Astrophobia

Found an interesting video on YouTube. In it, the author describes how terrifying the space is. How inhospitable to life it is. How it cannot support the same audiovisual experience that we have here on Earth 🌍 because our bodies have adapted to living in the Earth’s atmosphere. The space is an uninviting, hostile place, and it is empty. Where are the aliens? The Fermi paradox stipulates that there is a high disparity between the lack of evidence for advanced extraterrestrial life, and the high probability of its existence. But we have found a whole book worth of exoplanets and few, if any seem capable of supporting life.

But enough with the spoilers, watch the video for yourself. I found it a bit boring towards the middle but I watched it to the end. It made me think of something else. For many centuries, people adhered to the geocentric view of the universe. This is expressed in the thought of Aristotle and Claudius Ptolemy. And it dawned on me that it is a psychologically safe position, and the opposition towards any notions of heliocentrism since antiquity until Galileo were deep down nothing but copes.

It is profoundly unsettling if you think that this is a unique World between a massive thermonuclear reactor, the Sun and a huge mass of gasses with extreme gravitational pull, the Jupiter. The Sun however, provides warms, it makes the plants grow. Jupiter’s gravitational pull on the other hand saves our puny asses from the asteroids of the Belt, and probably has some bearing on rotation of the Earth and maybe even human consciousness. Astrologers see Jupiter as the great benefic, and the Sun, while providing life, giving your ass vitamin D, is also a destructive force. But otherwise the vastness of Space is empty and mute, and if you find a spec of matter, it is likely hostile to life.

If you ask me, I am not so thrilled by Elon Musk’s plans to build a city on Mars. Why would you even move to space? There are untapped riches ripe for the taking. But you would best served to enjoy what you make here on Earth, here is not only home, here is your natural habitat. I don’t know what life in reduced gravity, absence of vitamins, closed controlled environments, might do to your body and soul. Transhumanism becomes relevant in this instance. If your natural shell is not enough for life in adverse conditions then perhaps enhancement is in order. I don’t know, can consciousness exist outside the body? Then we can fit it in constructs immune to the adversities of space.