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In Search of Wonder

Steve, Scott and I discuss what it is exactly that makes so many of us yearn to explore strange new worlds. I think we may have it figured out.

Steve, Scott and I discuss what it is exactly that makes so many of us yearn to explore strange new worlds. I think we may have it figured out.

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27 replies on “In Search of Wonder”

Scott, that’s the exact same reaction when I returned to the Mountains for the first time in 30 years back in 2001. And yes, I live in Missouri, and yes, we drove through Kansas (actually I find it interesting … I’m a geology and geography nut) and yes, we went to Estes Park/RMNP and … yes. Every bend. Every new vista. The warped layers in rocks, the “stargate” of the hogs back when you first get to the front range… and it does the same thing to me to this day. And I haven’t been out there in 3 years.

They’re calling (they’re always calling) and I must go.

Bill, when asked what my religion is, I usually answer that I have a sense of wonder…that seems to me to surpass much of organized doctrine. I always liked Stony Stevenson’s words (Cats Cradle) … thanks lord for letting this little piece of dirt sit up and have a look around. So much exceeds our reason that reverent wonder at it all seems appropriate.

One of my wonder moments was on my only (so far) trip to the States. I was a skinny seventeen year old, staying with an old school friend of my Mum and her family, who lived in upstate New York. We did a road trip to Niagara Falls, and around Lake Ontario. I experienced a taste of wonder as we drove through a real thunderstorm. Being English I’m used to relatively tame, boutique, thunderstorms. This was something else. Fork lighting dancing on the hill tops, and rain coming down in sheets. It relieved some of the boredom of the drive. I was thinking it was a long way to drive to watch water falling off a cliff. I was thinking that until we got there. No pictures, no TV programme, can come close to conveying the genuinely awe inspiring force of the Falls.

About not experiencing wonder through a device… I took my wife to England for our honeymoon. The one thing she wanted to see (that she thought I might not have taken her to) was Stonehenge. I joked that it was just a pile of rocks, but, of course, made sure we visited. I’d seen it in boos. But being there lent a degree of wonder I never felt just looking at it or reading of it in books.

I think Bill is over-romanticizing it. We go because it is the Frontier. Simple as that. The frontier is like a vacuum that must be filled for any number of reasons. Mostly a search for gold.

I’ve only been in situations like being adrift on a disabled sailboat or temporarily lost in the woods a few times. You realize how fragile life truly is. I can’t get past the absolute absence of room for error that exists in space travel. I can’t get past the depravation and passage of time, time out of my limited years, required to reach these far away planets. There’s a reason why people are “put in solitary confinement” as a punishment. There’s a reason why the overindulged, under stimulated inhabitants of the space cruise ship in “WallE”, the movie want to come back to Earth and begin again.
We need people with the explorers soul like you guys. Respect.

Dopamine. 🙂

Probably the same reason I go to the mountains and the ocean. To help put me in my place. Context. To get a sense of how I fit in. And these things make me feel small.

Which is appropriate.

But it also makes me feel a part of something amazing. More amazing than we can even imagine … and that makes me feel infinite at the same time.

I wrote one of my earliest songs about that experience. It’s about Wonder.

Above the Tree Line (Original) 2016 makeover – YouTube

There is a reason why the universe has such detail. God created Adam and Eve and their children to be immortal. Yes they botched it and yes God knew they would botch it but he had to give them the choice. If he did not there is no possibility of love and no true reality. Actions must have consequences for reality to be an option.
For those that seek Jesus there is the prospect of immortality with the resurrection. We will be immortal and I believe there will be children born in that immortal eternity. In that consequence the earth gets too small far too fast. Adam and eve if they had not sinned and we who have found redemption will need a million million planets. Its simple population dynamics.
I am expecting easy to colonize worlds and hard ones. Fallow worlds with a moderate temperature atmosphere of CO2 and nitrogen and wide seas that are terraformed in months; just add plants and algae. Other worlds that are more of a challenge like Venus and Mercury. In between Mars like worlds; they are a stepping stone from easy to hard.
I suspect that there is a very easy and safe way to travel between the stars waiting to be discovered and because is the starting place is earth all the resources to find that travel means is close at hand to be found. With God as your chief engineer a space ship may be just a matter of convenience. My bet is stable wormholes.
If, however, we discover those wormholes before the judgement and resurrection we will probably find a way to make it harder and unsafe.
Eden was the seed bed for the earth, earth the seed bed for the solar system and the solar system in the seed bed for the stars. The universe is there to be explored and populated.

I’ve been using Space Engine for a long, long time. There’s more like millions upon millions of galaxies in it. Have you ever moved out to the point that there is no galaxies? I posted here on the forum about my “Space Engine Exploits”…but I’m no good with HTML, and the images I did put up are from before I realized I could max out the graphics for still images…lol. Now I have millions of cool-ass images!

Here’s one of the Enterprise E in the Star Wars Galaxy…(I’m still using the free 0.9.8.0e version due to lack of graphics card)

Not even close, no cigar…lol. I believe that is taken from a moon looking toward the planet Hoth. I know it’s not in this galaxy at least…lol. But I’ve always thought of Commiefornia as another world…lol.

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