The Inner Meaning of Outer Space: Human Nature and the Celestial Realm

The objects and events seen in the sky have long fascinated human observers. Weather permitting, the Sun can be viewed as it travels across the sky each day, and a person far from the lights of a city can view planets, comets, meteors, and thousands of stars in the night sky. Contemporary views of astronomical phenomena based on radio astronomy, CCD photography, and computer simulation seem quite different from the stories and legends of ancient shaman-priests, but both contemporary and ancient views are parts of a larger tapestry in which meaning is sought in and attributed to elements of the celestial realm. Most discussions of human nature discuss how experience within the terrestrial realm nurtured human nature, and it will be suggested here that the way humans interpret objects and events in the sky, look to the sky for meaning, and ponder the possibility of life elsewhere in the universe, all reveal much about human nature. Unlike objects in the terrestrial realm, objects in the celestial realm cannot be touched by earthbound hands, and so information regarding the correctness of human perceptions and conceptions of celestial objects is less available. As a result, the celestial realm offers a purer mirror of human nature than does the terrestrial realm, and provides a blank slate upon which predispositions and biases in human nature may be projected. Kant's question