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I sometimes think about how startling it must have been for our species to realize we orbit the sun, the earth is round, then to find that we live in a galaxy,

I sometimes think about how startling it must have been for our species to realize we orbit the sun, the earth is round, then to find that we live in a galaxy, one amongst so many it boggles the mind to imagine. Given all these revelations, when I think about what may still be revealed, it’s enough for me fall to my knees and cry about what a fool I almost surely am. I dust myself off and carry on as best I can, hoping to learn a little more than I did the day before, knowing there are good folks by my side to share the path we’re on.

morpheos137 5y ago
what does it really mean to "orbit the sun?" We follow an elliptical path around the sun from the perspective of the reference frame of the sun. From the perspective of the reference frame of the earth the sun and planets move around us in complicated epicycles. From the perspective of an external reference frame, outside the solar system, the earth moves in a sinusoidal manner as the sun orbits the galaxy. At the largest scale space is expanding and no orbits are cyclical. We never return to the same space twice. Rotation is said to be absolute while linear motion is relative but since space is expanding at the largest space and time scales are not orbits illusory? Due to gravity objects follow curved paths through space and time as the fabric of the Universe expands but if you think about it you never really return to the same place twice so might also at large scales apparent angular motion also be relative or convergent on linear motion, e.g. through fourier decomposition?
karmakaze 5y ago
I don't think there should have been a reason for any of these discoveries to be mind-boggling. It's the premise that we knew anything before we knew, e.g. religious indoctrination that made it so. Would the confirmation of aliens be mind-boggling today? For some yes, why? But on the sheer vastness of what we didn't know, it seems like that's shrinking in relevance. There are of course dark areas, black holes, quantum gravity, and so on, but they are farther and farther at the edges of scale. Not as world-changing as discovering the second island after your own, or a continent, planet, or solar system. Each one has less practical impact.
- alephu5 5y ago
  I think the OPs point was not that they were intellectually difficult to comprehend, rather each discovery radically alters your perspective of the world. If we were to discover with certainty that our universe were one of many, it would completely blow my mind.
  - karmakaze 5y ago
    I wonder if there's a form of cognitive bias where an unknown is treated as an absence rather than unknown, or rather a local known is extrapolated into a global one. We have fairly high confidence that there's not other intelligent life in our solar system. Not much is known beyond that. One extrapolation is that the universe is more of that. The other is that we exist as evidence and that pattern repeats elsewhere. A multiverse I can equally accept as not. What I would find far more incomprehensible is if we were to discover with certainty that we were the only intelligent life in the universe.

morpheos137 5y ago

what does it really mean to "orbit the sun?" We follow an elliptical path around the sun from the perspective of the reference frame of the sun. From the perspective of the reference frame of the earth the sun and planets move around us in complicated epicycles. From the perspective of an external reference frame, outside the solar system, the earth moves in a sinusoidal manner as the sun orbits the galaxy. At the largest scale space is expanding and no orbits are cyclical. We never return to the same space twice. Rotation is said to be absolute while linear motion is relative but since space is expanding at the largest space and time scales are not orbits illusory? Due to gravity objects follow curved paths through space and time as the fabric of the Universe expands but if you think about it you never really return to the same place twice so might also at large scales apparent angular motion also be relative or convergent on linear motion, e.g. through fourier decomposition?

karmakaze 5y ago

I don't think there should have been a reason for any of these discoveries to be mind-boggling. It's the premise that we knew anything before we knew, e.g. religious indoctrination that made it so. Would the confirmation of aliens be mind-boggling today? For some yes, why? But on the sheer vastness of what we didn't know, it seems like that's shrinking in relevance. There are of course dark areas, black holes, quantum gravity, and so on, but they are farther and farther at the edges of scale. Not as world-changing as discovering the second island after your own, or a continent, planet, or solar system. Each one has less practical impact.

alephu5 5y ago
I think the OPs point was not that they were intellectually difficult to comprehend, rather each discovery radically alters your perspective of the world. If we were to discover with certainty that our universe were one of many, it would completely blow my mind.
- karmakaze 5y ago
  I wonder if there's a form of cognitive bias where an unknown is treated as an absence rather than unknown, or rather a local known is extrapolated into a global one. We have fairly high confidence that there's not other intelligent life in our solar system. Not much is known beyond that. One extrapolation is that the universe is more of that. The other is that we exist as evidence and that pattern repeats elsewhere. A multiverse I can equally accept as not. What I would find far more incomprehensible is if we were to discover with certainty that we were the only intelligent life in the universe.