Wednesday, February 03, 2010

The Known Universe

On the great website Information Aesthetics I saw this mind-bending video by the Amercan Museum of Natural History. It is a virtual tour of The Known Universe. It is only in the macro-scale, however, - going from the Himalayas to the outer reaches of cosmic background radiation. I would recommend watching it in full screen HD if possible.




Anybody familiar with fractal images should recognize the similarity to natural forms on the wide scales shown in the video, especially in earths geography & coastlines.

This kind of visualization should give anyone a profound sense of wonder at our situation in this world.


To see reality in the proper perspective, we have to give up the idea of human existence being 'significant' versus 'insignificant'. Ideas like "nothing matters" and "life is a miracle" can both be true or false depending on your individual outlook & psyche.

Everything literally just 'is as it is'. Life is an eternal mystery that has no 'answer' or 'purpose' as defined by the human mind.


1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Amazing video - thanks for sharing!