There’s something troubling about this view. It paints our current inability to consolidate the two extremes of the modern understanding of the Universe as an anthropological incapacity. It bows to the possibility of there being two sets of rules conveniently explaining their respective realms (which happen to be very large and small respectively whatever the term actually means) while managing to be utterly incompatible at combining these realms. To put an emphasis on how ridiculous this sounds, imagine buying a self-construct kit from a furniture store with half of the instructions (and materials) provided in metric while the other half is provided in US units. Yet, the view advertised to above, is trying to convince us we are to quietly accept this confusing product and try to make the best of it.
If we are not in the middle where are we then? We are anywhere. We are in the middle and in the beginning and at the end. No matter where we are it will always appear to us we are in the middle. The Universe is not made of very big and small, it is just made of a single ingredient repeated at different scales and forced to interact with itself. The magnificence of this self-constructing and expending pattern is clearly seen once one considers the resemblance of a large biological system with the way the bodies of individual representatives resemble the very system. The same vibrancy, exuberance, intelligence! Life is like a giant tree with the branches constantly competing to be closer to the sunlight. I think this superb pattern makes both of these extremes the same. They are the same not only in the sense of having the same underlying governing principles. They are quite literally the same Universe. The very large and very small seem so similar precisely because they are the same thing.
This might sound strange, even absurd. How can they be the same thing? I mean, one is made of the other, right? Well, more we learn about the quantum world more we realize it is not really “made” of anything the way we understand “making it”. It doesn’t really create a solid world of aggregable and segregable pieces. The same can be said about such interesting macro-phenomena as super black holes and dark energy. If there is one undisputable lesson quantum odyssey taught in the past century is that while it might or might not be creating the world around us it certainly creates its perception. Perceptions make the notions of size… susceptible to perception. If one were to be placed between two identical twins, each being two feet away, one would undeniably recognize them as such. If the distance was increased to a mile though, one would have very hard time recognizing them as twins.
One additional thought is to rope in this contemplation of an old cliché – the flat vs. spheroid Earth argument. According to the good people of the International Flat Earth Research Society our planet must be flat because… well… it appears as such and otherwise we’d have to walk upside down. As for the fact ships sailing far into the sea disappear from our eyesight regardless of the magnifying instruments used, should just be comfortably ignored. Well, sure, the planet being round like an orange certainly is not very intuitive. It takes time to get used to it but once it is firmly established in one’s mind, once it has a visual model in one’s conscience, it then truly because a very natural way to understand our place in the Universe. Such are many ideas, they appear bizarre and counterintuitive not because they are inaccessible to our middle-earth developed minds but because they require new synopsis in our brains.
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