6 ms·

Off-topic, but does anyone else feel claustrophobic when reading about the vastness of the universe? I enjoy astronomy related topics but when reading articles

Off-topic, but does anyone else feel claustrophobic when reading about the vastness of the universe? I enjoy astronomy related topics but when reading articles about the scale or the expansion of the universe, etc I start feeling physically uncomfortable and need to take a break.

R0b0t1 6y ago
You're looking for agoraphobic.
- neetrain 6y ago
  We're forever stuck inside a thin layer of the Earth surface. It makes me kind of claustrophobic.
  - d_silin 6y ago
    Definitely not forever.
    - neetrain 6y ago
      It's only my perceptions. Yes, several hundreds of people had already been in space. Space travel could be the norm in the next few decades. Man could terraform Mars in the next millennium, or conquer the milky way galaxy five million years later. However, I still feel like "we're stuck forever".
- astatine 6y ago
  The sense of smallness of the self is probably what causes the claustrophobia. The last time I read of agoraphobia was in an Ian Fleming novel!
crancher 6y ago
Try and "step back" and observe the universe observing itself through your mind. Your "you" is local chunk of universe coded with a capacity to consider the smallest and largest scales of itself. Your mind can easily encompass the universe in thought, summing up everything known as easily as you take a breath. It's an incredible ability, cherish it!
- jonsen 6y ago
  This reminds me of a physics teacher I had in elementary school: -But is there anything faster than light? -??? ... -Yes! Our thoughts. In my thoughts I can be on the moon instantly.
  - mod 6y ago
    Elementary school physics classes? ... on Earth?
    - jonsen 6y ago
      Denmark, in the 1960s. Elementary school grade 1 to 7, no kindergarten.
- EMM_386 6y ago
  I try to explain this to people all the time, especially on topics like panpsychism. Is the universe conscious? Well, parts of it certainly are! And those parts are learning about itself as a whole.
- patcon 6y ago
  Yesssss! An amazingly small skin of matter (folds in spacetime) on this rock floating in space has geometry encoded with information about the deepest pores of subatomic reality, the massive scales of space and time above and beyond ourselves. It's pretty fucking incredible. [EDIT: You are a small entry lane in a highway interchange in the universe, that is the busiest fucking information nexus in the observable universe.] You might feel like you're a speck floating above kilometers of deep dark ocean, but that's just your matter. If you think about your (our!) information, we're almost more like the water itself in our permeance -- or like some sort of aerogel -- compared to anything else floating in this thing :)
indy 6y ago
In that case you should never look at the Pale Blue Dot image
zaarn 6y ago
I can recommend Universal Paperclips as treatment. You start making paperclips by hand and end by converting the entire universe into paperclips. The universe seems big until that counter at the bottom of your screen says "0.0000000001% explored" and starts rapidly going up.
admissionsguy 6y ago
I always keep this diagram of the scales of universe [1] close at hand. It feels liberating to look at it when I feel overwhelmed. To me, it shows that it is completely preposterous to worry about.. anything, really. The Earth is negligible. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Location_of_Earth_(9x1-English_Annot-small).png https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Location_of_Earth_(9x1-En...
hoten 6y ago
Not being dismissive but a serious answer: go outside? Walk a trail? Just do something to get out of your head. Maybe then you could consume some audio content about astronomy without feeling overwhelmed (or just find a place to read outside). I get the sense that being in a room (which is always pretty small) makes the abstract claustrophobia feel more real.
RobertoG 6y ago
Do you mean agoraphobic? I think it can be re-framed like a feeling of freedom and possibility. For instance, if you managed to live one million years and visit all the galaxy, you would have not even started.
saiya-jin 6y ago
Claustrophobic as for being afraid closed space? Universe produces exactly opposite effect on me - head-spinning feeling of a tiny speck floating in the turbulent never-ending massive storm of gigantic proportions, at mercy of titanic forces all around. Kind of vertigo when standing on the edge of the roof of super-tall building, looking down, and barely seeing the ground below, and open air all around. It is always a very humbling sensation, which is good. No place for arrogance when you are nothing and mean nothing from certain scale of things.
throwaway_kufu 6y ago
Initially Reading your comment I thought not claustrophobic but I really identify with the last part of your description “physically uncomfortable.” Truth is I have never been able to describe that particular physical feeling, so maybe claustrophobic is not exact but perhaps a similar type of physical sensation/experience. For me it’s actually very difficult to put myself in that state, it’s somewhere between extremely deep thought and meditation...I’ll go so far as to say even things I don’t necessarily believe in such as remote viewing and/or some type of outer body experience. I’ll also add that while it’s not something I actively practice by any means ( and I otherwise engage in breathing exercises/meditation - mostly to help my running) I really like that uneasy feeling and find I can only maintain it for short periods.
pipingdog 6y ago
There isn't really any sort of distinct boundary between "you" and the "rest" of the universe.
- lisper 6y ago
  I used to believe this, but it turns out not to be true, and in a very profound way. If you're a living thing, i.e. a self-reproducing system, then you have no choice but to draw some sort of boundary around yourself, i.e. the system that is doing the reproducing, and the "rest of the universe" which contains the resources you need to exploit in order to reproduce. These boundaries are manifest at multiple layers of abstraction: the membrane around the cell nucleus in eukaryotes, cell walls, your skin, families, species, city-states, nation-states. The boundaries may not be "distinct", but they definitely and necessarily exist.
filoeleven 6y ago
> The Total Perspective Vortex was a machine built with the intention of showing beings the infinity of creation, which became used as a method of torture. https://hitchhikers.fandom.com/wiki/Total_Perspective_Vortex https://hitchhikers.fandom.com/wiki/Total_Perspective_Vortex

