[mcsiegs]

When I was growing up (and even now), the following thoughts freaked me out to the point of terror. Has anyone else thought about this, and has it bothered you?

1. The Earth is just a ball floating out in the middle of nowhere - how did we get here?

2. Even though we are standing on the ground, we are literally just on a floating mass in space?

3. The concept of space infinity, and being so small in comparison - like the sun is millions of miles away. It's almost incomprehensible.

4. Did you ever think that we are part of someone's dream?

I don't see how someone could be an astronaut and travel in space - I would be freaked.

I always chalked it up to thinking too much about life in general (how did we get here, etc), and it led to anxiety.

I know these thoughts seem weird, but we all have our weirdness.

 

[agentcooper]

I know these thoughts seem weird, but we all have our weirdness.

honey, you're talkin' to a whole lot of people who share the same weirdness...i still think about stuff like that all the time. it sometimes gives me anxiety but only when i'm feeling really dp/dr.

 

[Guest]

all of those thoughts are not logical, just remember that

 

[CECIL]

I dissagree - all but 4 are totally rational thoughts, because they are absolutely true in terms of logic. Its just the fact that thinking like that does you no good - as a passing thing its wierd, but when you dwell on it you are scaring yourself for no good reason.

 

[Guest]

Oooh, all good questions...

I never really thought of that.. they talk about gravity keeping us in orbit, but that's around the sun, in a disc-like circle, why don't we just drop down and down and down?

Though I have thought a lot about the infinity of it all... space going on and on forever in all directions 360 spherical and every little which way in between.

We could be someone's dream. We could be this creation in a little box like hypercube or whatever it was on scifi a while back.

I've always wanted to go into space, like I heard a while back about they want to develop passenger planes that go into space and re-enter to make really long flights a lot shorter. I'd want to do it just to see for myself if it even exists. I mean, I've considered that it could just be with our limited human perception that we think there is an outer space and that it's infinate. Sure, so we have things rolling around on Mars now and out taking pictures of Jupiter's moons, but do we still really know it's not an illusion? Astronomy is a sicence of best guesses. I don't know about anyone else, but I've been on a whole lot of flights over the Atlantic, and somewhere in the middle, I'd wake up and have this really weird completely dazed feeling, like I crossed from one reality to another. A bit unsettling. That's what made me first question if space really exists, I'd have to see it for myself to know if it's real. Of course I believe it's real, but it could be so small, someone else's self-contained universe-in-a-box, etc.. ok I lost my train of thought.

 

[Ben]

Mcsiegs,

Beautiful thoughts, actually - embrace them. That's the interesting part about this - all humans, or all I have met and truly asked and felt as though I got a true answer - have wondered these same things. Our anxieties and defense mechanisms are so bumped up, however, that something that makes the world all the more real - like these questions - defeats the purpose of our minds counter-attack on our stress/anxiety (namely, it trying to avoid reality).

Your questions are prying into reality, and your mind is trying to run from reality. I don't know as though it gets much more simple than that (perhaps it does, and I'm an idiot).

1. The Earth is just a ball floating out in the middle of nowhere - how did we get here?

One of the greatest and most fundamental questions a person can ask. You're thinking like a child - that's good.

2. Even though we are standing on the ground, we are literally just on a floating mass in space?

A mass rotating at an amazing 1700 km/hr, hurtling around the sun at 30 km per second, flying throughout our galaxy (known as the milky way - possible of barred spiral shape) at 250 km/sec. You don't feel any of it due to the constant nature of it all; remember F = ma, and so long as you're maintaing a constant rate, you're not accelerating. The gravitational attraction between you and the earth is strong enough to prevent you from flying off.

3. The concept of space infinity, and being so small in comparison - like the sun is millions of miles away. It's almost incomprehensible.

I have seen, through a large optical telescope, an object known as a quasar - or quasi-stellar-object. They can be billions of light years away ( one light year is six trillion miles - the distant like travels in one year - and its moving fast, about 186,282 miles per second).

4. Did you ever think that we are part of someone's dream?

Yes, ours. Which isn't far fetched if you think about it.

