1. "We are in the end absolutely dependent on ___." Is this a dependency we should embrace? What do you think it would it mean to do so?
2. What did Carl Sagan find tragic about the Genesis creation story, and why did he find Darwinian science more spiritually satisfying? Do you?
3. Carl agreed with Bertrand Russell that what we need is ___. (Russell was targeting WJ with this barb, but do you think Carl and WJ ultimately disagreed about this?)
4. Carl wanted us to see ourselves "not as the failed clay of a disappointed Creator but as ___."
5. What did Carl admire about WJ's definition of religion? Do you think science, religion, philosophy are in some important sense an attempt to come home? Or to have the experience of feeling at home, in our experience and our lives?
6. How would you characterize "spirituality" and its relation to a person's perception of meaningfulness and a sense of purpose? Is your conception of it compatible with the claim that scientific experience, no less than religious experience, can give rise to spiritual feelings and attitudes?
7. What do you think people mean when they say they're "spiritual, not religious"? Do you say that?
8. What do you think of Carl's "Pale Blue Dot" oration? Does it reinforce for you a sense of the fragility and preciousness of experience?
9. What do you think of Sasha Sagan's ideas about the importance of ritual and meaning, and of what her parents taught her about science and spirituality? (see below*)
10. Do you consider yourself a humanist? (HumanistsUK quiz... I scored 100%)
11. Was it a good idea to launch Pioneer plaque and the Golden Record?
12. Are we a transitional species? What might we be transitioning to?
13. Your questions and comments...
The Pioneer Plaque: Science as a Universal Language
In 1972, an attempt to contact extraterrestrial life was cast into space with the launch of the Pioneer 10 spacecraft. This space vehicle was designed to explore the environment of Jupiter, along with asteroids, solar winds, and cosmic rays. Among a succession of firsts achieved by the spacecraft, Pioneer 10 would attain enough velocity to escape the solar system. This tacked on yet another first: the possibility of the interception of a human machine by an extraterrestrial civilization, providing us the opportunity to make contact with life from another world... (continues)
Pioneers 10 and 11, which preceded Voyager, both carried small metal plaques identifying their time and place of origin for the benefit of any other spacefarers that might find them in the distant future. With this example before them, NASA placed a more ambitious message aboard Voyager 1 and 2, a kind of time capsule, intended to communicate a story of our world to extraterrestrials. The Voyager message is carried by a phonograph record, a 12-inch gold-plated copper disk containing sounds and images selected to portray the diversity of life and culture on Earth.
In the winter of 1976, Carl was visiting with me and my fiancée at the time, Ann Druyan, and asked whether we’d help him create a plaque or something of the sort for Voyager. We immediately agreed. Soon, he and one of his colleagues at Cornell, Frank Drake, had decided on a record. By the time NASA approved the idea, we had less than six months to put it together, so we had to move fast. Ann began gathering material for a sonic description of Earth’s history. Linda Salzman Sagan, Carl’s wife at the time, went to work recording samples of human voices speaking in many different languages. The space artist Jon Lomberg rounded up photographs, a method having been found to encode them into the record’s grooves. I produced the record, which meant overseeing the technical side of things. We all worked on selecting the music... --Tim Ferris
Carl and I knew we were the beneficiaries of chance, that pure chance could be so kind that we could find one another in the vastness of space and the immensity of time. We knew that every moment should be cherished as the precious and unlikely coincidence that it was.” ~ Annie DruyanHow sublime it is to lose oneself in the poetry of Lane’s closing words:
It’s hard to imagine the Golden Record being made now. I wish Carl Sagan were here to say, ‘You know what? A thousand billion years is a really long time. Nobody can know what will happen. Why not try? Why not reach for something amazing?’ There is no way to forestall what can’t be fathomed, no way to guess what hurts we’re trying to protect ourselves from. We have to know in order to love, we have to risk everything, we have to open ourselves up to contact — even with the possibility of disaster.”
* “My parents taught me that the provable, tangible, verifiable things were sacred, that sometimes the most astonishing ideas are clearly profound, but when they get labeled as "facts", we lose sight of their beauty. It doesn't have to be this way. Science is the source of so much insight worthy of ecstatic celebration.”
