This lovely photo was posted over on flickr, the photo sharing website I use. To me, it is a really striking image of how form repeats itself throughout the natural world. I'm not sure whether a guiding hand exists in any sort of form in life, but this does seem to indicate that some greater pattern is at work. Whether this pattern is a function of creation or of some as-of-yet unknown physical property of our world remains to be seen.
In a somewhat related tack, I just finished reading an amazing short story by Isaac Asimov. I was directed there while doing some research to understand Monday's xkcd (worth checking out!). Asimov's story, The Last Question considers the fate of the universe. The scale of the story is quite grand, and I found the story to frankly be disturbing, but the true value of the story comes out in the last few paragraphs.
I'm not always sure what to make out of life. I'd love to have an afterlife where I sit in the ethereal mist and just observe the workings of the universe (from individual people to evolution to the movement of galaxies). The patterns that emerge would be, I am sure, beyond description.
In a somewhat related tack, I just finished reading an amazing short story by Isaac Asimov. I was directed there while doing some research to understand Monday's xkcd (worth checking out!). Asimov's story, The Last Question considers the fate of the universe. The scale of the story is quite grand, and I found the story to frankly be disturbing, but the true value of the story comes out in the last few paragraphs.
I'm not always sure what to make out of life. I'd love to have an afterlife where I sit in the ethereal mist and just observe the workings of the universe (from individual people to evolution to the movement of galaxies). The patterns that emerge would be, I am sure, beyond description.