Is there a name/term for this feeling?

Ok, making a statement like that... towards me, may make sense to you.

But imagine making a statement like that... in a live debate with one of the smartest science contributors in the world, imagine how much of an ignorant simpleton they would make you look for saying something like that... you would never leave your house again.

What is more impressive in the universe than consciousness? With a few exceptions (dark matter, black holes, etc) we can predict and know about most of what goes on in the universe. It's just physical models. There's something totally inexplicable going on inside our own heads.

There's no other intelligence out there

we can predict and know about most of what goes on in the universe.

The human mind, no matter how highly trained, cannot grasp the universe. We are in the position of a little child, entering a huge library whose walls are covered to the ceiling with books in many different tongues. The child knows that someone must have written those books. It does not know who or how. It does not understand the languages in which they are written. The child notes a definite plan in the arrangement of the books, a mysterious order, which it does not comprehend, but only dimly suspects. We see a universe marvelously arranged, obeying certain laws, but we understand the laws only dimly. Our limited minds cannot grasp the mysterious force that sways the constellations.

This is known to neuro-psychiatrist's as The Accedie of Kirk

If anything the size of our planet in comparison to the universe is really humbling. Looking up at night puts my problems in to perspective.




You're either trolling or seriously ****ing stupid.

Firstly, my response was purely tongue-in-cheek, doesn't require too much intelligence to spot that.
Secondly, I genuinely find discussion of the Universe as interesting as anybody. When I used the word "ponce" I was referring to the kind of people that spout the sort of philosophical crap like in the OP because they genuinely believe that sharing such "profound" thoughts makes them seem intelligent.

When I used the word "ponce" I was referring to the kind of people that spout the sort of philosophical crap like in the OP because they genuinely believe that sharing such "profound" thoughts makes them seem intelligent.

What is more impressive in the universe than consciousness? With a few exceptions (dark matter, black holes, etc) we can predict and know about most of what goes on in the universe. It's just physical models. There's something totally inexplicable going on inside our own heads.

In fact, I'd go as far as to say that without us, the universe could be a million times more impressive and it wouldn't make any difference. It's only incredible because we're here to label it so, with our ability to observe. If a tree falls in a forest and there's no one there to hear it, who cares?

If I "genuinely believed" posting this thread made me "seem intelligent"... the last thing I would do is ask what the term is for this kind of thinking.

Read the thread title, ****ing keyboard warrior.

If I "genuinely believed" posting this thread made me "seem intelligent"... the last thing I would do is ask what the term is for this kind of thinking.

Read the thread title, ****ing keyboard warrior.

Maybe if you actually engaged in debate rather than making irrelevant and confrontational posts throughout the thread then people would take you seriously.

“Look again at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there-on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.

The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner, how frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot.

Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.

The Earth is the only world known so far to harbor life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit, yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment the Earth is where we make our stand.

It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we've ever known.”

I didn't make the thread for a debate, I asked a question and it was answered it the very first response.

You're clinging onto the same question asking it over and over again, "how/why does size dictate significance"... what is wrong with you? Small penis?

If you re-read your OP you asked a variety of questions, most of which could be answered if you had understood mine that I was "clinging onto".

And yes, my penis is tiny and this affects my existential views.

So size does not dictate significance...

I love watching "space" documentaries...

But sometimes it gives me this feeling which makes me feel like nothing matters, as humans on planet earth we're just tiny specs of bacteria of coincidence and chance, in an unimaginably vast, possibly never ending - Universe.

I'm sure we've all seen this:



There's even more eerily enlightening updated versions of that video now, but that was the original...

It makes me think all sorts of things, not just things like making me want to not get up for work on Monday...
But makes everything we know feel puny, tiny, unimportant, INSIGNIFICANT...

In a serious way, like... somebody killed your parents? so what? insignificant...
X-country got nuked... so what?
Holocaust? Insignificant...

Rules, laws, cultures, religions, emotions, rights, wrongs...

In comparison to the UNIVERSE

​Do those things really even matter?


I guess to comprehend this.. you must have the ability to think outside of the box, and think with absolute freedom and without bias.

Exactly what Albert Camus said about the meaning of life ("absurdity")

But that type of thinking is still half "trapped in the box", a person's a person... only to people.. only on earth, and earth is an insignificant spec of dust (for subjects sake)...