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The gold is at the bottom: “The humble person is probably more aware and accepting of the fact that against a cosmic scale of time and space, every human being

The gold is at the bottom: “The humble person is probably more aware and accepting of the fact that against a cosmic scale of time and space, every human being is minute.” If there's one thing that will humble you it's trying to fathom the scale of the universe. You think a celebrity matters at these scales? But don't let it make you feel impotent - rejoice at the fact that you're alive, you exist and the world is fucking interesting. Even if you just stare out the window all day, you're a consciousness residing in a stardust body observing the thing that made you.

Kenji 11y ago
I never really understood how the 'the universe is vast' argument is humbling. What does size have to do with importance? That's like saying a bar of gold has less value if you store it in a bigger room. There are many humbling things in the universe, like making an off-by-one error in C++ with more than a decade of programming experience, but the vastness of the universe is not one of those things.
- deleted 11y ago
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- jacquesm 11y ago
  The base of that goes back to a very simple realization: On a cosmic scale nothing that we do is of great importance. This planet likely is not as special as we would like to think it is and we are not as special as we like to think we are. We are to the universe as a single bacterium is to us. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0fKBhvDjuy0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0fKBhvDjuy0 Is a nice recap of just how vast the universe really is and how utterly insignificant we are within it, in spite of all we're figured out and have achieved collectively. It certainly humbles me.
  - marcosdumay 11y ago
    I can just as easily extract the opposite conclusion, and say that we must be incredibly special if it took an universe that big to create us. And it's as good as a conclusion until we discover if intelligent is common or not. I'd side with it not being a good argument.
    - sfilipov 11y ago
      Another humbling aspect is how fragile we are. Even today, there is a number of unpredictable cosmic events outside our control that can destroy humanity and life on Earth very quickly. And every one of us is just a "meat bag" that doesn't know whether it will wake up tomorrow. I find these realizations humbling. Some people get depressed by these thought but they make me appreciate life even more.
    - jrs235 11y ago
      "We're significantly insignificant while also being insignificantly significant."
  - sullyj3 11y ago
    There's no such thing as importance independent of sentient minds. Importance is what we find important; or to put it another way, whatever we find important - is.
- rprospero 11y ago
  I used to think the same thing, but it's not about putting the gold bar in a large empty room. Consider that the our galaxy has a mass of about 6×10^42 kg. The relative abundance of gold is 6×10^-10, so our galaxy has 4×10^33 kg of gold. The gold bar isn't in a large empty room. It's in a room filled with piles of gold, each more massive than the planet Mercury, for every person on Earth. Amongst those piles, would that single bar still hold value to you? Edit: Formatting engine didn't like using * for multiplication
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- forgetsusername 11y ago
  >I never really understood how the 'the universe is vast' argument is humbling. The idea that if there are millions of planets like ours, containing billions and billions of beings like us, on average your "problems" could be a lot worse. I find it humbling imagining the epicness of some of the struggles going on elsewhere in the universe.
- mtreis86 11y ago
  I think that it's not about an argument, its a mental simulation and chemical effect. If you hold in your head the feeling of owning your body completely, for a moment, then start to imagine zooming out to a wider perspective, slowly, like a camera you see the whole world then the solar system, etc. As you scale outwards there is usually a noticeable chemical reaction in your brain and body. You literally feel smaller. My guess is you are triggering a predator-is-bigger-than-me reaction in your brain.
derrida 11y ago
"What did your face look like before your parents were born?" There's a quality in these one-liners from the Zen tradition that I haven't experienced since I was obsessed with physics in high-school.
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codeshaman 11y ago
"that against a cosmic scale of time and space, every human being is minute" There is a paved road to clinical depression which starts with thoughts like these. I know it because I've taken it. Life stops having meaning if you take this too seriously - I mean, why do anything or achieve anything if we're just specs in time and space destined to die and be forgotten ? Besides, this doesn't necessarily imply humility. If it doesn't matter then it doesn't matter - if you've got a small/quiet ego or you're a larger-than-universe egomaniac... because... we're just a minute...
- blowski 11y ago
  To the universe you are nothing. To history you are probably nothing. But to a small number of people you can be everything.
  - codeshaman 11y ago
    'Cause for the world you are someone, but for someone you're the world' ;) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bOlG-H_Pjbg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bOlG-H_Pjbg
- danenania 11y ago
  There's another type of depression that comes from always grasping for (money|acceptance|fame|success|whatever) and never fully attaining it. For people stuck on this treadmill, the long perspective can be a good reminder that none of it is really worth getting too bent out of shape about. On a cosmic timescale, all these things we worry about will be gone and forgotten in the blink of an eye. The best antidote to avoid swinging the other way, into nihilism, is to simply live in the present as much as possible and enjoy what's there. Things don't need to be permanent and important to be enjoyable. Think about games. We know the outcome doesn't matter in any larger frame of reference, but we still like playing and get wrapped up in them for their own sake. Life is just another game--not ultimately significant, but fun to get wrapped up in if you don't take the outcome overly seriously.
  - hosh 11y ago
hosh 11y ago
When I do that, I open up to the sense of awe and wonder, but not necessarily humility.