“Growing up in our home, there was no conflict between science and spirituality. My parents taught me that nature as revealed by science was a source of great, stirring pleasure. Logic, evidence, and proof did not detract from the feeling that something was transcendent—quite the opposite. It was the source of its magnificence.”― Sasha Sagan, For Small Creatures Such as We: Rituals for Finding Meaning in Our Unlikely World
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In the spirit of Carl Sagan's Pale Blue Dot...
- The cosmic perspective is humble.
- The cosmic perspective is spiritual—even redemptive—but not religious.
- The cosmic perspective enables us to grasp, in the same thought, the large and the small.
- The cosmic perspective opens our minds to extraordinary ideas but does not leave them so open that our brains spill out, making us susceptible to believing anything we’re told.
- The cosmic perspective opens our eyes to the universe, not as a benevolent cradle designed to nurture life but as a cold, lonely, hazardous place.
- The cosmic perspective shows Earth to be a mote, but a precious mote and, for the moment, the only home we have.
- The cosmic perspective finds beauty in the images of planets, moons, stars, and nebulae but also celebrates the laws of physics that shape them.
- The cosmic perspective enables us to see beyond our circumstances, allowing us to transcend the primal search for food, shelter, and sex.
- The cosmic perspective reminds us that in space, where there is no air, a flag will not wave—an indication that perhaps flag waving and space exploration do not mix.
- The cosmic perspective not only embraces our genetic kinship with all life on Earth but also values our chemical kinship with any yet-to-be discovered life in the universe, as well as our atomic kinship with the universe itself.
Absent such curiosity, we are no different from the provincial farmer who expresses no need to venture beyond the county line, because his forty acres meet all his needs. Yet if all our predecessors had felt that way, the farmer would instead be a cave dweller, chasing down his dinner with a stick and a rock.
During our brief stay on planet Earth, we owe ourselves and our descendants the opportunity to explore—in part because it’s fun to do. But there’s a far nobler reason. The day our knowledge of the cosmos ceases to expand, we risk regressing to the childish view that the universe figuratively and literally revolves around us. In that bleak world, arms-bearing, resource-hungry people and nations would be prone to act on their “low contracted prejudices.” And that would be the last gasp of human enlightenment—until the rise of a visionary new culture that could once again embrace the cosmic perspective.
An excerpt from Neil's upcoming book 'Starry Messenger: Cosmic Perspectives on Civilization.' Should we live forever? What happens to us after we die? What is the statistical probability of being alive? Taking a cosmic perspective on civilization not only helps us understand where we are but shows us the path forward.
It is kind of funny, as I was driving down to campus for class last week I was listening to a podcast. I know, I listen to a lot of podcasts but I enjoy learning and listening to the stories of other people. Humanism was brought up on the podcast and was defined as people doing the right thing because it is the right thing to do. Using this definition, I would agree that I may be a humanist. I believe in doing the right thing simply because it is the right thing, not out of fear of eternal punishment or the desire for an eternal reward. I am not convinced that morality, the desire to do good, stems only from a faith system. I think that every human has the capacity to do good things and bad things, and that your experiences and some of your own nature shape who you are and the impact you have on the world. I don’t know if that makes me a true humanist, but I did score a 77% on the quiz so maybe I am a C humanist.
ReplyDeleteI had never really heard of the term humanist or humanism, outside of a brief discussion during a Christian Studies course in my undergrad that lumped new age/spiritualism, universalism, and humanism into the same category: something that is deeply wrong and will probably send you to hell if you study it too much. That may be a dramatic retelling, but that was the emotions I was left feeling after that particular lecture. So I didn’t really study other philosophies because I was a good Christian girl and I didn’t want to chance an eternity in hell. I have since started deconstructing my religion and my faith. I’ve had to unlearn a lot, and relearn some things too. I may very well end up getting a 100% on the humanist quiz at some point, time will tell. I do believe in the divine, in the undefinable element that makes up our vast and awe-inspiring universe. I don’t have all the answers and I’m learning to accept that I may not ever get those answers. I think that humanity is capable of amazing and wondrous things, as well as some horribly awful things. I think that doing the right thing simply because it is the right thing makes you a good person, and that doing the right thing for the wrong reasons makes you a person with questionable morals. I’m still figuring out the rest.
Kurt Vonnegut: “… being a Humanist means trying to behave decently without expectation of rewards or punishment after you are dead.”
DeleteI would consider myself a humanist according to Vonnegut's definition, and Lauren's podcast. I think that if you are only decent when you think someone is watching, devine or worldly, your motivation has more to do with people pleasing than actually wanting to be a good person. In other words, you are choosing to focus on appearances over reality.
