I was watching some Monty Python this morning, and my favorite song of theirs came on and made me smile, as usual. Lyrics follow:
Just remember that you’re standing on a planet that’s evolving
And revolving at nine hundred miles an hour,
That’s orbiting at nineteen miles a second, so it’s reckoned,
A sun that is the source of all our power.
Do you enjoy maintaining a sense of galactic perspective? Does it bother you? Do you not care? Poll to follow!
Pale Blue Dot. No further explanation required.
Personally, I moved up into the Rockies with nearly zero light pollution, the stars are amazing on nights when there is high pressure and zero cloud cover. I’ve often sat in our meadow, looked up and just wondered…how many planets am I looking at? How many other beings are looking back? I never feel alone when I think about the universe and think about who I am as a citizen on the planet, and as a visitor within this universe. Of course, fleeting thoughts abound when I think of myself ***AS ***the universe, as a facet of this planet recently emerged into thinking. Cool.
Thanks for the link, I really enjoyed that. But the question is how you feel about our lack of relevance. 
So a little further explanation would be nice.
I’ve always thought about this. I can’t remember NOT thinking about our place in the universe.
My conclusion has always been that we’re completely and utterly insignificant.
Have fun. Stay healthy. And remember that in a generation or two no one will care who you were.
I’ve thought about it ever since I saw this tee shirt. Further reinforced by the Hubble Deep Field photo. Making matters worse is the Drake Equation and the certain knowledge that, while there undoubtedly has been and will be other life in the universe, we, for all intents and purposes, are very, very alone here on our little pale blue planet, essentially ship-wrecked by the relativistic limitations on FTL travel.
Although I could have responded “I like thinking about it” that isn’t quite the case for me.
I try to step back from my own humanity, with all its biases and limitations, to consider the alleged development of life, consciousness, society and the associated concepts that relate to our species, and to entertain the notion that similar developments have happened or will happen elsewhere in the Universe.
All the ways of examining these concepts are intriguing and the very fact that concepts developed in one sphere of thought (religion, let’s say) can have influence over similar concepts developed in antithetical spheres (science, let’s say) is amusing to consider, absent any particular bias as to which is “more correct.”
The unifying thing for me is that we all try in some way or another to cope with our mortality and to ascribe something like purpose to that existence.
I find it quite comforting. No matter what I do, in the grand scheme of things, it’s utterly meaningless. And, most importantly, the fact that it’s meaningless is also meaningless.
So I don’t have to worry about the Grand Scheme. I can concentrate on my own Scheme - me, my family, my friends, my community, my little patch of Earth – in ascending order of “I can’t screw it up *that *badly.”
Remove the fear of a Permanent Record, and you’re free to do what works for you and yours. That’s where Power begins.
There is no such thing as “humanity’s relevance on the grand universal scale,” IMHO. You can’t just be “relevant”; you have to be relevant to someone or something. And as far as I know, the size of the rest of the universe doesn’t affect how relevant humanity is to anything or anyone that matters.
I voted "who cares?’
It may seem like a flippant answer to what is a major issue, but I feel you have to be pragmatic about things like this.
Is humanity important on the scale of the universe? No, we’re incredibly insignificant.
But humanity is important on the scale of humanity and that’s where we live. There may be vitally important issues at the universal level but we aren’t a part of those issues. So we should focus on the scale where we can have an effect on the issues and where we know the issues can effect us.
I would like to subscribe to your newsletter.
We are discussing our relevance to life, the universe… everything, really.
And if I may be pedantic; seeing as how the universe is infinite, and given that any finite quantity in relation to an infinite quantity is mathematically equivalent to zero, we have no relevance to the universe whatsoever.
I guess once you accept that the universe is both infinately large and infinately small you can live with the fact that we’re just somewhere inbetween interacting with whats relative to us in scale.
I think we are both tiny and relevant.
More precisely, I feel that sentience is a mighty significant thing for a universe to have, just as our planet is notable (though, I’m pretty sure, not singular) for having us, and we are notable among the planet’s species for having opened ourselves to wonder.
Sentient peoples are the mind and eye of the universe.
No problem, I voted for “enjoy”. I find it both interesting and good mental exercise to think things through from another perspective, and you can’t get a much bigger shift than pale blue dot (well, you can, but then we don’t show up at all). The Carl Sagan quote is a good antidote to our vanity and egotism. I think it should be required reading for everyone, especially politicians, religious leaders and celebrities. For example, Harold Camping and his followers would have benefitted from the insight that the universe is not human-centric.
From a universal perspective, I’m a mote on a mote on a mote, even my best efforts are lost in the vastness of time and space. I don’t find that discouraging, if anything it is slightly comforting.
I was a bit baffled by the number of “who cares” responses, but that makes perfect sense. I certainly don’t think it’s healthy to obsess about these issues. Speculating about the above doesn’t affect me greatly in day-to-day matters, except to give me a slightly better perspective on my problems.
I feel the same way, comforted by the fact that it doesn’t matter to anyone outside of our ant hill. It’s actually why I’m in such a good mood today. I was wondering if that was universal (heh), or if it more often tended to cause disquiet.
When I am down about something or depressed, it cheers me up when I remember how insignificant we really are.
I don’t believe that we have any lack of relevance. You say that humanity is small when considered in relation to the universe. The microchip in the computer that I’m typing on is small compared to the computer itself, yet the computer’s entire purpose depends on the microchip.
Human beings are, as far as we know, the only self-aware beings residing in the universe. Thus humanity is raised up to a higher level of being than inanimate matter. The word “relevant” comes from the Latin relevare, which means ‘to raise up’, so humanity is more relevant than any number of inanimate stars, galaxies, and planets.
Just one well placed asteroid though …