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Astronomy, science, education -- they're less about the answers than about the questions.

Yes, we only see a tiny part of the Universe with our amateur telescopes, rarely do we peer deeper than a few hundred million light-years while pros dive a dozen billion light-years deep. But it's not futile, it's only limited. Besides other dimensions probably exist enmeshed with our world and we don't perceive them easily, leaving us ignorant of an immense share of existence, but our baby steps at exploration are not vain, they're just small. In the future the individual and humanity will see deeper but only if we take our humble first steps.

Other particles and radiation or energy might surround us that we've not uncovered, our current attempts at explaining the world are surely flawed by ignorance but we must keep reasoning and speculating; the more people are at it, the closer we get to the truth about reality.

The Ancients wisely kept art and science as one discipline; as you say, a nice astrophoto is tech but it's tech for beauty. If nature is pretty and understanding nature is science, nature is both. I think those arbitrary separations are one of our limiting mistakes.

You didn't aggravate me, Richard, stargazing is kinda futile like all hobbies, but then why are we passionate about it, and how many non-essential things do you do, I mean those efforts that are not strictly for your survival?

Welcome to the forums Richard. I really enjoyed your thoughtful post. I love to read things like that. It's always fun to be challenged to think. I suspect you'd agree so I'm somewhat surprised to hear that you think astronomy is futile. Ignoring all the practical benefits we've gotten from astronomy (like cell phones and satellite TV) the challenge it provides for our minds is just another adventure that makes life worth living. You sure sound like an interesting person so it would be fun to hear more of your thoughts and Ideas. Roger

Thanks for the kind words.

I meant that astronomy is futile in the sense that we cannot understand the meaning of what we observe in the way that we can with the micro-world.  As we gain insight in molecular and atomic processes we see resemblances to the observations of astronomy - the nebulae, galaxies, and the billions of stars that in many ways reflect the complexity in the micro-world.  The cells' cytoplasm contains mighty agglomerations of proteins, sailing majestically across the endless sea.  Some moving objects are intercepted by killer proteins that blast them with torrents of ionized particles, destroying the intruders.  Then there are the great floating cities, constructions on top of a layer of lipids that drift and follow the eddies of the cytoplasm, inside a cell that is a living organism that lives inside another organism - and so on?  What is large and what is small?

I know I may be considered off-topic for delving into the micro-world on an astronomy blog.  But I find the similarities so stunning that I can't help draw comparisons.  After all, the large and the small are related since the micro-world is "inside" us, and we are "inside" the universe.  Here is a good example of the inordinate complexity of the micro-world:

http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/chemistry/laureates/1997/press.html

This article describes a machine, the cellular machine that produces adenosine triphosphate (ATP,) which the body uses as the chemical energy source.  The graphic halfway down the page shows this machine with a rotor that spins at 200 revolutions a SECOND, cranking out ATP in endless quantities.  Imagine if we were so small that we could see these machines that stick out of the mitochondrial membrane like towers.  We would see an endless factory floor with million after millions of these towers in tight rows, all spinning, all humming along on the "planet" of a single mitochondrion in the universe of its cell.

I find it remarkable that science has managed to observe and demonstrate such a complex function.  I think of astronomy as futile because observing celestial phenomena and objects, while inherently fascinating, does not describe the function of anything that we observe.  And I suspect strongly that there is one. (Alert: blue sky speculation.)

It's certainly true that astronomy, for obvious reasons, is an observational science and not an experimental one but It seems to me that you are selling astrophysics short.  An incredible amount has been learned in the past 50 years or so about the cosmos and how it operates.  I've had training in both biology and physics and do not find the analogy that you're trying to draw particularly convincing.   Presumably, the same physical laws that operate on the cellular level exist everywhere throughout the universe, both in the microcosm and the macrocosm.

By the way, quite a bit of science has been derived during the past 150 years or so from the images and spectra of celestial objects.

Please keep in mind the forum policies when it comes to "speculation".

