Turning the eyes onto huge inter-galactic voids, the first thing we find is how strikingly empty they are: vanishingly small concentrations of matter, almost imperceptible fields... Interactions are rare and weak; it is only after we mentally pack the observations into a more embraceable scale, that the common phenomena well known by our fleshy life come up there too, including solid state dynamics, plasma, flows and waves, fronts and phase transitions...

On the other hand, we do not always decide any household problem with an arrogant swoop; sometimes, it takes ages of persistent pressure in the same point, to get things moving and gaining speed, so that the converse problem of stopping it in due time would soon arise.

The rush of the humankind into the outer space is steadily imposing the logic of the cosmic ways: superfast motion, and slightest impacts to initiate a large-scale rearrangements, though in the times beyond comprehension. A space-dweller cultivates an angelic patience, never affords a shadow of haste, and never demands any immediate reaction. Big space projects imply an effort of several generations, and nobody expects palpable results in a lifetime (though, in fact, there is a rapid component too: the experience promotes a range of technologies).

Objectively, there is an interplay between the rapidity of change and the integrity of the system: an excessive pressure from the outside invokes abrupt shifts and high accelerations that can be destructive for the whole, a kind of catastrophe. This holds on every level of the hierarchy of the world. Thus, an atom stays the same in weak fields, so that one could study the structure of the electron shells; however, strong fields will ionize the atom, to exhibit a different physics; a yet greater effort may even damage the nucleus. Similarly, a ship would be wrecked bumping into a rock; still a geologist's hammer easily takes pieces out of the rock, while its very existence is due to a catastrophic collision of the lithospheric plates. Economic and social structures may survive rather serious geographical or political accidents; with all that, they cannot entirely avoid crises and revolutions. Finally, a human being keeps on through the casualties of the everyday life, linking them all in a single biography, from the early years to death; yet something may go wrong some day, leading to a failure, rebirth, or transfiguration—and here is a different person, with a new reference point to count from.

As expected, there is an opposite trend: however small interaction (or just the presence of something) may imply quite detectable quantum effects; a mountain will weather down or crumble due to a web of microfissures; accumulated innovations lead to a drastic change in the way of life; learning and maturation introduce a person in the grown-up world, while senescence and moral degradation would drive one beyond the social scope.

Philosophically speaking, there is a dialectics of quantity and quality, with their mutual transition and penetration. Yet another universal category is referred to as hierarchy. Stability and smooth evolution on one level shows up as a welter of catastrophes on another. The inside of the system as a whole become the outside of its distinct parts. Statistical aggregation complements virtuality.

Well, let us get back to the outer space. Probably, there are different options, and some modes of motion could be accelerated by the expense of a huge energetic loss and a liberal attitude to the rigidity of the material bodies. Still, this is a big game, and the stakes are high. To master large dimensions, one needs to embrace extremely long times, making them the points of the human scale. We'll have to live by cosmic epochs rather than mere periods of planets and stellar cycles.

This is utterly opposite to miniaturization as the dominant trend in the present technological development. Computer processors are getting smaller, closely approaching the quantum limit, which is to be soon overpassed to achieve a dramatic increase in the rates of data processing; this will eventually bring us on the edge of the light barrier.

A cosmic-scale computer would not be that hasty; it is phlegmatic and thorough, and it does not need to consider the urgencies of the mortal organics, so that yet another billion of years would count for nothing. It is the greatness of the result that matters. In principle, nothing prevents us from organizing the entities of the far space so that their motion would resemble the operation of an ordinary (or quantum) computer. The humanity is almost certain to get engaged in that kind of tasks. Just by the time when the humans will stop identifying themselves with a single biological unit and swap to the newly constructed organic bodies of a cosmic scale. Why not?

Still, even this new level may happen to be a smaller part of a much wider something, treating metagalaxies as the fine grains of sand. That is, people will have to acquire the habit of building and rebuilding entire worlds.