I think that the cosmic perspective can be helpful in day-to-day life if one is ready to accept this truth. For instance, I only began this assignment thirty minutes ago and was thoroughly freaking out. My mind was creating every possible circumstance that could cause me not to finish the blog in time. I had to read the first sentence three times because I was psyching myself out that badly. How left-hemisphered of me. As soon as I got into the meat of the topic, I was glued to my screen and suddenly, my place in this universe disappeared. I was the knowledge I was receiving. Then for a split moment as I scrolled between pages I caught a glimpse of the time and my heart rate sped up and I thought “nope, no way I can do this.” I came right out of this out-of-body experience I was having. Then I remembered what I was reading about: the colossal whole I am apart of, what is apart of me, how minute this problem of mine was. And before I knew it, I was sucked into the words again. In order to be ready to accept and enjoy the cosmic perspective, one must choose to understand it through their right hemisphere. Otherwise, if understood through the left hemisphere, the mighty truth of the universe would crush their ego, possibly diminishing their self worth, and understanding of life. I had such a thought cross my mind as I read. I thought to myself “I am only looking at the surface of this humungous concept from a telescope thousands of miles away. I could not ever grasp this. I do not have the capacity. I wonder, then, what job I could get that could just keep me happy and fed and naive,” immediately followed by “why am I even thinking about myself? Keep reading.” The difference between both of the perspectives I had whilst reading this article is that I decided I was ready for the information. I decided it was my truth, our truth. I cannot deny or change it. I can only live in my right hemisphere, with the understanding that we are one. I am no more and no less.
I understand what you’re saying Luna based off the reading, but I disagree with some of the ideas from what Tyson said, and I disagree about feeling tiny in the world even considering there's billions of other people. It might come off as selfish but although the world is big and universe is bigger, I don't have time to worry about what anyone else in the world is doing or what's out in the universe. Me and other's share the same world but not the same lives and thoughts. Also, even if there is a species more intelligent than us and they want to treat us how we treat other species, we could still overcome them with our intelligence. Simply studying the new life forms and how they think could help us; and if their anything like us their arrogance might get the best of them. I also feel that although the world is big, just one human alone can affect it in multiple ways, history has proven it. For example, think of Adolf Hitler and how he effected the world, one many destroyed millions of lives and basically had his own army. That one man came very close to taking over all the continents which basically is the whole human world.
ReplyDeleteOf all the blogs, this is the only I would disagree with. The cosmic perspective in my opinion does not help with day-to-day life. People in this world are tiny compared to the universe. There are bigger and brighter things compared to humans. Though we are small compared to the universe, we can become huge among ourselves. Look at all the celebrities and political figures, they're bigger than us yet still so tiny in this universe. Being called tiny is not supposed to bring us down or anything, but to show us how huge this universe is. You may even be able to use it as a way to scare people into thinking about the universe.
ReplyDeleteThe cosmic perception in my opinion is not necessarily a way to go about living everyday life, nor is it supposed to be degrading to us humans in being referred to as “small”. I actually would think of it as just a simple reminder that we are tiny in the since that we are a part of much bigger things in the world and in the universe. As humans we share this planet with other human beings, nature and animals, and our planet is one of the many planets in our galaxy. The cosmic perception should just be used as a check on ourselves from time to time due to our selfish tendencies as humans. A lot of times we are just so focused on ourselves and aren’t worried about other things and people around us. However, it always comes back to this idea of us being just a “small” part of the galaxy. Sometimes if we can remember that there are always other things going on, that can make way for a personal drive to get involved, and make the world a better place, which is also the most important obligation we have as humans to our planet Earth.
ReplyDeleteI really liked this blog post, you did a good job at explaining the contrast between the left and right hemispheres and how they work together. It seems like everybody interpreted Tyson's “Cosmic Perspective” in a different way. I think that Tyson is really talking about seeing past the separation that makes us feel so small and realizing that we are "participants in a great cosmic chain of being" (Tyson 1072). The immense size of the universe could not possibly interest someone that was not a part of it, as they could spend their entire lives studying it and find out very little. When you choose to be present in your right hemisphere you are no longer separate from the immense and overpowering breadth of the universe. When present in the right hemisphere, we do not need to fulfill our egos desire to be important, this is clearly outlined in Taylor's video describing the experience of her stroke. Of course, using the left hemisphere of our brains to understand this is futile, as Luna said, it would crush our tiny ego. The profundity of the right hemisphere is that it cannot be understood, only experienced, and in many cases this lack of control can be intimidating and scary. That is why we are lucky we have our left hemisphere to cool things down and bring us back to rationality, the yin and the yang.
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