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7:52

(In »Intensities and phenomena in a relationalist universe«)

The problem is just that the conditions of scarcity that the human being has endured on planet Earth for several million years have no equivalent in the Universe whatsoever. The Universe is one gigantic expansion, where there is no scarcity of resources of any kind. The Universe is 93 billion light years wide. And it is finite but limitless. An eye that over innumerable generations has been evolutionarily honed for hunting, gathering and reproduction has no benefit whatsoever from its natural, intuitive aesthetics when it comes to understanding the Universe, which may be regarded as a latter-day occupation. Here the eye is groping in a cosmic darkness which it really does not understand. Thereby, the whole idea that aesthetics, which has finite resources as its starting point would have any applicability whatsoever to a cosmos that is characterised by enormous bounty, falls down. Rather, time after time, throughout history, physics has proven to be even more confusing, even more complex, even more bizarre, than the human being with her narrow, anthropocentric imagination has been able to even begin to imagine in advance. On further reflection, Plato’s neurotic minimalism is to be regarded as the worst possible guide through modern physics.