DeleteSagan felt that the notion of humanity being created totally separate from everything else, from all the other living creatures, was a true tragedy. To be kept separate from the whole of organic beings is incredibly lonely and disconnecting. It can create a sense of importance that allows humanity to use and abuse this marvelous planet, because all other creations are subservient to humanity. The disconnection from the rest of creation allows for a very limiting picture of our place in this world, and this universe. The role humanity plays in our universe should be more than mere dominance of our surroundings, but that is the only lasting role we carry if we see ourselves as separate entities to the rest of creation and therefore owed a form of exaltation as we are the only beings created in the image of the Divine itself.
ReplyDeleteI have to agree with Sagan that the Darwinian theory is a much more satisfying belief in a spiritual sense. To think of the rise of humanity as part of a long, tested process gives more weight to the importance of humanity and the impact we can have on our planet. We are all just a few threads in the fabric of our history, and the tapestry that is the existence of our world is far more complex and beautiful when seen as a whole. The connectedness, the weaving of lives and species over millennia creates a stunning piece of art that is so much bigger than our few short threads of existence. That connection, for me, is more powerful than the idea of being set apart as something greater. The idea that a single thread missing from the cloth could unravel it all, that each aspect of life is dependent on the others, forms a connection beyond your fellow humans and a dedication to the improvement of the fabric as a whole.
I really liked how you put it, that our role in the universe should be more than dominance of our surroundings. I think it's kind of odd that the idea of being created separately from other creations would drive humans to display superiority through dominance of the world around us rather than drive humanity to view itself as tasked with the position of caretakers, especially from the Judeo- Christian view of being created in the image of God, who is ultimately viewed as humanity's caretaker or "father". I grew up with a highly scientific thinking mother, who is a "fall-away" Catholic, and she found beauty in the concept that matter and energy are neither created nor destroyed. I think for her the proof that we continued to exist in other ways was enough to satisfy her even if presented with the concept that there is no "after" this life, there was the fact that everything we are and ever will be, will continue in some shape or form beyond our demise, but I know she also prefers to believe there is more for our consciousness/souls after this life.
DeleteThank you Gabby! I come from a very domineering (at least the men are encouraged to be domineering) denomitation or flavor of Christianity. I honestly cannot count the number of sermons I have set through where the lesson was on men being the masters of their domain, and the general takeaway being something really gross. The idea of master/authority took on a rather abusive aspect, though it was never spoke aloud. The image of God lost the fatherly/caretaker aspect and I saw a lot more of the ultra-masculine Jesus spoken about. The book Jesus and John Wayne by Kristin Kobes Du Mez breaks down this weird shift in Christianity really, really well.
DeletePersonally, I think that humanity was supposed to be the caretakers from the beginning, and we (as a species, not individually) have chosen to shirk that duty. Which is why I say that we've dominated our surroundings, bent creation to our wills, instead of caring for it as it was designed. Hopefully that makes sense.
Coming from a different faith system, I have never had to really deal with a misalignment of the creation story in comparison to what we know of evolution. I know people who have had problems with conceptualizing such things, but from the language of the Quran I've always seen the creation of man as something that took place spiritually and the soul/spirit capable of rationality, reason, and belief as a part of man created separate from the creation of a physical being. I can see how a holy text that goes into more detail on a creation story asserted as truth rather than parable, that is in complete juxtaposition to what is scientifically known to be truth, would cause a person to find more spiritual satisfaction in scientific truth. I don't feel that Sagan's idea of us seeing ourselves as created from "star dust" is all that far off from the imagery of being created from clay or mud, while the atoms and molecules that make us up ultimately originate from the universe, we as a species originate from earth and with no viable proof of complex life formed outside of a planet/ our planet, we, ultimately, are also a part of the earth we originate from. This origination of our species on earth, does mean we are undeniably formed from the "stardust" of the universe, as the earth would be the creation from stardust that precedes us in existence, but also as the clay or mud of the earth, as life arose from the crust of this planet.