Kenji 11y ago

I never really understood how the 'the universe is vast' argument is humbling. What does size have to do with importance? That's like saying a bar of gold has less value if you store it in a bigger room. There are many humbling things in the universe, like making an off-by-one error in C++ with more than a decade of programming experience, but the vastness of the universe is not one of those things.

deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
jacquesm 11y ago
The base of that goes back to a very simple realization: On a cosmic scale nothing that we do is of great importance. This planet likely is not as special as we would like to think it is and we are not as special as we like to think we are. We are to the universe as a single bacterium is to us. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0fKBhvDjuy0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0fKBhvDjuy0 Is a nice recap of just how vast the universe really is and how utterly insignificant we are within it, in spite of all we're figured out and have achieved collectively. It certainly humbles me.
- marcosdumay 11y ago
  I can just as easily extract the opposite conclusion, and say that we must be incredibly special if it took an universe that big to create us. And it's as good as a conclusion until we discover if intelligent is common or not. I'd side with it not being a good argument.
  - sfilipov 11y ago
    Another humbling aspect is how fragile we are. Even today, there is a number of unpredictable cosmic events outside our control that can destroy humanity and life on Earth very quickly. And every one of us is just a "meat bag" that doesn't know whether it will wake up tomorrow. I find these realizations humbling. Some people get depressed by these thought but they make me appreciate life even more.
  - jrs235 11y ago
    "We're significantly insignificant while also being insignificantly significant."
- sullyj3 11y ago
  There's no such thing as importance independent of sentient minds. Importance is what we find important; or to put it another way, whatever we find important - is.
rprospero 11y ago
I used to think the same thing, but it's not about putting the gold bar in a large empty room. Consider that the our galaxy has a mass of about 6×10^42 kg. The relative abundance of gold is 6×10^-10, so our galaxy has 4×10^33 kg of gold. The gold bar isn't in a large empty room. It's in a room filled with piles of gold, each more massive than the planet Mercury, for every person on Earth. Amongst those piles, would that single bar still hold value to you? Edit: Formatting engine didn't like using * for multiplication
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
forgetsusername 11y ago
>I never really understood how the 'the universe is vast' argument is humbling. The idea that if there are millions of planets like ours, containing billions and billions of beings like us, on average your "problems" could be a lot worse. I find it humbling imagining the epicness of some of the struggles going on elsewhere in the universe.
mtreis86 11y ago
I think that it's not about an argument, its a mental simulation and chemical effect. If you hold in your head the feeling of owning your body completely, for a moment, then start to imagine zooming out to a wider perspective, slowly, like a camera you see the whole world then the solar system, etc. As you scale outwards there is usually a noticeable chemical reaction in your brain and body. You literally feel smaller. My guess is you are triggering a predator-is-bigger-than-me reaction in your brain.

derrida 11y ago

"What did your face look like before your parents were born?" There's a quality in these one-liners from the Zen tradition that I haven't experienced since I was obsessed with physics in high-school.

deleted 11y ago
[deleted]

codeshaman 11y ago

"that against a cosmic scale of time and space, every human being is minute" There is a paved road to clinical depression which starts with thoughts like these. I know it because I've taken it. Life stops having meaning if you take this too seriously - I mean, why do anything or achieve anything if we're just specs in time and space destined to die and be forgotten ? Besides, this doesn't necessarily imply humility. If it doesn't matter then it doesn't matter - if you've got a small/quiet ego or you're a larger-than-universe egomaniac... because... we're just a minute...

blowski 11y ago
To the universe you are nothing. To history you are probably nothing. But to a small number of people you can be everything.
- codeshaman 11y ago
  'Cause for the world you are someone, but for someone you're the world' ;) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bOlG-H_Pjbg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bOlG-H_Pjbg
danenania 11y ago
There's another type of depression that comes from always grasping for (money|acceptance|fame|success|whatever) and never fully attaining it. For people stuck on this treadmill, the long perspective can be a good reminder that none of it is really worth getting too bent out of shape about. On a cosmic timescale, all these things we worry about will be gone and forgotten in the blink of an eye. The best antidote to avoid swinging the other way, into nihilism, is to simply live in the present as much as possible and enjoy what's there. Things don't need to be permanent and important to be enjoyable. Think about games. We know the outcome doesn't matter in any larger frame of reference, but we still like playing and get wrapped up in them for their own sake. Life is just another game--not ultimately significant, but fun to get wrapped up in if you don't take the outcome overly seriously.
- hosh 11y ago

hosh 11y ago

When I do that, I open up to the sense of awe and wonder, but not necessarily humility.