I don’t know how many of you already watch Vsauce but this new episode really left me with more “awe” than usual, to the extent where I actually felt… high (Dopamine maybe?). Watch this all the way through, the experience really will leave you feeling more than a little in awe, and maybe even drugged, who knows?
EDIT: Does “awe” cause your body to release endorphins? It seems like that might be a thing. Is that a thing? Is it the music, the visuals? What is it that your body brain reacts to?
EDIT 2: The weird thing is that I am still sitting here trying to figure out how to describe both my physical and psychological state after watching this video: Shivery, trembling, chilled, happy, ecstatic, hopeful, mind opening, worry free (This last one surprised me the most. Shouldn’t even be possible with my life right now!). Does that sound like awe, is it something else? It’s odd to think about the actual physiological effects of just hearing and seeing something that your psychology finds… confusing? Inspiring? Incomprehensible (in a good way)? I don’t know. Also I think the wikipedia page for awe is worth a quick look if anyone is interested:
This article has some interesting things to say about awe, the whole concept of turning your focus away from yourself is actually something that makes sense to me, under the concept of awe that is.
Awe was a serious emotion. “Clues suggest that awe’s function may lie in how it makes you think,” Michelle Lani Shiota, who collaborated on this research, wrote. In subsequent experiments looking at “the nature of awe,” the researchers found that it often occurred when a person had an opportunity to expand their knowledge of the world. When it happened, it turned a person’s attention outwards, instead of towards the self.
Takeaway: I should remember to stay well ordered when declaring axioms.
hehe
They used to show this early in the morning on BBC2 sometimes, it deals with the initial properties of infinity discussed in the early parts of the video above:
Seems to me, awe is the key component of any religious/mystical experience. Aside from the content, of course… that can be hard to come by. But the more times you’ve been there, the easier it is to tap into.
