Looking beyond Earth

[LONDONER]

For those who believe that we are alone

http://www.ba-bamail.com//View.aspx?Memb...ile_share&

[Virge]

YEAH MAN!!!! that really put sit all in perspective!

[BlueStar]

Subscribed... A BIG BIG THANKS!!! This is more than just wonderful... *blushing*

[MikeW]

We don't exist. We're all figments of imagination!!

[CuriousPhoenix]

The Universe is an amazing place. In college I took an astronomy class and on the first day the professor said how selfish humans are to think that we are the only intelligent beings in the universe, considering that there are millions of galaxies with billions of stars and with billions of planets. It a hard stretch to think that out of a million plus planets that are like earth, there is not at least one with intelligent beings.

[palbert]

Humbling.


(But didn't we deal with some of these beings in Battleship?)

[MikeW]

"The Universe" isn't just an astrophysical phenomena. "The Universe" also includes the opposite scale: down into molecules and atoms and subatomic "particles" and sub-subatomic "particles" and the quantum realm.

But what is INTERESTING to me about all this is that ALL *THAT* is THOUGHTS inside our brains!

Don't misunderstand. I'm not saying there is no "out there" out there. For sure there is. BUT all that is KNOWN about it, all that we "understand" about it IS INSIDE OUR HEADS.

Sort of along the lines of, "Does a tree in the forest make any sound when it falls if there is no one around to hear it?" -- would "The Universe" exist if there were no minds to perceive it?

Or, rather, lets think of it differently… Since the universe we perceive is a PRODUCT of our neurophysiology AND the way we're educated to process the signals within that neurophysiology, and since each neurophysiology is "somewhat unique," doesn't that mean that to a certain extent we all "perceive" different "universes"??

Or, for example, the ant that sees us as a skyscraper -- do they really SEE us at all? As US? As we see ourselves??? Of course not. And most certainly, they don't see *themselves* as we see them either.

Well, now, what is THAT going to mean in terms of interplanetary inter-species contact? Hello!

"The Universe," truly is "queerer than we can suppose." It isn't just a matter of SCALE (unimaginably small to equally unimaginably large) it is a matter of unimaginably complex and beyond our current ability to truly comprehend (how can a "something" be *both* "a wave" and "a particle"? Hint: 'it' can't! -- and yet, 'it' is!!), etc.

[spilovn]

Feel so small…

[MikeW]

Feel so small…

And yet, in a sense, The Whole Universe exists 'in us'.

This is what is so very interesting: It is out there but so far as having any *perceived* existence, a PERCEIVER is required. And then, *what* is perceived is within the perceiver. We are the (or at least one of) The Universe's ways of knowing itself.

[Pix]

It's so overwhelming. We need more flags because that's a lot to conquer and dominate.