Beyond understanding

Now my own suspicion is that the Universe is not only queerer than we suppose, but queerer than we can suppose.
--J. B. S. Haldane

I'm reading Revelation Space, the first book of a science fiction pentalogy by Alastair Reynolds.  I'm reading it, quite frankly, solely because of a strong recommendation from a nephew. 

I'm only a third of the way through the first book, and I've made it clear to myself, if to no one else, that life is short and I feel myself under no obligation to continue reading beyond this first book.  But the book so far is amazing -- both in the imagination displayed by the author (a British writer with a Ph.D in physics and astronomy), and the detail with which he furnishes his universe.  This is no slapdash piece of writing by an author who has come up with something he considers to be a clever plot, and who rushes to dramatize that plot as quickly as possible.

The story takes place five centuries from now, in a universe whose peoples are clearly descended from those of us living on 21st century Earth, and who share our human fears and ambitions, but whose daily lives are as different from ours as ... well, as ours from Shakespeare, I suppose.  Far more different, really, which is logical once one extrapolates the ever accelerating rate of technological change five more centuries into the future.

I may well review the book and/or the entire series at some future date.  Not now, of course. Not while I still have two-thirds of the initial volume to read.

The reason for this post at this time is to verbalize my appreciation for the imagination that Reynolds displays, right from the first page.  His book is, of course, no Buck Rogers novel -- simply a showpiece for some cool rocket technology.   Reynolds's writing recalls to mind the Haldane quote at the top of this post.  Already, the initial novel has revealed ideas and concepts about the capabilities of the human mind far more foreign to how we think at present than my use of my Kindle would seem to an ancient Greek.  I know it's cheating, but a quick scan of Wikipedia contains the following foretaste:

The Revelation Space universe contains elements of Lovecraftian horror, with one posthuman entity stating explicitly that some things in the universe are fundamentally beyond human or transhuman understanding.

Yes, it's fiction.  Nothing in the series corresponds with what really will happen in the future.  Except -- first, I have no doubt that the future will be very different from the present, but that, as Reynolds suggests  -- so long as we remain human -- certain constants will continue to exist in human behavior.

And secondly:  That the Universe will forever contain mysteries beyond our mind's power to grasp --  aspects that are "queerer than we can suppose."  I find this attractive in many ways.  I also find it ineffably sad that mankind will learn and discover and at least partially understand so many things after I'm no longer around to appreciate how awesome our Universe -- "reality" itself -- really is.