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answers:
jazmin say: Very interesting question it reminds me of what God asked job at job 38:4 “Where were you when I founded the earth?Tell me, if you think you understand.” And also the scripture that says “There is One who dwells above the circle of the earth,And its inhabitants are like grasshoppers.He is stretching out the heavens like a fine gauze,And he spreads them out like a tent to dwell in.(Isaiah 40:22) These two scriptures show me a few things. One, as Jehovah showed Job, even to the best of our ability our knowledge is limited. Some things are brains just simply cannot fathom. Our creators thoughts are much higher than ours and therefore the things he created much deeper, intricate ,and for us, difficult to understand (Isaiah 55:8, 9).But that doesn’t mean we should stop searching for answers, there is still so much we can learn from creation such as the universe. Secondly, we are so small compared to the universe it’s just as vast as what we can learn from it. It can go on forever. It’s astounding, aw inspiring, absolutely sensational a true testament to its creators knowledge and wisdom. So I don’t know if we are “meant” to understand the universe and it’s vastness but trying to can help us learn a lot, particularly about our creator (romans 1:20)
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say: We do comprehend it as vast, very large or limitless. We cannot BE the entire universe.
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Bulldog redux say: What does that question even mean, anyway? Just because you can string words together in a way that observes all the rules of grammar doesn't mean that you've said anything comprehensible.
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Jeffrey K say: We are meant to do whatever we put our minds to and work hard to achieve. A thousands years ago, who thought we were meant to fly, to travel to the moon, to instantly talk to people across the ocean, to cure diseases, to build computing machines, to build horseless carriages, or to understand how and when the universe began?
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Clive say: There was never any "meant" about anything.
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Acetek say: We are a way for the Cosmos to know itself -- Dr Carl Sagan
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Ronald 7 say: You can if you let your thoughts go far enough
The Speed of Light is known, 184, 000 Mps
Nobody has measured the Speed of thoiught
To the Edge of the Universe almost instantly
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nineteenthly say: No. We're not meant for anything in particular.
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daniel g say: Yes, at least as intelligent creatures anyway. As you look into this vastness, it is quite overwhelming until you do begin to comprehend it.
This can really push ones mind to the limit. Just our galaxy alone is so mind staggeringly vast, then think millions with an unbelievable space between.
May have been Nietzsche said "You look into an abyss it also looks into you" heavy stuff.
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YKhan say: Contemplate? Sure, why not? However, after awhile our own common-sense analog sense of scale gives way to just a comparisons of huge numbers.
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The_Doc_Man say: In the strictest sense of the word "meant" the answer is "NO." That is because "meant" implies intent and there is no source of such intent. I.e. since there is no God, there is no one who could have had such an intent or its contrary position.
We will comprehend the vastness of our universe or we will not, based on individual abilities. There is no "meant to" in any of it.
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say: No, but I tried anyways...I never did understand the universe, but I do understand basket weaving.
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Fred say: You need to buy a simple Newtonian telescope. Something small, perhaps used, say $300 to start, or visit an astronomy club.
I bought 3.5 inch Newtonian years ago. A beat up demo model with a dent in the side I hammered out. Slowly I learned how to collimate it, acquired a full range of eyepieces. The first thing I saw was the four larger moon's of Jupiter equally spaced in a straight line centered about Jupiter. I didn't know if they were moons or stars, so a few day latter I looked again and they were different. I knew what I saw was the exact same thing that Galileo fist witnessed 410 years ago and started us on a science based culture and broke the base superstitions of ancient religion.
That telescope changed me! Understanding the Universe I live in was no longer just and assemblage of words lifted from the pages of books. But something I could sink my teeth into and see with my own eyes.
I can without aid of chart point out the unaided sky object nearby Andromeda Galaxy. With the owner's sharing larger optics I have seen the Whirlpool Galaxy, one larger galaxy slowly cannibalizing a smaller neighbor. It's an easy step to understanding initial big bang theory, the expansion of the Universe, Star birth, formation, and violent star death and dispersion. Supernova, gravitational accumulation into galaxy.
It all fits and keys into each other... Try it!
All for less than a brief vacation and it can be stored in a small closet, sold when you tire of it.
