
First-ever photo proof of powerful jet emerging from colliding galaxies - dnetesn
https://phys.org/news/2020-04-first-ever-photo-proof-powerful-jet.html
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martin_a
Whenever I see pictures like these, I like to take a step back and think about
how HUGE the universe is, and how tiny and insignificant we all are, although
we think different.

And then imagine an electron would have a kind of conciousness and would look
up to us human entities probably in the same way, because the electron itself
is just stuck in that one chip, that one p-layer in the transistor in my
notebook.

It's all about perspective...

~~~
Erlich_Bachman
You say it's about perspective.. And yet you at the same time write something
like "how tiny and insignificant we all are, although we think different",
then assuming it is not in fact all about perspective, but instead implying
that one perspective is somehow more true than the other.

I think that when talking about significance - the perspective is in fact very
important, if not the most important factor.

My life is very significant to me, yes. An electron in a transistor is not,
and a distant galaxy is not either. This is not a delusion of grandeur or a
misguided complex, it is simply a consequence of my perspective. If would be
foolish for me to think that a galaxy is more significant than my life is,
because I only have this perspective, I will not ever be able to truly shift
my perspective (other than in a daydream) into being a galaxy. I am not a
galaxy or an electron, I am a human. And yes I am significant.

Saying that my life is not significant would be an attempt by me to remove
responsibility for my actual life and escape something I don't like in my life
and hide behind some philosophical intellectualizations.

~~~
martin_a
You're very right, I did not describe that thought very well and it's hard to
grasp or formulate when English is not your first language.

Depending on whose perspective you take, you might become more signifcant or
not. The universe will probably never miss me, I will most probably not have
any impact on it in the big picture at all.

But yeah, I'm very significant to others and it's important to acknowledge
that, although you might feel lost or insignificant when compared to a
universe.

(Not sure if I got it this time, but it reads more positive at least.)

~~~
egfx
Maybe instead of perspective you meant to say scale. I’ve had this pet theory
on all this called the theory of the big and small. That is all the rules of
the universe are repeated at scale. Think about this virus. Maybe just like we
have antibodies the earth has antibodies to get rid of pollution. Its not a
new theory but I first thought of this when I saved a bee floating in a pool
with a stick. To me it was a simple gesture and to the bee it was divine
intervention. Maybe perspective is limited by the mind.

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uryga
> Maybe just like we have antibodies the earth has antibodies to get rid of
> pollution

i'm curious, why would it? is (or was) there something to encourage the Earth
to develop "antibodies", like evolutionary pressure for living organisms?

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egfx
Yes in an interesting way, I can see how bats with very sensitive echolocation
can be reading cues from the earth, exchanging stress signals and becoming
stronger viral reservoirs.

~~~
uryga
sorry but idg how are bats relevant to the kind of planet-scale immunity you
mentioned

~~~
egfx
If you think about it bats like a very specific set of parameters in their
environment. If this is off balance due to pollution or electric pollution
then the bats can get stressed and in essence be taking cues from the earth
that things are off balance. The earth is using the bat as an incubator of the
antibodies to resolve this issue.

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ctdonath
We’ve had high res astrophotography long enough that I expect we should be
producing time-lapse video of lightyear-scale events.