Dave Mitsky

Good Morning Richard,

Actually things are not quite a futile as you describe.  If I may use terms that have fallen out of use both inner space and outer space exploration are equally important.  Sometimes it is all too easy to focus on the being that we are, the body that we see, without scientific technology.  We are far more connected to both the large and the small than most people realize.  For example all those elements that make up the world of inner space would not exist if it were not for an event in outer space known as a supernova.  All the heavier elements were produced by the death of a super massive star.  We can indeed study the inside workings of planets and even stars and as the technology improves we understand the life stages of stars and the galaxies they inhabit just as well as the working of a single cell.

Astrophysics can point out very accurately how a solar system functions or a galaxy evolves.  The technology curve though has been quicker for the exploration of inner space as you have described, that doesn't make the exploration of outer space futile though.  Remember that it wasn't all that long ago that the best one could hope to see of the microscopic world was at the end of an optical microscope! 

As living thinking beings we live in the middle of both inner and outer worlds of space and amazing are the workings of both systems.  If your mind leads you more to the fascination of inner space that is certainly understandable.  While I understand and admire the workings of the microscopic world my mind found great pleasure in trying to understand the macroscopic world via the science of geology and when I seek a diversion from the cares of the world the cosmos above my head is where my mind finds peace.

There really is no reason not to embrace the beauty of both the inner and outer realms of space while striving to further our understanding of both.  It is only where our curiosity leads us that decides which realm we decide to spend the most time with.

I hope you have a most splendid day,

L

I disagree. As humans, we are lucky to be the only living creatures on Earth that can not only think and  observe the world around us in a logical way, we have the gift of imagination.

If we don't observe (the universe), we don't ask questions. And if we don't ask questions, we never learn about the world around us and the universe. That would be so.

So if we don't observe the micro and macro worlds around us, we waste our precious gifts as humans.

It's just a hobby...

You said it is futile to observe something from the inside of a system because we can't understand the system as a whole.  But think of it this way:

In order to get outside of the system we are currently in, we have to learn about it, understand it, and conceive a way to get out of it.  We are already inherently outside of the micro world, so the step of "getting outside the system" has already been taken care of for us.  Therefore observing the micro world is easier because we don't have that physiological barrier between us and the micro world.  But we all know as scientists that the universe will end someday.  IF the human race survives that long (i.e. we figure out differences out, get off the Earth, and then out of the solar system and to another one before the sun dies), we will need a way to exit the universe and find another one to inhabit.  When that happens we can see the universe from the outside of the system and get a glimpse into the structure as a whole.  But in order to get there we have to make baby step observations and learn about what we can with the technology and understanding we have available to us today and keep advancing that understanding and technology.

Remember that just about 500 years ago the human race thought the Earth was flat.  While I was in high school, I was taught that astronomers were still speculating as to why the Andromeda Galaxy is moving towards us and why everything else is moving away.  Now astronomers are plotting the movements of galaxies and galaxy super clusters and mapping the visible universe.

The only hindrance (and in some respects an advantage) I can see is the fact that the universe is so large that it takes large quantities of time for observable light to reach us, meaning the further out into space we look, the further back in time we look.  The only way we're going to see the universe as it is today is if we actually go to the places we're observing from Earth and see what they look like now.

Richard Hode

I don't mean to aggravate all the astronomers and stargazers out there, but I've lately come to think that astronomy is futile. 

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I'd be interested to know if anybody has any thoughts on this.

The search for knowledge of Life, the Universe and Everything... is a part of what makes us human... it's one of the things that seperates us from the instinct driven animals that never seek answers to the who, what, when, why and how of it all.

Without the questing and exploring urges that drive science we would just be another species... lost in the Universe... without ever knowing that anything other than our lonely side of the mountain exists.

Also... there may come a day in the distant future... when most humans live off planet... and that may be the only reason that human kind does not go the way of the dinosaurs. At which point your descendants will be happy for the astronomers who were obsessed with space.

The Universe as we think it is so inconceivably vast and incalculable  that however much we learn for however long it is pointless in a way. Common sense tells us that we will never know, we cannot get around that one.