So? Yes! We are meant to understand the vastness of our Universe; but only if we peruse that understanding and open our self up to that thought.
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neb say: We can certainly understand the physical laws of the universe, but a couple of lbs of organic matter is not capable of comprehending the scale and complexity of the universe.
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quantumclaustrophobe say: I don't know if we're *meant* to, but... I hope we don't stop trying.
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Adullah M say: Yes that is why mankind set up the Institute of learning on the knowledge of the universe .
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busterwasmycat say: we are not meant for anything.
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ReductioAdAstronomicus say: Nope.
Our brain, oversized as it is, much as the dinosaurs had oversized bodies, is meant only to provide a short term survival advantage in our native state as we swung down from the trees.
Attempts to comprehend the vastness of the universe are merely a cultural phenomenon, allowed only because of a surfeit of free time.
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S say: It is unlikely that humans will ever understand or achieve total knowledge of our universe or learn of intelligent life on another world.
I base my answer to time it would take to DISCOVER and REPORT back to Earth of such existence.
It could be that somewhere intelligent life existed but has ceased functioning because of evolution factors which are also experienced here on Earth
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Sandy say: no, not yet. we haven t evolved nearly enough. we still only use 10% of our brains. to comprehend the vastness of our universe would require much more brainpower.
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Jon say: If the universe is truly homogeneous -- meaning that it's more or less the same throughout -- then its vastness isn't much of an obstacle to comprehension.
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Elyse Rose say: I don't think we know enough about the Universe to understand it.
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CarolOklaNola say: Maybe, maybe not. That is one of those philosophical questions that can be debated endlessly and never be resolved. Why humans exist at the range and scale of sizes where the quantum subatomic and the cosmic scales of size intersect and can be observed and changed by our observations and actions is true, but not many of us concerned with all the ripple effects that possible. Most of us are too busy surviving or manipulating or impressing or demeaning others to just appreciate, observe and think. It can be overwhelming and humiliating and awesome all at the same time. That's the difference between willful, normal and higher ignorance.
Welcome to Newton's and Einstein's and Sagan's and Hawking's cosmic "beach." Some believe do not understand 95% of the physics of the Universe while others think there is very little left to discover. Who is delusional???? God's clock ticks at a different rate than human clocks. I've understood that since I was 7 years old. To me it's obvious.
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say: The vastness of the universe, the beauty, the mystery, and all of it is for us to enjoy, to marvel at. It appears that we are all alone here, however... Do you feel special, yet?
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Zardoz say: Meant by whom, S?
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say: The vastness is an illusion. There's only so much information that the matrix can store. As a discovery is made, another knowledge is lost. By the time we reach the stars, all of our current identity will be erased. We'll be more like peaceful animals. Not unlike dolphins. Simple creatures that migrate, curiously wander the oceans of space and time, occasionally, playfully, interacting with other lifeforms, and then swimming away leaving them baffled.
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Rowan say: It's pretty simple in my opinion, of course I could be wrong. What goes up, must come down, energy cannot be created or destroyed it only changes form, hot energy expands, cold energy contracts, all forms of energy have gravity, gravity is endless in reach, while weak in force, while propulsion is strong in force, but limited, and must be made out of a type of energy, that has gravity. Stars turn into black holes, which suck in all energy, and their gravity turns them around and they move back to the beginning point. Einstein tried to publish a paper on the cycling universe theory, and it was suppressed, by the church, until five years ago, in English. The majority of the scientific community still accepts the hypotheses which were forced into curriculum by the church, when it comes to the origins of the universe. He got death threats. On the one hand, I can sort of understand that, it means that what they had told you was both metaphorically true, and literally false, perhaps more like Buddhism than Christianity, an endless cycle, which is also a cycle of endless suffering, according to Buddhism.
Einstein wrote a book saying as much, that he favored Buddhism, called the universe God, that popular Western religions were primitive, and talked about moving forward to a "cosmic religion". It's no wonder he was not taken well by the fundamentalist Christians of the day. I don't really doubt this big bounce theory much, it practically does require divine intervention for there to have ever been a beginning. They changed Einstein's last words, perhaps through death threats and harassment into "God doesn't play dice, and the universe must have had a beginning." He would have been right to be afraid of them, given the history of the church.
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