The Very Large Telescope has revealed a very large star called W26. How large? Think in terms of the Sun. Our own star is, with its corona, nearly a million miles in diameter. W26 is 1,500 times bigger (1,000,000 X 1,500 = 1,500,000,000 miles). Given such a diameter, W26 will be short lived (It might already have destroyed itself. At 16,000 light years from Earth, the star will undergo changes we won’t know until light carrying information about it reaches us). So, some things can be massive but remain unknown. Such is the nature of Nature.
W26 is so far removed that it poses no threat to us, and it seems to have little relevance to our personal lives unless we are astronomers enamored of big celestial objects. If it were closer, its demise could pose a threat to our personal existence.
A little closer to your personal life are goings on that are significant, but largely unknown. You just don’t turn your Very Large Curiosity toward them, or they have not yet come into view.
Just remember that you don’t know what you don’t know. And don’t assume anything has widespread significance solely on the basis of its proximity to your life. For all of human history our minds were unaware that W26 existed. We had no way of seeing it; yet, it appears to be the biggest sun in the galaxy, if not in the universe.
We have minds that see as we have allowed ourselves to see, and that seeing has obvious limitations. If I say to you, “What is the nature of the universe? Is it indefinite or infinite?” do you have an unquestionable answer? If I ask, “What is the basis for determining life’s value,” do you have an answer? We’ve been asking the same questions for thousands of years without a guarantee of certainty in our answers. Philosophers, psychologists, physicists, gurus, and others have offered with only limited success some new equipment for us to use in our search for meaning and significance and for ways to understand or see the world without the limitations of the mind’s old telescopes. Will we ever have a Very Large Telescope that fully answers our Very Large Curiosity? Or will we just keep looking, occasionally discovering something startling, and realizing that we still can’t put “IT” all in a perspective that is acceptable not only to us, but also to those who will come after us?
We really don’t know what we don’t know. That we act as though we have the answers on perspective and significance is probably an artifact of minds whose lenses we keep polishing in our pride that our telescope has shown us all we need to see.
W26 is so far removed that it poses no threat to us, and it seems to have little relevance to our personal lives unless we are astronomers enamored of big celestial objects. If it were closer, its demise could pose a threat to our personal existence.
A little closer to your personal life are goings on that are significant, but largely unknown. You just don’t turn your Very Large Curiosity toward them, or they have not yet come into view.
Just remember that you don’t know what you don’t know. And don’t assume anything has widespread significance solely on the basis of its proximity to your life. For all of human history our minds were unaware that W26 existed. We had no way of seeing it; yet, it appears to be the biggest sun in the galaxy, if not in the universe.
We have minds that see as we have allowed ourselves to see, and that seeing has obvious limitations. If I say to you, “What is the nature of the universe? Is it indefinite or infinite?” do you have an unquestionable answer? If I ask, “What is the basis for determining life’s value,” do you have an answer? We’ve been asking the same questions for thousands of years without a guarantee of certainty in our answers. Philosophers, psychologists, physicists, gurus, and others have offered with only limited success some new equipment for us to use in our search for meaning and significance and for ways to understand or see the world without the limitations of the mind’s old telescopes. Will we ever have a Very Large Telescope that fully answers our Very Large Curiosity? Or will we just keep looking, occasionally discovering something startling, and realizing that we still can’t put “IT” all in a perspective that is acceptable not only to us, but also to those who will come after us?
We really don’t know what we don’t know. That we act as though we have the answers on perspective and significance is probably an artifact of minds whose lenses we keep polishing in our pride that our telescope has shown us all we need to see.
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