WHAT’S AT THE CENTER OF THE UNIVERSE?
WITH all the new discoveries being made as astronomers and cosmologists work together in conjunction with the Hubble and James Webb space telescopes, we keep creeping closer, day by day to answering the supreme questions surrounding what our universe is all about, and what came before it. Personally, I love astronomy, and like Gregory Ranlin in William Maltese’s books/screenplays FLICKER 1 — https://www.amazon.com/dp/0984555242 — and FLICKER 2 — https://www.amazon.com/dp/0999693875 — am particularly inclined to recurrently look to the skies with delight in our slow but continued pursuit of the answers to these greatest of all questions. But I have a peculiar feeling that, like in Douglas Adams’ HITCHHIKER’S GUIDE TO THE GALAXY — https://www.amazon.com/dp/1529044197 — the answers may prove surprising, and for some, downright alarming.
It’s been said that we spend our lives in search of that which we forgot at birth. In my opinion, what we instead hold onto until the day we die, is that we are the center of the universe. We are the epitome and reason for all that exists. Call it a pre-birth understanding from a time when we were, indeed, the center of our known universe (see my latest book THE EDGE OF MADNESS — https://www.amazon.com/dp/0999693859, that charges adolescents with a feeling of immortality, adults with a longing for the days when they were children, and elderly staring into the seeming void of death. So what answers lurk at the beginning, center and end of the Hubble/Webb universe as we now know it? I think it’s the unsettling recognition that we are both insignificant and significant in the overall scheme of things: Significant as a fetus; insignificant as a senior, and, at best, simply awestruck at the combined simplicity and complexity of the universe as we “see” it.
Okay, call me a fence-sitter or tease, but I do believe that from our own unique perspective, the universe is all about us. Can you, thinking about it, imagine the universe after you die? I can’t. Therefore, I must be at its past, present and future center. On the other hand, as a rational creature, can this be so, given I’ve never personally known any person (other than a historic religious person) who died and remained the center of the universe as we humans today know it? In this context, perhaps the center of everything isn’t any one person, but a psychological quirk called “hope” or “choice.”
For today, however, I choose to believe I am indeed at the center of the universe, and I’m the sole reason for its being. I simply feels good.
#DanielSJanik #philosophy #astronomy #cosmology #Hubble #Webb #universe #center #WilliamMaltese #Flicker #DouglasAdams #hitchhiker #TheEdgeOfMadness #RaymondGaynor #religion #author #actor #hope #choice
It’s been said that we spend our lives in search of that which we forgot at birth. In my opinion, what we instead hold onto until the day we die, is that we are the center of the universe. We are the epitome and reason for all that exists. Call it a pre-birth understanding from a time when we were, indeed, the center of our known universe (see my latest book THE EDGE OF MADNESS — https://www.amazon.com/dp/0999693859, that charges adolescents with a feeling of immortality, adults with a longing for the days when they were children, and elderly staring into the seeming void of death. So what answers lurk at the beginning, center and end of the Hubble/Webb universe as we now know it? I think it’s the unsettling recognition that we are both insignificant and significant in the overall scheme of things: Significant as a fetus; insignificant as a senior, and, at best, simply awestruck at the combined simplicity and complexity of the universe as we “see” it.
Okay, call me a fence-sitter or tease, but I do believe that from our own unique perspective, the universe is all about us. Can you, thinking about it, imagine the universe after you die? I can’t. Therefore, I must be at its past, present and future center. On the other hand, as a rational creature, can this be so, given I’ve never personally known any person (other than a historic religious person) who died and remained the center of the universe as we humans today know it? In this context, perhaps the center of everything isn’t any one person, but a psychological quirk called “hope” or “choice.”
For today, however, I choose to believe I am indeed at the center of the universe, and I’m the sole reason for its being. I simply feels good.
#DanielSJanik #philosophy #astronomy #cosmology #Hubble #Webb #universe #center #WilliamMaltese #Flicker #DouglasAdams #hitchhiker #TheEdgeOfMadness #RaymondGaynor #religion #author #actor #hope #choice
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