Wednesday, January 21, 2026

Feeling insignificant because the universe is large has exactly the same logic as feeling inadequate for not being a cow.

From The Beginning of Infinity by David Deutsch, p. 34.  

I was wrong to be impressed by the mere scale of what I was looking at. Some people become depressed at the scale of the universe, because it makes them feel insignificant. Other people are relieved to feel insignificant, which is even worse. But, in any case, those are mistakes. Feeling insignificant because the universe is large has exactly the same logic as feeling inadequate for not being a cow. Or a herd of cows. The universe is not there to overwhelm us; it is our home, and our resource. The bigger the better.

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