The scale of the universe. It's an incomprehensible amount of emptiness.
this post was submitted on 12 Jul 2023
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The concept of emergence blows my mind.
We have this property in our universe where simple things with simple rules can create infinitely complex things and behaviours. A molecule of water canβt be wet, but water can. A single ant canβt really do anything by himself, but a colony with simple pheromone exchange mechanisms can assign jobs, regulate population, create huge anthills with vents, specialty rooms and highways.
Nothing within a cell is "alive", itβs just atoms and molecules, but the cell itself is. One cell cannot experience things, think, love, have hopes and dreams, or want to watch Netflix all day, but a human can.
The fact that lots of tiny useless things governed by really simple rules can create this complexity in this world is breathtakingly beautiful.
Kinda ties into your example :)
Reminds me of the statement that you can't dissect a rabbit to find out why it's cute
Won't stop me from trying [joking]
Don't, rabbit necropsies are the worst smelling thing you'll ever encounter.
I am focusing on the "blow my mind" part, rather than the "beautiful" part of your question, but I am certain many philosophically-minded people would consider the following "beautiful".
Peter Singer's argument in "Famine, Affluence, and Morality (1972)" that you and most everyone you know are probably immoral or evil and you don't even realize it. It really affected my ideas of how to strive to live.
Here is a good video explaining the idea in detail, worth 30m of your time.
I've watched like 10 minutes and I hate it. Peter Singer is a very controversial figure as it is, on top of that the guy in the video comes off as super condescending to me and I can't stand watching him for longer. Me personally, I don't think it's "immoral" to not give money to charity. And terms like immoral or evil are usually defined by the society you live in and not some random philosopher. And I bet there are good reasons his radical ideas in "Famine, Affluence, and Morality" did not get embedded in our society yet.
I'd say that charity as it exists in a capitalist society is in itself evil, and contributing to it is no better then buying indulgences.
Galaxies are not evenly distributed in space. Instead, when you look at the universe, galaxies are grouped in giant strings that look like a neural connections in a brain.
It blew my mind when I learned that we're in a relatively dark, empty part of space compared to what's out there. It really put into perspective for me how difficult space travel will be for us as we continue to advance.