friends visiting athens wanted to go to sounion. and yeah, i tagged along.
so, we're standing there, taking in poseidon's temple and the huge expanse of sky, sun and sea, with the strong breeze swirling around us, when i started to notice all the wonderful birds and wildflowers that decorate the area at this time of year. so naturally my mind started to wander, yet again.
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i was looking at the humongous (to me), together with the exceedingly small (to me) and it struck me that, on the scale of the universe, a sea, a flower and a temple are pretty much the same size.
the things i can sense are a tiny sliver -- a minuscule fraction -- of all that is around me -- the things readily perceivable... and i was reminded of a video i'd seen 2 1/2 years ago.
humans have emerged in middle world. our senses and our brains have developed to navigate within the cosmos at our scale of existence.
we can't see cells or atoms or feel the forces at work on the minute. we feel that a rock is hard and impenetrable, even though we now know it is mostly empty space.
we can't perceive the bend of light from the tug of gravity or imagine what it's like to travel at the speed of light or sense warped time.
we can't see continents move, or constellations or species change shape, as we are limited to the time frame of one single life.
richard dawkins explains his concept middle world and how we expand our perception and knowledge, in this captivating talk on TEDtalks, well worth 22 minutes of anyone's time:
more sounion!
