Every once in a while we see something different in our world, perhaps unique. It likely is a perception or experience that we have embraced many times in the past which suddenly is … different. Sir Isaac Newton had seen many apples fall from trees until the day he went … aha! Presumably, Blaise Pascal looked up at the night sky one evening and now appreciated what he had been seeing in a unique way. As a man of 17th century science, he might have known that the array of lights twinkling above were merely stars. If so, they were no different than the sun around which our earth (and the other planets) orbited. On one of those evenings, however, his gaze led him to appreciate just how insignificant he was given the vastness of the universe out there. It impacted him profoundly by adding to his wonder at the natural world he thirsted to understand .

He had what we think of as an epiphany! He saw the world in a different way. That night, he experienced a transformation in his world view. Namely, his position within the cosmos had been altered, dramatically rearranged if you will. Of course, his perception of what lay out there was hampered by the primitive technologies of his day. The pinpricks of light, no matter how many he could see with his naked eye, were only a fraction of those sun’s that lie within our own Galaxy… the Milky Way. It was not until early in the 20th century that we had any real appreciation of the immense vastness of our universe.

I no longer recall the moment when I began to hold in awe what was out there in the night sky. It was many decades ago, and my sense of the universe in that moment had hardly progressed beyond Pascal’s. However, I do recall a more recent moment when I read something that shook the way in which I framed our cosmos or, more precisely, how I saw our significance (or, conversely, insignificance) in that cosmos.

Not that long ago, our best imaging technology located what appeared to be an area of empty space in the universe. There seemed to be nothing there. Technology, though, keeps improving. We launched even better and more sensitive cameras that were positioned further out in space. Next, we aimed our new toys for an extended period at that empty spot. By nature, we are a curious lot and wanted to see if it was, in fact, empty space.

It wasn’t. It turned out there were millions of galaxies where we had previously thought nothing existed. And there is the point. Our appreciation of the scale, the complexity, and the mystery of our world is increasing all the time … on the sub-atomic and the cosmological levels. And that is only within the universe we can experience and measure since, theoretically at least, many more parallel worlds might well be out there. Even within what we can imagine, we really don’t know how many galaxies exist (or how many worlds might support advanced forms of life). The best guess today is that there are two trillion galaxies, but the actual number may well exceed that estimate since our measured world keeps expanding exponentially. Each of those two-trillion galaxies contains billions of stars (our Milky Way contains 300 to 400 billion stars). Moreover, there are huge entities of matter and energy pulsating throughout the cosmos that, when captured in celestial images, puts the most ingenious abstract artist to shame. Bottom line, our known universe defies even our inadequate and cursory comprehension, never mind our full understanding. It is the most magnificent art form of all.

So what! The cosmos is huge. Big deal! You could shrug your shoulders at the news. But even Pascal realized that his universe, as modest as it was, was impressive enough to reshape how he saw all life about him, including his position in that world. Once I had my own personal epiphany about the vastness and mystery of our larger world, I could no longer see things in the same way. Almost everything we see as so important on a daily basis suddenly shifts to a different order of importance. For example, all the lines we impose on our maps to divide nations suddenly seem silly. All the imaginary ways we separate races and ethnicities and tribes now appear patently ridiculous. All our spats over trivial differences in how we organize the world pale when we consider the majesty and mystery of the cosmos in which we live. Truly, God’s canvas (or whomever set all this in motion) is the greatest work of art imaginable

Pascal had another epiphany even as he marvelled at what lay out there at the end of his senses. He recognized that our species was, as far as he could imagine, the only truly sentient beings around. Thus, his most famous aphorism … Cogito Ergo Sum. Until we prove (or discover) otherwise, we are the only creation of nature (or of some divinity) capable of appreciating the world in which we exist. This puts an enormous burden upon us. What if we are the only sentient beings with any ability to reshape the forces of the universe. What if what we sense as the divine is not some given or historical entity but something evolving … something like us. Perhaps we are an unfinished God, a divine work in progress. Think about that for a moment. We might be the most important game in town, and it is a huge town. If so, what sin would be greater than somehow screwing up the human experiment. I cannot think of any.

Not long ago, at our weekly condo association social gathering, I got into a brief debate with a neighbor, an emeritus faculty member from the University (these academic types are everywhere). Oddly enough, we often stumble upon these lofty topics at our social gatherings. This one focused on the uniqueness of cognitive life in the universe. My debate opponent argued that the sheer improbability of evolving as humans, with all the billions of serendipitous events that were necessary to create advanced life, made it highly unlikely that other sentient beings exist. He thought we likely were the only game in our immense town. My response was to point out the billions of galaxies and trillions of stars and all the likely planets on which life might thrive. Basically, we have an untold number of petri dishes in which evolution can work its magic. I think the odds are favorable that we are not alone. But we just don’t know for certain, not yet.

Of course, I hope there are others out there. If the universe is relying on us to figure things out and make things right, I fear we are in deep shit. Just consider how much time and effort we put into our daily sporting events and how little into things that matter … like climate change. That is enough to make one weep.

No, my personal epiphany, first discovered upon looking at the universe around me, cannot be overstated. I soon stopped looking at religious narratives, no matter how emotional or compelling, for meaning. I began to look out there since it told us so much about ourselves and our possible role in the miracle of life. Our world is so immense, so awesome, that I find it difficult to conclude that all of this is absent greater meaning. Of course, determining meaning is a challenge laid out before us. One day, perhaps we will discover what that meaning is … if we don’t screw things up first.