Ha, ha! The Hubble takin’ selfies!
It’s a very rare thing for me to get that kind of mental perspective, but when I am able to consider the world from afar and I get the “small” feeling, it is definitely negative in the way you describe. The feeling can be summed up by the phrase “Why bother?”
All of humanity combined has a smaller impact on the universe than anyone capable of considering the whole universe at once could even begin to measure. We are not even as significant as a rounding error, in the whole scheme of things. The worst torture I could imagine, watching my family die in the most horribly evil way possible, isn’t worth a shrug.
The smallest bit of time (cosmically speaking) completely erases all the suffering, all the joy, all the wonder and despair and creativity and ingenuity of every person who ever lived, leaving absolutely nothing behind. Even if we manage to colonize the galaxy, there will eventually be a time when the fact that humanity even existed is forgotten. We have already completely and entirely forgotten a hundred times more people than we will collectively ever remember. There is no possible way for anything I (or you, or we) do to ever endure, or even influence anything in the smallest way. Eventually the sun will swallow us whole, and it will be as if we were never here.
Insignificant? Are you kidding??? Have you seen the size of my ego? It’s the sole reason that the universe must keep expanding.
Nope.
I figure I can conceptualize the cosmos but it can’t conceptualize me.
Who’s greater now?
It does. But I don’t mind it or consider it a negative thing.
Okay, I respect that. I can’t deny that it’s true. But … it’s all here now, as are you. If things of significance and delight happen in your lifetime – best of all, to you – (and it is reasonable to assume that the same will be true for your descendants) then, well, you have enjoyed an interesting life in an interesting place. If you want something of us to endure, there is always that “Golden Record.” But, depending on the timescale you’re talking about, it is the nature of the universe to change, and change is life. (every metabolic process in your body constitutes “change.”)
I don’t need the cosmos to make me feel insignificant. My wife takes care of that for me.
Of all the billions of species that have inhabited our planet, humans are the only ones that can even partially understand what we see when we look at the stars. We’re the only ones who can grasp how huge the universe is. That makes me feel proud, not insignificant.
As vast and spectacular as the universe is, what really blows me away is that there is something beyond our understanding behind it all, waiting to be known.
It’s not that it makes me feel small. It’s that it feels way too big. It can actually make me physically sick to think about it too much. It just too overwhelming.