A place for majestic STEMLORD peacocking, as well as memes about the realities of working in a lab.
Rules
This is a science community. We use the Dawkins definition of meme.
“Today a young man on acid realized that all matter is merely energy condensed to a slow vibration, that we are all one consciousness experiencing itself subjectively, there is no such thing as death, life is only a dream, and we are the imagination of ourselves. Here's Tom with the weather.”
Welcome, to Nightvale
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Am I the only one who finds comfort in being insignificant in the grand scale of the universe?
I'm just a speck my problems don't matter in the grand scale of things I don't want to be significant I want to be forgotten.
This is why I get a lot of comfort stargazing at night. So much stress or worry melts away when the realization hits that nothing really matters anyway. I don't think this is quite what Tolkien was going for with the scene where Sam sees a star up through a small opening in the gloomy sky when he's struggling, but it's how I took it.
I think the tricky part for some people is trying to figure out why living life should matter at all, then, but it's always worked for me. Just because a moment ends doesn't mean that the moment shouldn't matter to you, if you find it fulfilling or meaningful.
in fact, living in interesting times (or interesting situations, or interesting lifes) is considered a curse in china, because of all the responsibility and stress that comes with it.
The rest of it is just rocks in space.
Rocks don't have problems either
I don't get why people want their problems to have cosmic importance, but the scale of the universe just makes me feel like there is so much I'll never get to see. And if there is no other life in the universe, then all those amazing worlds with utterly unique phenomena will never be observed.
you didn’t exist much longer than you’ve been alive by a very large factor
I can do both of these flipping back and forth. Existential dread, awe, and purpose at the same time.
Also, Stardust takes on new meaning after Rogue One.
Yeah it should be "star-stuff" refering to this quote of Sagan:
The cosmos is within us. We are made of star-stuff. We are a way for the universe to know itself.
I am nuclear waste.
A star fart.
A cosmic anxiety generator.
A sexy machine that took 14 billions years to produce.
My body is a machine that transforms childhood trauma into profits for the pharmaceutical industry.
The universe took 14 billon years to paywall magic shrooms :'(
Pretty metal
\m/
Forged in the heart of a dying star
I love it when my feed aligns 😁
It was the other way around for me lol
“I am the waking universe looking back at itself.”
The waking universe: huh, no floaters this time. (flush)
And I ended up being a gooner weeb...
Truly the pinnacle of evolution 🥹
Ishmael would like a word.
I don't get it.
You should call him, then
Still insignificant though!
Absurdism FTW!
humans are buildings, and just like buildings have plumbing and wire, humans live not alone: we have a huge number of parasites in our intestines and a large number of ideas in our brains that join us in our journey. i wonder how much of our actions are actually our own, and how many are caused by our circumstances.
And what really controls our consciousness.
Jellyfish
You might like the book Determined by Robert Sapolsky. It's very dense and I haven't gotten far into it yet but it's about the science of free will.
The top panel is just the human ego speaking volumes. This is why we have main character syndrome, and some people think the universe owes them if they feel disappointed.
Why can’t they both be chads?
Both perspectives are equally valid. The universe has no right answer. There is no correct way to live, experience or perceive anything.
You don't owe the universe anything, it doesn't owe you anything. It may very well be inherently unknowable at some levels. Live your life the best you can, everything you experience, from joy to despair, pleasure and pain, it's all just your own qualia and it's all you're here to do, so you might as well try to live in those moments instead of always looking for what's next or what the meaning is.
Debt is an illusion because Mani Mani was never real. It's not just an illusion. It's a delusion of the illusion but the profusion of pollution is real!
My brain added an 'n' to the first word of "waking universe" and I think it still works
The universe created life just so it could finally have a wank.
Checks out.
Top pic: average nihilism enjoyer
Bottom pic: average character on Invincible
"Did...did I make all of this!?"
Significance is just a concept humans made up to make ourselves feel bad.
And here I am sat drinking beer, watching tv. The pinnacle of the evolution of the universe.
Thank you, and goodnight!
"You are not the centre of the universe!" Is just another person tells us that there aren't me's
Most of the atoms you're made of were born in stars long dead; the rest were born in the big bang.
Is the star truly dead if it lives on in us?
Scientist: Yes.
oh. well ok then.
You are golden.
It's quite the songwriting feat. (Joni Mitchel, but CSNY great interpretation with gospel Organ part)
"And we got to get ourselves, back to the garden"
unifies gospel of bible and humanism. The 60s, being a period of extreme oppression of US men with draft for US empire domino absurdities, had many "principled songs". This is the best one, not just specifically anti-war. Woodstock as a "principled humanist" gathering gained significance from this song.
Ah yes cosmic coping...