Most of human thought, opinions and analogies are based on perception - our brain weaves seemingly chaotic strands of waves or particles into the fabric of an image. When we call atoms 'small' or the stars 'huge', we define them relative to us, according to our perception. And so the magnitude of our explorations into the deep mysteries of nature depends largely on how easily we can access the 'large' or the 'small' - new and hidden and unknown orders of magnitude.
I was on a plane from New Delhi to Ahmedabad looking at the earth from a height of 35,000 ft. At such a height, roads are comparable to the hidden neurons of the brain and the earth transforms into a sea of green, brown and blue - in short, our perception shifts to include a new definition of the scale of everyday objects. With the earth transformed before my eyes, I thought of time as scalable - as it flows on, its 'magnitude increases' (not a scientific analogy). That is the moment when interesting implications regarding humanity were born.
From the very beginning, humans have looked up to the sky. A little more than a century ago, we finally realised our dream of flying - a way to access the skies. We advanced to conquering the stratosphere a few years later and started looking higher still - towards the moon. As time went on, as its 'magnitude' increased, so did our access to the skies. We flew higher and higher up.
We go on in time and go up into the sky. The human thirst for exploration is about wandering through matter at a huge or a tiny scale. And as we go deeper and deeper, our connection with the earth undergoes a radical change - that of a widened perspective.
We widen our perspective as we go up into the sky and go on in time. Widen our perspective to include new, counterintuitive possibilities, understand that the earth becomes smaller and smaller until, finally, it is a pale blue dot. Realise that the earth, something we thought of as inexplicably large, (as Carl Sagan quotes) is nothing but a grain of sand on the cosmic shore. The perception of the relative order of magnitude of the earth shifts to a more insignificant location.
Just as we start viewing our home as more and more insignificant as we advance into the skies, the earth becomes but a speck in all the knowledge of the universe we gather as we advance in science and go on in time. We are transformed into a species of the Universe, while enveloped in this tragic abode we call the Earth.
I was on a plane from New Delhi to Ahmedabad looking at the earth from a height of 35,000 ft. At such a height, roads are comparable to the hidden neurons of the brain and the earth transforms into a sea of green, brown and blue - in short, our perception shifts to include a new definition of the scale of everyday objects. With the earth transformed before my eyes, I thought of time as scalable - as it flows on, its 'magnitude increases' (not a scientific analogy). That is the moment when interesting implications regarding humanity were born.
We go on in time and go up into the sky. The human thirst for exploration is about wandering through matter at a huge or a tiny scale. And as we go deeper and deeper, our connection with the earth undergoes a radical change - that of a widened perspective.
We widen our perspective as we go up into the sky and go on in time. Widen our perspective to include new, counterintuitive possibilities, understand that the earth becomes smaller and smaller until, finally, it is a pale blue dot. Realise that the earth, something we thought of as inexplicably large, (as Carl Sagan quotes) is nothing but a grain of sand on the cosmic shore. The perception of the relative order of magnitude of the earth shifts to a more insignificant location.
Just as we start viewing our home as more and more insignificant as we advance into the skies, the earth becomes but a speck in all the knowledge of the universe we gather as we advance in science and go on in time. We are transformed into a species of the Universe, while enveloped in this tragic abode we call the Earth.
