[sho_hn]

That's not my take-away when I get to see things like this -- rather, I always find it pretty amazing that something as small as a human brain is capable of holding (rough, admittedly) working models of and reason about something as vast in scale :).

It's a nice dynamic - all that scale and complexity out there, and its mirror image reflection in our tiny heads.

[Jach]

Your post's parent and your reply seem to have come up in every single HN thread where this thing or similar have appeared.

Define your point of reference for significance. Considering we may end up producing the beings and machines that colonize much of the observable universe, I think we can be pretty significant from the view of a hypothetical space monster thousands of lightyears away.

[prawn]

I agree with both of you. It's not impossible to be both in awe of our insignificance, and the capabilities of something so puny in the scheme of things.

[michaelcampbell]

Thank you - that's actually more or less what I mean, though I phrased it poorly. I'm not so much depressed at our insignificance as quite in awe to be able to KIND OF understand something so awesome (and so awesomely small). Or at least have a meta-understanding of parts of it. =)