In the old television series, Star Trek, the opening credits describe outer space as “the final frontier.” After we have explored everything on our local planet, to where do our eyes turn? And it still taunts us, inviting us to probe its mysteries with our little machines and our curious minds.
But in the background, as in this painting by Bruegel, we are reminded of the dangers of hubris: flying too high, too close to danger.
Do you know the story of Icarus and Daedalus? Who first recorded it or told it best?
As we gaze at the stars at night (if we can find them with the light “pollution”), what are we seeing? Why have we longingly gazed up to see the constellations and suggestions of earthly stories captured in schematics in the sky?
My friend Deborah serendipitously shared this video with me and how apt it is for our reading and reflections on space!
Came across this famous quote from Kant’s Critique of Practical Reason and it reminded me of this post, felt like a nice addition to Sagan’s “Pale Blue Dot”.
“”Two things fill the mind with ever new and increasing admiration and awe, the more often and steadily we reflect upon them: the starry heavens above me and the moral law within me… The first starts at the place that I occupy in the external world of the senses, and extends the connection in which I stand into the limitless magnitude of worlds upon worlds, systems upon systems, as well as into the boundless times of their periodic motion, their beginning and continuation. The second begins with my invisible self, my personality, and displays to me a world that has true infinity, but which can only be detected through the understanding, and with which… I know myself to be in not, as in the first case, merely contingent, but universal and necessary connection. The first perspective of a countless multitude of worlds as it were annihilates my importance as an animal creature, which must give the matter out of which it has grown back to the planet (a mere speck in the cosmos) after it has been (one knows not how) furnished with life-force for a short time.”
Yet, the “moral law within” asserts the divide of the rational being from the cosmos. Rational beings, ideally us, give law to the universe. We make meaning and hold ourselves accountable in ways that the rest of the universe does not. Kant was primarily a philosopher of astronomy but then “got into” philosophy where he changed the course of thinking. Thanks for commenting, Will!
Hmmm, maybe that division between rational beings and the cosmos in Kant why I feel more at home with Goethe…
“Nature! We are surrounded and enveloped by her, incapable of leaving her domain, incapable of penetrating deeper into her. She draws us into the rounds of her dance, neither asking nor warning, and whirls away with us until we fall exhausted from her arms… All men are in her and she is in them… We obey her laws even when we resist them; we are working with her even when we mean to work against her… She has placed me into life, she will also lead me out of it. I trust myself into her care. She may hold sway over me. She will not hate her work. It was not I who spoke of her. Nay, it was Nature who spoke it all, true and false. Nature is the blame for all things; hers is the merit.” From Goethe’s hymn to Nature.
A pleasure to comment, I really enjoy the website!
This is a great quote from Goethe and captures the Romantic approach to the natural world. I hope some others comment?