Concepts

(work in progress blog post!)
I've found a lot of quotes that support my concept..

"it is an essential part of the scientific enterprise to admit ignorance, even to exult in ignorance as a challenge to future conquests." Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion

“I was like a boy playing on the sea-shore, and diverting myself now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me.” Isaac Newton

"Broadly considered, a religious attitude and often some religious content is part of virtually every scientific investigation. If we look at the universe in the large, we find something astonishing. We find a universe that is exceptionally beautiful, intricately and subtly constructed. Whether our appreciation of the universe is becuase we are a part of that universe, evolved in it and by it, is a proposition to which I do not pretend to have an answer. But there is no question that the elegance of the universe is one of its most remarkable properties. It is very hard to look at the beauty, intricacy and subtlety of nature without feeling awe. I don't even think the word reverence is too strong." Carl Sagan in conversation with Edward Wakin

"in the cosmic context, the very scale of the universe - more than one hundred billion galaxies, each containing more than one hundred billion stars - speaks to us of the inconsequentiality of human events. We see a universe simultaneously very beautiful and very violent. We see a universe that does not exclude a traditional western or eastern god, but that does not require one either."Carl Sagan in conversation with Edward Wakin

"I wouldn't seperate the world of nature from the religious instint. Einstein, among others, made that point very strongly in his appreciation of the depth and beauty of the universe, which he described as a religious experience. To quote him 'in this sense, and in this sense only, I belong to the ranks of the devoutly religious men.'"Carl Sagan in conversation with Edward Wakin

"if you look into science you will find a sense of intricacy, depth, and exquisite beauty which, I believe, is much more powerful than the offerings of any bureaucratic religion, I would not even object to saying that the sense of awe before the grandeur of nature is itself a religious experience."Carl Sagan in conversation with Edward Wakin
Conversations with Carl Sagan By Carl Sagan, Tom Head

"From this distant vantage point, the Earth might not seem of particular interest. But for us, it's different. Look again at that dot. That's here, that's home, that's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there – on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.

The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner, how frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds.

Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.

The Earth is the only world known so far to harbor life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit, yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment the Earth is where we make our stand.

It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we've ever known."Carl Sagan, Pale Blue Dot
"..Then science came along and taught us that we are not the measure of all things, that there are wonders unimagined, that the universe is not obliged to conform to what was considered comfortable or plausible."A universe not made for us, pale blue dot

"our time is burdened under the cumulative weight of successive debunkings of our conceits" A universe not made for us, pale blue dot

"once we overcome our fear of being tiny we find ourselves on the threshold of a vast and awesome universe that utterly dwarfs in time, in space and in potential, the tidy anthropocentric procemium of our ancestors." A universe not made for us, pale blue dot


"Whether harnessing the light at sunset or transforming the glow of a television set into a fluctuating portal, Turrell's art places viewers in a realm of pure perceptual experience. His fascination with the phenomena of light is ultimately connected to a very personal, inward search for mankind's place in the universe. Influenced by his Quaker faith, which he characterizes as having a "straightforward, strict presentation of the sublime," Turrell's art prompts greater self-awareness through a similar discipline of silent contemplation, patience, and meditation. The recipient of several prestigious awards such as Guggenheim and MacArthur Fellowships, Turrell lives in Arizona."
- http://www.rodencrater.com

"The next space to be constructed is the South Space, (shown here, above) a space aligned to the North Star that concentrates the viewer's attention on the night sky and provides a panoramic daytime vista of the Painted Desert surrounding the crater. Visitors will ascend via a rising spiral ramp to an open, circular space at the top with an unimpeded view across the desert. The center of this space is open to below, allowing light into the inner room of the South Space. An alternate path at the base takes visitors inside. Benches for seating line the interior and visitors will look upward towards the sky. The central feature is a structure that forms an astronomical instrument similar to the Jai Prakash Yantra in the celestial observatory at Jaipur, India. With this instrument, one can track celestial bodies and events (such as lunar and solar eclipses) as they occur within the timeframe of the 18 year, 11 day Saros Cycle. A single seat provides a view focused on the North Star. The South Space is, in effect, both a space with its own particular characteristics and a calendar for the celestial movements and events that are at the heart of the varied spaces of the Roden Crater project." http://www.rodencrater.com