The shroud of perspective

Today's muse, perspective as reality.  Our view of the universe is so much a function of our perspective. Perspective of our biology, perspective of our individual life span, perspective of our sensory receptors, perspective our our species life span, perspective of where the earth sits in the universe.  It takes so much work, so much intellectual horsepower, a willingness to suspend belief, which is perhaps one of the values of mathematics, to lift the shroud of our perspective, as Einstein and the physicists of the early 20th century were able to do, with gigantic impact on our species and on the earth.

How much more knowledge and power will we gain through a growing ability to transcend our perspective, is an open question?  It seems that it takes only "small" steps in our ability to transcend our perspective to have gigantic consequences in our perceived surroundings.  It is hard for me to believe that whatever we are "learning" has not already been learned countless times, which of course is the cannon fodder of much sci fi writing, Carl Sagan's novel/movie Contact comes immediately to mind.

It is perhaps not a coincidence that our current networking explosion is following on the heels of Einstein's breakthrough work.  I suspect that the future humans may find it easier to lift the shroud of perspective, with equally powerful results, but I wonder who will be waiting for us?