ReplyDeleteCarl Sagan and Bertrand Russel agreed on the idea that "what is wanted is not the will to believe, but the desire to find out, which is the exact opposite." And, though Russel meant this as a dig at William James, I do not think that Sagan and James were diametrically opposed on this topic. I think that William James would have found Carl Sagan's feelings about science and the universe to be very spiritual. And, though William James could appreciate religious experiences, unless I am misreading him, I do not think that he is advacating turning away from science or truth. I thought he was saying just the opposite. I thought he was saying that we should examine religious experiences through the lens of science and observation, instead of dismissing them offhand.
ReplyDeleteAnd, if I was reading him correctly, I would agree. If a person considers themselves a person of science, a truth-seeker, then dismissing religious experiences without a thorough and open-minded examination would not be the correct course of action. Personally, there are many things that science deams "super-natural" that I feel deserve more scientific study. I guess I am saying it is not very scientific to dismiss something without a thorough investigation. That is just as bad as blindly believing something without examination. And, this second point, blind belief, is what I think Carl Sagan and Bertrand Russel were emphasizing that we should avoid.
*deems
DeleteI just answered the spiritual question and that's exactly what I meant. I would think spirituality is the action verb and religion is the noun or catalyst to invoke that feeling. I think of religion as a set of rules or guidelines. These guidelines can be unfair, traditional and sometimes nonsensical. But I believe spirituality connects us to each other, to the earth, the universe and to our Higher Power. I loved your comment.
DeleteI agree, blind belief or believing without questioning is something that should be avoided. It is a very shallow way to approach life, some of the most amazing things can only be discovered by digging a little deeper. It is also dangerous, as you could find yourself buying into something that you would normally categorially stand against but it had a veneer that hid the ugly. Asking questions, digging deeper, seeking answers is healthy and is how we grow as humans.
DeleteWhen someone says the are "spiritual, but not religious," I think they mean that they appreciate the fact that there is something bigger than themselves or this world, but they do not adhere to any particular religion. Often, I think that those who feel this way do so because they take issue with the certainty that religions espouse about the unverse and an afterlife. Additionally, most spiritual people I know do not hold concrete beliefs about the existence or nature of an afterlife and/or a creator god.
ReplyDeleteI would place myself in this category. I take a cosmic perspective; "sub specie aeternitatis" (Spinoza). And, I come at life with the realization that there is a limit to human knowledge. Therefore, I would say I am a spiritual agnostic. I do not believe in a creator god; however, I could possibly believe in a universal consciousness. Either way, I can not claim to know.
I agree with Sagan that we are absolutely dependent on one another. Even with belief in a higher power or God, that should be a natural conclusion reached, as in this world we need one another to survive. Again, this may be due to coming from a different religion, but there are no issues for me with the concept of believing in a higher power and believing that higher power plays a role in one's life, while also knowing that human life and the life of earth's ecosystems are deeply dependent on and interwoven with one another.
ReplyDeleteI believe when a person chooses to refer to themselves as spiritual and not religious, they are choosing to see their religious experience as individualistic rather than as something connected to a larger movement or religious structures that they may be familiar with. The fact of the matter is that this trend of calling one's self "spiritual" can be traced back to the movement of "spiritualism", and while what we see in the modern day may have much less to do with the idea of a spiritual world that interacts with the physical, it is still a religious movement, both in that it is stemming from belief systems, as well as it is borrowing ideas and practices from different belief systems. While I see my religiosity as something individualistic, in that I'm not necessarily going to agree with every interpretation of religious text that the existing structures of my faith system put forward as the "approved" interpretation, but I also have no reason to separate myself away from my religion and refer to myself as “spiritual” because my faith has an established saying that religion is for the self, so it doesn't really matter how my fellow believer or religious leader may believe differently from me. I think the fact that the faith system that I practice has been ill-received by the United States, resulting in fewer mosques and religious institutions, has also aided in practitioners having differing views not being as big of an issue, as in most cities, people from different schools of thought, denominations, traditions, and cultures will all attend the same religious center or interact with one another in other ways and we simply learn to respect the views of others. I don't feel like "spirituality" is a term needed for me, as religion being for the individual is deeply engrained in my faith and the climate towards Muslims has caused the community to be more diverse in the way they view their religion. Calling one’s self “spiritual”, in the context of Western culture, has become synonymous with disagreeing with the religion one is familiar with, but not having a different established religion to agree with. The “spiritual” individual may be atheist, agnostic, or a fall-away from an established religion, but still experiences meaning-making through religious processes of thinking. I think that this meaning-making found with those who call themselves “spiritual”, means that the limits for religious experience are not bounded by the institutions we call religious; religion and the religious experience could be found in the most “secular” of places. However, I feel anyone trained within studying religion, should already know that religious experiences and religion will never exist solely within the frameworks that we identify and use to describe what religion is. Like the root of the word for religion means "binding together" in Latin, when one studies religion, I believe we are studying the concepts, culture and beliefs that bind together to create an individual's world view and how this leads each of us to finding meaning in life. If an individual's worldview and meaning-making are derived from a non-traditional context, that doesn't make the processes of finding meaning and forming worldview any less of a religious experience.
