
Yes, it does make me feel insignificant but that doesn’t make me feel sad. What makes me feel sad is that I’ll never get to explore all that is out there. I need a TARDIS and a billion year life span. Then I would be content.
You think that’s a waste? Consider some of the hypothesized possible other universes where some of the most fundamental constants are just a wee tad different, where quarks can’t even coalesce into protons or neutrons, or if they can, then those can’t coalesce into atoms and molecules.
No, but the idea of intelligent extraterrestrial life does.
If we are the first technology capable intelligent species then we can reform the cosmos and create a (likely) permanent class of intelligent beings. If other species have come before us, then we are just another. Our greatest discoveries of the 21st century that we will work hard and spend trillions to achieve would be old hat to a more advanced species.
No, I think I’m significant to the cosmos. Just like how a single ant is significant to its colony. Anyway, the idea of extraterrestrial is such an interesting topic.
While I’m dumbfounded by the vastness of the universe, and how much we don’t know, I’m simultaneously in awe of how much our puny ape-brains actually DO know. We got very lucky. Evolution left us with lots of “extra” brain power, and we did pretty damn good so far in figuring things out.
Of course that’s what The Matrix wants us to think!!!
But one day I stumbled upon this fantastic thing. It allows you to see how the size of a human compares to the very smallest things and very largest things in the universe.
Guess which end of the spectrum we’re closer to?
So we’re both really small and really big all at the same time. Yay us.
The galaxies and stars and supernovas and such aren’t the amazing part.
The amazing part is that we have had our consciousness developed to a sufficient degree to be able to enjoy, appreciate, and grasp it all. The point of light in the sky isn’t the point-the mind that can take it all in is.
In that sense, it doesn’t make me feel insignificant, at all.
I am delighted and amazed by all of the wonderful replies here. Actually, the way that Feynman and Tyson both talk about the “feeling insignificant” part, I had the impression not that it was how they themselves felt, but rather that it was a reaction they encountered often among the public.
I myself was a little bewildered to hear that people react that way. Nothing of the sort ever occurred to me – I’m like, “Hey, what if it goes on forever? Cool!”
I’m with John DiFool, John Mace, and RickJay. The only way one can feel insignificant is if one is defining oneself by comparison to something else. We are all significant, and we live in a vast, enormous, compellingly beautiful and confoundingly mysterious universe.
Also, Stranger On A Train, that was most eloquently said.
When I look at things on this scale, I feel like I am it, like it is one thing: the whole universe set apart in a frame at a good distance for viewing. Impossible! Therefore I’m in it; I am it.
