Happy Atheist Forum

This is just 2 simple questions. How significant do you feel in the universe? And why?  This is in no way  meant to start any sort of debate. I am inquisitive and wanted to know what others thought. To start out I will answer the questions also.

I don’t feel significant in the least.

Why?
Just knowing how ridiculously large the universe is, along with the amount of people on Earth makes me feel so insignificant like a microscopic dot, if that. I don’t mean this in a bad way or all.

Quote from: "Meghatron"This is just 2 simple questions. How significant do you feel in the universe? And why?  This is in no way  meant to start any sort of debate. I am inquisitive and wanted to know what others thought. To start out I will answer the questions also.

I don’t feel significant in the least.

Why?
Just knowing how ridiculously large the universe is, along with the amount of people on Earth makes me feel so insignificant like a microscopic dot, if that. I don’t mean this in a bad way or all.

If MY significance could be measured in numbers in relation to the universe, I would think it would be 0, primarily for the same reasons you stated above. The Earth isn't even visible from many viewpoints in space. The arrogance of our species has led many to believe that this vast space was 'created' just for us.  :)

I'm significant to my friends and family.

That's enough.

I don't think anything is really all that significant. I sure as hell don't consider myself to be significant. Some people may consider me to be significant to them, I don't know. I guess my mother considers me to be significant.

I'm pretty sure that at one time or another we've all encountered a person who considers himself to be significant. And I'm also pretty sure that after such an encounter we've all thought the same thing: "What an asshole."

In my house, pretty significant.  In my neighborhood, somewhat significant.  In the world, pretty insignificant.  In the universe, hardly noticeable.

But I don't let it bother me too much.  In any case, I think we are programmed by evolution to want to make a mark on the universe, so that we keep trying new stuff so as to maybe give us the species a better chance of surviving.  So we want to be significant, but it's a losing battle.

What people above me said.

Quote from: "Meghatron"How significant do you feel in the universe? And why?

I have no impact on what happens on Mars.  But what happens on Mars has no impact on me.  So we're even.

Generally impact is reciprocal.  I impact things that impact me.  The great exceptions are the sun and the inanimate Earth, which provide what untold billions need for life, and from those untold billions neither need nor receive anything at all.  Ironically, these two titans of impact are presumably oblivious to their mighty station.

Reciprocality of impact can be unbalanced.  I can impact you more than you impact me, or vice versa.  In some comparisons I might prefer to be the lesser of the two compared, and in others, the greater.  This even applies to me and the sun.  Imagine discovering that you personally had some hitherto unsuspected impact on the sun - that what you did could diminish or increase its luminosity or heat, such that, if you didn't do what you did, or if you did it differently, untold billions of living creatures would have less light or more, less heat or more, and you yourself would too.  Imagine being personally responsible for the daylight and the temperature.  Power to be coveted, or burden to be feared?  For me, it would be the latter.  I am quite content to have no impact on the sun, and receive undeserving its bounty.

Similar calculations can be made with respect to real reciprocalities between me and other people.  It can be to my great advantage that others impact me far more than I impact them.  I receive much and in return give back little.  Aren't I then the winner?  Why would I want the reverse?  Vanity and utility are the only answers; vanity in that I can imagine myself the solar king; utility in that I can extort what I want, not what I need but what I want, from those who need what I'm in a position to provide, assuming I also am in a position to refuse provision.

Vanity and utility are expressions of the will to power, but they don't exhaust its possibilities.  There is a third way to potency.  I can become a source by which others encounter ideas.  These ideas can then be carried off by the recipients thereof, knowingly or unknowingly, so that the recipients now become sources by which the ideas can be encountered by still others.  There is a wonder to be glimpsed here.  Ideas can outlive their sources.  By this way I can gain the upper hand on death.  Let him come, if come he must, and let him sweep me to oblivion if such is his task.  But I can raise my chin in defiance, and from the height of my contempt I can sweep my arms in a circle and say, "The ideas I nurtured are still out there, all around, and against them you are powerless, you cold and ludicrous spectre, until that day you come for the last of my kind, a day that may never come at all, for my kind have conquered much, and may conquer more."

You are a way for the universe to know itself. Atoms contemplating atoms. Last week's potatoes doing a dance of consciousness somewhere inside the lump of matter called your brain. Significant or not, that's enough of a miracle to make me smile every day.

I'm significant enough to know how little my significance means on a larger scale.

I feel totally significant. I see no reason for me not to.

Quote from: "Chandler M Bing"I feel totally significant. I see no reason for me not to.

Could he BE more significant?


Significance seems entirely subjective. I'm significant to myself, to my friends and family, and in a continually smaller way to my neighborhood, city, state, country, species, planet, solar system and universe. I'm happy, though.

I would have to say I feel pretty insignificant.  So much that I wondered if adding my own opinion to others in this thread was in anyway significant.

But, similarly to what others have pointed out about family and friends, I think I am viewed as pretty significant to my daughter and husband.  And maybe a few of other people notice my existence as well.  

Everything is significant because it's all part of the universe.  With one single atom more or less the whole universe would be different.

Quote from: "Chandler M Bing"I feel totally significant.

How do you know what significant feels like?

In the grand scheme of things I am just a speck.  However in the here and now in my own little part of the world I feel significant; people would notice and be sad if I were gone.

[youtube:2opt2oxe]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vioZf4TjoUI[/youtube:2opt2oxe]

[youtube:2ifxeyup]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dvwH8Qij0JY[/youtube:2ifxeyup]

[youtube:34imyhgb]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Lm6pEhykhs[/youtube:34imyhgb]

I'm less then a speck of dust on a tiny dot, but still signifiant enough to affect the things around myself.

Now if you will excuse me, I need to take out the trash.

I'm as important as sky daddy!  

I am a bit of the universe that managed to work things so that it could be conscious and look at itself - we are the universe looking at itself - which is VERY significant in my book!! That is amazing. As an individual farty human being? Phhht.. I got nothing.

SIgnificance is a qualifier and since the universe does not use qualifiers ...

I am as significant and as insignificant as everything else in the universe.

The universe could not exist without me or me without it. I am on equal footing with everything.

I see mankind as the pinnacle accomplishment of nature.  That's very significant.  The earth, the vegetation, the animals, the solar system, the galaxies as magnificent as they all seem, show no sign of self-awareness.  Only mankind is endowed by nature with this significant trait.

Further, it is difficult to argue that I am not the most significant thing to myself that exists, because without me, there would be no me.  I am therefore at the pinnacle of significance as far as I myself am concerned.  My significance to Mars, while certainly null, is just as null to me.  In other words, my insignificance to Mars is insignificant to me.  I feel very significant.

-a-train

It depends on how my mood is at the moment, sometimes I feel totally insignificant, and other times I feel like I'm the whole world (not in a smug way). All in all though, I feel there is no significance to anything, me, you, the earth, or even the whole galaxy. Time will make all significance totally moot. I will die, all my memories will die with loved ones when they die, the earth will be swallowed by the sun when it expands, the galaxy will be absolved when it runs into the Andromeda galaxy and so on.