Open your mind, and you’ll see it again. Below organisms lay organs, tissues, cells, molecules, atoms, subatomic particles, and even before you hit the quantum it all works together spectacularly, in ways that nobody really understands.
e.g. is there a cure for Alzheimer’s, or “cancer”, or death? Can we grow new limbs, either from the patient’s own cells or at least off the rack generically? We’ve convinced ourselves that just bc we have a good enough microscope to view the book of life (DNA, plus some other stuff like mitochondria and centrioles) that we “understand” it, but we do not, I promise you, or else we would have all of those aforementioned things.
But don’t take my word for it: pick one of those places you mentioned and visit it - I mean actually go there. You will see what even the locals who have lived right next to it for their entire lives do not. Or start reading a Wikipedia page for something you have always been interested in but never taken the time to learn about, and you’ll see that you may never want to stop… The mystery is nowhere close to being gone, we’ve just told ourselves that it is.
Your third paragraph hits on something I had to realize in my “how to enjoy existence” journey. Put simply, don’t discount meatspace. Sometimes your brain needs those experiences even if you think you don’t. Plus with any current or near future technology, consuming media about a place is not the same as being there. There is no comparison vs the data throughput of all of your senses, even before you get to the social/cultural aspect and being able to interact.
I’m in the US and have coworkers in Europe along with the ones local to me. We talk almost every day, and interacting with them led me to learn a bit on my own about their area, culture, etc.
I’ve also gotten to visit a couple times over the past couple years, and yeah like I said there’s no comparison. You get a lot of the vibe for a place in all that extraneous data your senses are always generating. Just seeing how the people carry themselves, and the different ways various mundane everyday stuff is done, it all incrementally builds into a more cohesive experience.
Open your mind, and you’ll see it again. Below organisms lay organs, tissues, cells, molecules, atoms, subatomic particles, and even before you hit the quantum it all works together spectacularly, in ways that nobody really understands.
e.g. is there a cure for Alzheimer’s, or “cancer”, or death? Can we grow new limbs, either from the patient’s own cells or at least off the rack generically? We’ve convinced ourselves that just bc we have a good enough microscope to view the book of life (DNA, plus some other stuff like mitochondria and centrioles) that we “understand” it, but we do not, I promise you, or else we would have all of those aforementioned things.
But don’t take my word for it: pick one of those places you mentioned and visit it - I mean actually go there. You will see what even the locals who have lived right next to it for their entire lives do not. Or start reading a Wikipedia page for something you have always been interested in but never taken the time to learn about, and you’ll see that you may never want to stop… The mystery is nowhere close to being gone, we’ve just told ourselves that it is.
Your third paragraph hits on something I had to realize in my “how to enjoy existence” journey. Put simply, don’t discount meatspace. Sometimes your brain needs those experiences even if you think you don’t. Plus with any current or near future technology, consuming media about a place is not the same as being there. There is no comparison vs the data throughput of all of your senses, even before you get to the social/cultural aspect and being able to interact.
I’m in the US and have coworkers in Europe along with the ones local to me. We talk almost every day, and interacting with them led me to learn a bit on my own about their area, culture, etc.
I’ve also gotten to visit a couple times over the past couple years, and yeah like I said there’s no comparison. You get a lot of the vibe for a place in all that extraneous data your senses are always generating. Just seeing how the people carry themselves, and the different ways various mundane everyday stuff is done, it all incrementally builds into a more cohesive experience.