The universe is super massive, we exist in the wake of a gigantic expanse with gigantic spheres of plasma.
The planet we exist upon is super massive- the star of this solar system, much bigger- and apparently much bigger stars exist.
Is the universe a living nightmare, are our minds tested by it?
Looking at the size of the universe, it seems like a test of mental agility…
We can visualize giant stars and other space phenomena and our minds not falter; we can handle such a giant universe, and remain healthy- it doesn’t hurt us.
We must be conditioned by living with such a gigantic phenomenon; does it make us stronger mentally?
The universe’s size is often overlooked, some may never realise the true nature of the universe’s size; live a normal life, and die.
There are nightmarish scenarios, such as all the stars exploding- perhaps the stars are too far apart for it to effect us directly- but it would be quite the graphic.
To conclude, I notice the universe’s size; are we meant to be afraid, are we meant to be tested, and does it condition us mentally?
You’ve hit upon a pretty common theme in human nature - our perceived insignificance in the immensity of all of existence.
Different people approach this humbling in different ways.
Some will accept that we are just a speck, but a speck connected to other people, and we leave our mark by deepening our relationships with others (and even nature in general).
Others try to give us an invented importance - like putting us at the center of existence - that there is something inherently special about us - (for example, God created all for us, and his greatest attention is for us) -
Anyway you look at it, I think humans are the greatest wonder in the known universe, but I credit the natural process of evolution, not supernatural forces.
But worth maybe remembering that we are big. How small do things get. Imagine that an electron were our size. Then being composed of electrons we would be big enough to reach the nearest stars.
Human nature finds comfort in a small world where we’re significant, and resists discoveries of it not being so. Few find this discomforting to the point of ‘nightmare’.
But history is full of such discoveries, such as there being another continent beyond the endless sea. The takeaway is to recognize this bias in human preference, and realize that ‘keeping it small’ never seems to win in the end.
Evidence, and lack thereof, respectively. Magic has always been used to wave away what’s not understood, and is yet another example of a bias that turns out never to be the case in the end.
That’s right. Most don’t worry too much about it, but it does admittedly put a dent in the whole religion thing since it seems like an awful waste of resources to create all that infinity just for one not particularly well designed species, or worse, ‘chosen race’, a subset of said species.
Nobody suggests that. Not all at once anyway. Betelgeuse is about to go quite spectacularly, and ours eventually as well, but not so spectacular.
Suppose the universe continues to expand and particles decay until the universe is massless. There’s only radiation, and since Maxwell’s equations care only about angles and ratios, the concept of size loses its meaning.
The putative scale of the universe doesn’t hold intrinsic significance to me. As I go about my day to day business, I’m more preoccupied by the length of the queue at my supermarket.
Is it true that the universe is 93 billion light years in diameter?
Most people have never experienced 6-figure numbers and so grasping what 93 billion light years is is not going to be easy. The closest star is alpha Centauri and it’s 4 light years away. The fastest ship we have will take us to our next door neighbor in around 30,000 years. So to reach the edge of your universe would take roughly 700 trillion years (700,000,000,000,000 years). That’s a lot of years.
Personally, I don’t pay much attention to it. 13 billion light years means nothing to me. I cognitively grasp that the distance traveled by light over 13B years is a long way, but I can not feel such distances. I can feel 5 miles of foot travel, 100 miles of bicycle travel, or 400 miles of automobile travel. I don’t feel any distance in a flight from Minneapolis to London. I can sit on billion year old rocks in Minnesota and eat a Mac burger that is 1 hour old. The burger has gone stale; it isn’t made fresh by its relative youth vis a vis the billion year old rocks.
I think the vast voids are scarier to me, though of course this comes under “size” too.
I agree with other posters that the vast number of galaxies, and immesnsity of each one, really just get filed under “lots” and “huge”, respectively, to my primitive monkey brain.
However, being in what feels like an endless, featureless environment is something most of us can relate to; eg anyone that’s ever been out to sea. As is darkness, and silence.
So for me at least, the reality that the sun’s nearest neighbor is hundreds of millions of times the sun’s diameter away, hits hard.
I’m not scared of the universe size, but I think being around it has conditioned me. It is a beneficent nightmare.
I’m not scared of nightmarish scenarios such as all the stars exploding, for reason as such they’re too distant, or there would be a good anomaly that saves me.
I visualize and imagine stars in their size, and it doesn’t break my brain.