by Jamie Elizabeth

Created on: April 06, 2009

Starry nights are a reminder of the expanse of the universe. They remind humans of what we still do not and perhaps cannot know. Stars are beautiful, and infinite in number. The seem eternal, though they are truly not. They are what humans strive to be, but cannot.

It is the discovery of the unknown and the questioning of all in the universe that is the spark for philosophical conversations. Stars encompass these ideas and twinkle at us, almost as if winking to dare us to question the ways of the world. It is a challenge, and one often undertaken in the course of an otherwise everyday conversation as the realities of the scope of being descend upon us.

Stars have also always been there, they have seen history from above. They have looked down upon the actions of humans and the goings-on of history. In this way, by reflecting on what the stars have been interpreted to mean by those cultures of long ago, we are able to philosophize about our own futures and about those mysterious things that are occurring in the present. Having a record of how the Greeks thought about certain movements in the stars, and how stars were used for navigation, we can learn about ourselves. Stars are as much a part of history as those boring old textbooks from high school.

Stars also have an intrinsic beauty. Humans enjoy the beautiful. It stretches our minds and makes us consider why we consider something to be beautiful. Stars sparkle, and from a distance they are incredible. But, when one really sees a star up close or truly understands its scientific structure it ceases to be so beautiful, and instead is something for mere empirical inquiry.

This is often true of so many things in the physical world, including many people themselves. The distance we have from the stars allows us to question them and in doing so, to question ourselves, and to question the world around us.

Humans are curious. We want to know more, and we want to know it for sure. Stars don't allow us to do that, at least not while lying on the grass staring up at them, millions of miles away. As they wink, we respond, with questions, but rarely with answers. This is how even the most scientifically grounded of people find themselves grappling with the most mysterious and unanswerable of questions as they stare at Orion, Gemini, the Big Dipper, and at the billions of unattached stars that haunt the night sky.

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