the mindbenders

What a cool name for a band! hmmm... sounds familiar

Back to today's entry: I recently read an article about the repairs made to the Hubble telescope. Accompanying the article were a couple of the more spectacular photographs that were taken with it... WOW! And then to think of it all, about how potentially big the universe is (the known and unknown universes - now what does that mean?), remembering the sound of Carl Sagan's voice saying "billions and billions...", wondering how small our solar system is compared to the entirety of the Milky Way, trying to imagine the number of galaxies there are beyond ours... it's all so mind-boggling, it's all so mindbending.

I suppose that for most people living near cities and lights, it has gotten impossible to see the sky as our ancestors did, being able to look up at the stars at night and feel overwhelmed by the sheer number of them. I recall going up to the mountains and looking up at the night sky in wonder, almost frightened by how many stars I could see. So perhaps we'd have to go back in time to actually catch up to and appreciate what is being captured with modern technology. It's all so wondrous imagining just how expansive space really is.

To go even further with this idea of space and the size of the universe, is it easier to imagine that we are the only forms of so-called 'intelligent' life, or that we are not alone? And if we are not alone, where are we in the time continuum? If there are other forms of life, how advanced are they?

Is there such a thing as the beginning of time? If The Big Bang Theory is valid, what existed before? These questions and more have been asked by some people countless times, while others haven't given them a second thought. I've sometimes wondered how fun it would be to blow the mind of the intellectually gifted by asking them to make sense of the numerical figure: A googol to the googol power. Maybe it wouldn't be so much fun as kind of mean...

Too much to think about! So instead of asking myself "What is the Meaning of Life?" maybe I'll just flip on the TV and see what's on.