Back in my college days, here was the quote I used to impress people with my pseudo-intelligence:
“Two things fill the mind with ever new and increasing admiration and awe, the more often and steadily we reflect upon them: the starry heavens above me and the moral law within me.”
—Immanuel Kant
Critique of Practical Reason
It was 50% true. Even at a very young age, I was amazed by the stars, and at 12 years old I could often be found outside with a telescope looking at them, or inside looking at astronomy and math books trying to figure out how to plot something called an ellipse.
(Let’s be honest. When I was nineteen I doubt I spent any time in awe of my “moral law within.”)
But how about now, forty years later? What feels me with admiration and awe?
Well, there are a few things, such as pi and my cat. However, in the context of Kant, I am in admiration (or perhaps the better word is wonder?) and awe that a very small part of the universe—the blob of 100 billion neurons forming my brain—can reflect on the universe itself.
Now, that is amazing!
(Image credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA, F. Pacaud, D. Coe)