One With The Universe And The Universes Within One

On This Day In History
1929: Explorer Richard Byrd flies over the South Pole

Quote Of The Day
"In that moment I could feel no doubt of man's oneness with the universe. The conviction came that the rhythm was too orderly, too harmonious, too perfect to be a product of blind chance - that, therefore, there must be a purpose in the whole and that man was a part of that whole and not an accidental offshoot. It was a feeling that transcended reason; that went to the heart of man's despair and found it groundless. The universe was a cosmos, not a chaos; man was rightfully a part of the cosmos as were day and night."
(Richard Byrd, Alone )


Richard Byrd's quote reminded me of this painting printed in one of the books which has had the most profound effects on my life, Cosmos by Carl Sagan. The painting is The Great Chain Of Being by the artist John Lomberg. Sagan describes the painting as, "A representation of the passage from one universe to the next larger universe in a Cosmos within an infinite regression of nested universes. Neither universe is ours."

I've always found this painting, and this idea, incredibly profound and perhaps it is something like this that Richard Byrd felt during his epic flight.

Infinite Regression