R0b0t1 6y ago

You're looking for agoraphobic.

neetrain 6y ago
We're forever stuck inside a thin layer of the Earth surface. It makes me kind of claustrophobic.
- d_silin 6y ago
  Definitely not forever.
  - neetrain 6y ago
    It's only my perceptions. Yes, several hundreds of people had already been in space. Space travel could be the norm in the next few decades. Man could terraform Mars in the next millennium, or conquer the milky way galaxy five million years later. However, I still feel like "we're stuck forever".
astatine 6y ago
The sense of smallness of the self is probably what causes the claustrophobia. The last time I read of agoraphobia was in an Ian Fleming novel!

crancher 6y ago

Try and "step back" and observe the universe observing itself through your mind. Your "you" is local chunk of universe coded with a capacity to consider the smallest and largest scales of itself. Your mind can easily encompass the universe in thought, summing up everything known as easily as you take a breath. It's an incredible ability, cherish it!

jonsen 6y ago
This reminds me of a physics teacher I had in elementary school: -But is there anything faster than light? -??? ... -Yes! Our thoughts. In my thoughts I can be on the moon instantly.
- mod 6y ago
  Elementary school physics classes? ... on Earth?
  - jonsen 6y ago
    Denmark, in the 1960s. Elementary school grade 1 to 7, no kindergarten.
EMM_386 6y ago
I try to explain this to people all the time, especially on topics like panpsychism. Is the universe conscious? Well, parts of it certainly are! And those parts are learning about itself as a whole.
patcon 6y ago
Yesssss! An amazingly small skin of matter (folds in spacetime) on this rock floating in space has geometry encoded with information about the deepest pores of subatomic reality, the massive scales of space and time above and beyond ourselves. It's pretty fucking incredible. [EDIT: You are a small entry lane in a highway interchange in the universe, that is the busiest fucking information nexus in the observable universe.] You might feel like you're a speck floating above kilometers of deep dark ocean, but that's just your matter. If you think about your (our!) information, we're almost more like the water itself in our permeance -- or like some sort of aerogel -- compared to anything else floating in this thing :)

indy 6y ago

In that case you should never look at the Pale Blue Dot image

zaarn 6y ago

I can recommend Universal Paperclips as treatment. You start making paperclips by hand and end by converting the entire universe into paperclips. The universe seems big until that counter at the bottom of your screen says "0.0000000001% explored" and starts rapidly going up.

admissionsguy 6y ago

I always keep this diagram of the scales of universe [1] close at hand. It feels liberating to look at it when I feel overwhelmed. To me, it shows that it is completely preposterous to worry about.. anything, really. The Earth is negligible. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Location_of_Earth_(9x1-English_Annot-small).png https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Location_of_Earth_(9x1-En...

hoten 6y ago

Not being dismissive but a serious answer: go outside? Walk a trail? Just do something to get out of your head. Maybe then you could consume some audio content about astronomy without feeling overwhelmed (or just find a place to read outside). I get the sense that being in a room (which is always pretty small) makes the abstract claustrophobia feel more real.

RobertoG 6y ago

Do you mean agoraphobic? I think it can be re-framed like a feeling of freedom and possibility. For instance, if you managed to live one million years and visit all the galaxy, you would have not even started.

saiya-jin 6y ago

Claustrophobic as for being afraid closed space? Universe produces exactly opposite effect on me - head-spinning feeling of a tiny speck floating in the turbulent never-ending massive storm of gigantic proportions, at mercy of titanic forces all around. Kind of vertigo when standing on the edge of the roof of super-tall building, looking down, and barely seeing the ground below, and open air all around. It is always a very humbling sensation, which is good. No place for arrogance when you are nothing and mean nothing from certain scale of things.

throwaway_kufu 6y ago

Initially Reading your comment I thought not claustrophobic but I really identify with the last part of your description “physically uncomfortable.” Truth is I have never been able to describe that particular physical feeling, so maybe claustrophobic is not exact but perhaps a similar type of physical sensation/experience. For me it’s actually very difficult to put myself in that state, it’s somewhere between extremely deep thought and meditation...I’ll go so far as to say even things I don’t necessarily believe in such as remote viewing and/or some type of outer body experience. I’ll also add that while it’s not something I actively practice by any means ( and I otherwise engage in breathing exercises/meditation - mostly to help my running) I really like that uneasy feeling and find I can only maintain it for short periods.

pipingdog 6y ago

There isn't really any sort of distinct boundary between "you" and the "rest" of the universe.

lisper 6y ago
I used to believe this, but it turns out not to be true, and in a very profound way. If you're a living thing, i.e. a self-reproducing system, then you have no choice but to draw some sort of boundary around yourself, i.e. the system that is doing the reproducing, and the "rest of the universe" which contains the resources you need to exploit in order to reproduce. These boundaries are manifest at multiple layers of abstraction: the membrane around the cell nucleus in eukaryotes, cell walls, your skin, families, species, city-states, nation-states. The boundaries may not be "distinct", but they definitely and necessarily exist.

filoeleven 6y ago

> The Total Perspective Vortex was a machine built with the intention of showing beings the infinity of creation, which became used as a method of torture. https://hitchhikers.fandom.com/wiki/Total_Perspective_Vortex https://hitchhikers.fandom.com/wiki/Total_Perspective_Vortex