Two nice quotes:

The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and science.
Albert Einstein

The most incomprehensible thing about the world is that it is at all comprehensible.
Albert Einstein

 

[Guest]

This is so idiotic... There are no pictures of the dark side of the moon. Now, come on.... You can't tell me that they couldn't land something with massive-scale external lights and super-powerful spotlights as needed in order to land and take pictures, come on we're not that stupid! They've obviously got something to hide up there. :x

 

[Ben]

I'm probably missing a joke here - so, I'm sorry; but what does the dark side of the moon and some giant machine with flashing lights have anything to do with space?

Is anybody OUT THERE?

 

[Guest]

You can't be that dense. The moon is IN space, it is outside of our planet and therefore is in space!!! HELLO?!

Don't try to make me look like the idiot here, you will be messing with the wrong person!!!

 

[Ben]

You can't be that dense.

Ask anyone on this board - I'm completely dense; I never get anything.

The moon is IN space, it is outside of our planet and therefore is in space!!! HELLO?!

Actually, not to be nit-picking, but the earth makes up space too - so is in, within, surrounded by, and comprises space. I think it's a popular misconception that space begins where our atomosphere ends, but really that denies the physical laws of symmetry. Space is just that - space - which exists here too.

Also, and I'm sure you might find this interesting - there really is no dark side of the moon. The rate by which the moon rotates on its axis is that same rate by which it rotates around the earth; the result of which is the same side of the moon facing earth. Clearly, if you note waxing and waning modes of the moon - you'll note that parts are illuminated that weren't so before - and then there is the whole solar eclipse phenomena which, obviously, illuminates the part we don't see. In fact, during the day (lunar day, not terrestrial) the lit parts of the moon can reach an astonishing 120 degress Celsius, while the dark parts can drop to negative 170 degrees Celsius (almost instantaneously too - right at what they call the "terminator"). Interesting stuff....

Don't try to make me look like the idiot here, you will be messing with the wrong person!!!

Let me explain. My statement of "Is anybody OUT THERE" is a reference to the Dark Side of the Moon by Pink Floyd and wasn't meant as an attack (to be really picky, it was The Wall where that phrase came from, but I made the lose connection to the Dark Side of the Moon). It was meant as a joke. If you listen to the album, they put extra weight on the words "out" and "there" - and so I was emphasizing those words in the usual BBS style of LARGE LETTERS. I thought you were joking when you brought up the dark side of the moon and the existence of a large, spot-light ridden spacecraft planted there to take pictures of some object that is not known to any of us but placed there by someone in an effort conceal it from the masses. So I was playing around with that and hoping to make you laugh and carry on your hearty commentary. Ooops. Me dense - daaaarrrrr....

I'm not sure as though I appreciate the idle threat you made however - although I'm almost certain that (and I'll know this by how you respond), there'll be no finding common ground with you short of spending many hours bantering back and forth, needlessly kicking sand in each others' faces like school kids fighting over the large tire fortress (anybody remember those, those were FUN) all along missing the point of this board as a medium for people to make each other feel better.

I'll leave your attacks alone and head out the door to enjoy my Saturday evening. I hope you do the same. G'nite all.

 

[MorebeingMe]

Ahh the power of creativity, it has it's magic too tho
It can get you far in life, and everyone adores you for it

 

[Martinelv]

Although I discourage pondering such questions when in the throes of DR/DP...

1.) The earth came about, roughly 4 billion years ago, as a consequence of the rubble left over from the creation of the sun. As to 'we' got here, well, the idea is that amino acids in the primordial ocean evolved into simple cells (this has been reproduced in labratory conditions) and from then over evolution took over.

2.) Yes, gravity is holding us to the ground. The earth is not 'floating' in space, it is strictly held to a eliptical path around the sun. We're not going to float off into the void.

3.) Yes, it is pretty startling, but not as amazing as we might be to an ant. But if the sun wasn't exactly where is was, we wouldn't be here today. Too hot or two cold, and the conditions for life wouldn't be there.

4.) No.

 

[Guest]

Don't try to make me look like the idiot here, you will be messing with the wrong person!!!

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[Ben]

Mole - you suck! Now I have Diet Dr. Pepper all over my f*cking keyboard and monitor - and my nose burns like hell.....!!!!!

This is why I will never get into a one-on-one word battle with a Brit: certain death for all who try.