A Mote of Dust

I just thought I'd like to share something that ran through my mind when I was waking up this morning.

Lying in bed, with the curtains half open, with the sunlight slicing a beam along my room, I was just watching the little specks of dust twinkling and reflecting the sunlight as they drifted along.

At first I though of Carl Sagan's saying that our planet is just a mote of dust in the inifinite cosmos...

But then I went further, thinking that within each speck of dust, there could poentially be contained a whole universe of its own, just drifting along, infinitely fragile, easily destroyed, yet there, and pure and beautiful.

What if our own universe is exactly like that? Just a speck of dust drifiting through some room in an unimaginable other place?

As I say, I was only half awake when thinking this, so it's a little patchy, hence being here in the Skunk Works

Has anyone else had any similar thoughts like this, how totally insignificant our universe could potentially be?

~Peace everyone! Hughness.

[edit on 17/11/2009 by purehughness]

I have had the same thoughts. When looking at the stars they look like just little specks of dust. It makes you feel very small.

Others have had the same thoughts as well. As above, so below. People have thought about this for a long time. Fractals come to mind as well. An infinite pattern. Math, physics, and even biology, in there own ways, help support the idea. Is it the truth? I don't know. It is a fun to think about the implications of it never-the-less.

The beginning of Horton hears a who comes to mind as well for all you kiddies out there.

How would we treat the world differently if we realized we were possibly destroying universes whenever we destroy something? Whenever we eat? Hrm...

reply to post by s373r3d


Hey there, thanks for the reply!

Yeah, looking up at the night sky with its scattered little diamonds really does kind of put you in your place doesn't it? A very strange feeling, but incredibly humbling too.

I see what you mean about Horton Hears a Who there, and needless to say, when I was watching the little specks, I was laid incredibly still, almost not breating for fear of disturbing the perfection of the imagery!

reply to post by purehughness


I tend to support the theory forwarded by the movie, Men in Black... that our universe is in a small glass marble and is one of many that offer amusement to creatures greater than ourselves.

At least this way, we won't be that particle of dust that gets sucked up by some galactic vacuum cleaner...

Who knows?

reply to post by redoubt


Hehehe, I like that bit too

But if we did get sucked up into some galactic vacuum cleaner, we wouldn't be destroyed, just in a very different place, surrounded very closely by lots of other universes just like us!

Parallel universes perhaps? Hmmmm...

If it were true, I feel it would come down to a matter of time and perception. That a smaller thing will have faster time than a larger one. IE someone in a much larger universe might be about to eat a cookie. We are all one unfortunate cookie, but our time is so much faster down here, a lot can happen before then.


Lol. Once again. Who knows?

reply to post by s373r3d


Perception of time eh? Like it.

So the objects outside of your dusty speck, like us observing the dust here and now, would appear to us to be moving incredibly slowly, while to them, it may well appear that our universe would come and go in a matter of days/hours/minutes?

And yeah, as you say, who knows?

It's just amazing what the human mind can conjour up really. Never ceases to astound me.

Well lets not let this thread die quite yet. There is always more to talk about.

Time is a fun thing to talk about. Imagine splitting time into smaller and smaller increments. Eventually we divide it so much, nothing happens. It is a picture. How does time flow through these pictures? How is movement even possible? Are we created and destroyed between every picture? Relativistic time is fun too. Einstein. Time changes based on the observer. Time is changeable an not uniform. That is crazy to think about.

Another fun thing is thoughts and free will. Everything in the brain will start from a single chemical reaction. If we are just acting on random chemical reactions in our brain where does free will come into play?

Lets see, there is also gravity and space time. Gravity is somehow related to time and space. Gravity effects light and time. We don't know however what gravity really is. We can't find a particle to explain it. It is just there, but it influences everything. We find theories to explain HOW it works but can't figure out what the heck it is.

Penny for your thoughts

If that is the case, then if we were to be sucked up by a vacuum cleaner, then we would have access to a multitude of other dust specks/universes. Until we're thrown in the bin and incinerated. Nasty thought.

You know, some of the most profound thoughts come about when you're lying in bed. I suggest people write them down when they have them. And they say you'll never amount to anything lying around in bed. Ha!

reply to post by purehughness




Yeah I've thought similar before.
I often try and comprehend and visualise what our universe is like and what, ultimately, the universe is like in relation to whatever it's contained in... if it is contained within anything at all.

I think it is like a speck of dust or grain of sand.

So insignificant in the grand scheme of things....


It's actually impossible to put into words what i mean and how i see it.


But yes, i think there are a few (probably loads of) people who really contemplate what the nature or the universe and of our reality and perception is.


I like what Aldous Huxley says in "The doors of perception" about how

The function of the brain and nervous system and sense organs is in the main Eliminative and not productive.
Each person is at each moment capable of remembering all that has ever happened to them and of perceiving everything that is happening everywhere in the universe.
The function of the brain and nervous system is to protect us from being overwhelmed and confused by this mass of largely useless and irrelevant knowledge, by shutting out most of what we should otherwise perceive or remember at any moment, and leaving only that very small and special selection which is likely to be practically useful.

He goes on to say:

According to such a theory, each one of us is potentially Mind at Large.
But in so far as we are animals, our business is at all costs to survive.
To make biological survival possible, Mind at Large has to be funnelled through the reducing valve of the brain and nervous system.
What comes out the other end is a measly trickle of the kind of consciousness which will help us to stay alive on the surface of this particular planet.

And also

In the final stage of egolessness there is an 'obscure knowledge' that All is in all—that All is actually each. This is as near, I take it, as a finite mind can ever come to 'perceiving everything that is happening everywhere in the universe

Which makes me think about the 10% of the brain and also about what we perceive and see as our reality.
It's obviously different for everyone... but just how limited is it for us?

How much more could we be able to understand and know?

Imagine what we Could see and what we Could know.






[edit on 21/1/10 by blupblup]

reply to post by blupblup


Great post dude, I loved the Doors of Perception, really makes me think about what is, or rather isn't, and what we're really experiencing but falsely interpreting...

Back to the dust universe concept, it brings to mind the photo taken from the voyager 1 probe, looking back at Earth, and it being a tiny, almost imperceptible blue dot...


[edit on 21/1/2010 by purehughness]

reply to post by purehughness




It does mate.... i LOVE that speech.

So humbling.

When I was a child I said to my friend... "What if there is a teen being somewhere who took a glass of milk to bed, then stuffed the glass under his bed.... the residue started to grow mold and within that mold is our universe!"

I hope his mother doesn't find the darn glass!!

I've often watched specks of dust whirling in a sunbeam and wondered the same thing.

Sometimes, when I've struck a match and a small spark flies off I've wondered if it might represent a sun or comet to the little beings on the speck of dust.

It's interesting too to watch a soap bubble. It's fascinating to see the outer layer of the bubble moving about like continents on a planet. I'd never deliberately burst one because the bubble will reach a stage where it bursts all by itself and then I feel that its had its proper cycle. (And any creatures living on it will have had their chance to evolve and die with it).

reply to post by berenike


I like the soap bubble idea, star for you

It's like a whole creation, evolution, destruction cycle, everything has been formed, taken its course and ended, just as this universe is probably doing.

But the relative time frame makes it appear like it happened quickly, almost imperceptibly so, just as ours would appear to an outside, much larger entity..