I love that you brought up Spiritualism and its connection to the modern meaning of spirituality. There's a lot of really interesting history there, especially where science and spirituality intersect and often conflict. Maybe its just me, but I really think the whole movement is a fascinating study, how it pushed the limits of what was accepted by society and incorporated so many things from other faiths that it rebranded to be more easily accepted at the time.
DeleteYour last few sentences were really beautifully written. Actually, all of your writing is done so beautifully but those last few sentences really resonated with me. I think that the context of a religious or spiritual experience does not impact the value of that experience.
It is my understanding that, in The Varieties of Scientific Experience -Editors Introduction, the author suggests Carl Sagan argues that we are limited in our religious philosophies in that we must use science to better understand the concept of an omnipotent God. He further argues that religion without science restricts our notions about the creation of life by creating an unrealistic timeline of when the world and life itself began. Finally, Sagan is compared to his predecessors Galileo, Kepler, Newton, and Darwin who in turn used science to explain the vastness of the universe but were hindered in their progress due to religious doctrine and the power of the Church.
ReplyDeleteThe editor asserts that Sagan’s argument was not with God but with those who believed that our understanding of the sacred had been completed. These sorts of limitations do not allow for an explanation of the entirety of the universe. Sagan further argues that if God is all powerful, then it is our duty to use science to help explain his/her existence. Sagan states that there is “might” in questioning in our propensity to learn. In other words, knowledge is power. (pg 6)
One of man’s fundamental quests is to understand nature, his surroundings and how everything came to be. The editor uses the analogy of a topless wall to explain the battle between religion and science. As science grew, religious resistance grew. Religious skeptics of science believed that some doctrines should be off-limits to scientific methodology, but Sagan argues that "what is wanted is not the will to believe, but the desire to find out, which is the exact opposite."(pg 8) In other words, religious belief is feasible as long as we expand the knowledge through scientific methodology.
Finally, Sagan is said to have “initiated the campaign to forge an alliance between religion and science to protect the environment” and was inspired by the experiences of famous scientists such as Galileo, Kepler, Newton, and Darwin. The editor argues that the wall between science and religion didn’t exist until half a millennia ago when, according to Sagan, a group of religious men who wished "to read God's mind" realized that science was the key to that explanation (pg 8). Sagan believed that to obtain true spirituality one must realize and accept their place in the universe and to see that we aren’t just a failed project but spiritual dust made of thousands of atoms.
What do you think people mean when they say they're "spiritual, not religious"? Do you say that?
ReplyDeleteLet me start off by saying that although a follow a Christian Baptist doctrine, I’d like to think that I am a spiritual person, because I respect my place in this universe and I respect other philosophies and religious doctrine. I do not believe I have the right to tell someone what is true and good, because we all live differently lives and have vastly different interpretations of our world and how it works. I am spiritual because I do believe in a Higher Power. Religion is man-made and flawed at its corp. Religion segregates. Religion judges. Religion is sexist.
I believe spirituality connects us. It makes us respect our place in the universe. Spirituality humbles us and makes us look at what is best in humanity. This feeling of spirituality allows us to have the good will to start a conversation with each other with a sense of brotherly love and gives us the desire to grow and help others grow as keepers of this “pale blue dot”.
I loved your take on spirituality and agreed with the sentiments. I was raised in a Catholic household; I later followed a Southern Baptist church and then attended a non-Denominational church. Religiously speaking, everyone has the same goal. I have learned to respect all religions, even those I do not understand. I believe there is a purpose in why other religions learn their faith differently. I am not sure what that purpose is, and it is of no consequence to me as it is more important to respect each other's spiritual freedoms as they choose. To me, the experience of spirituality can be a private moment or event that can also be shared with others. Does it have to be religious-based all the time? In my opinion, no. Spirituality is the essence of feeling something deeply, being moved internally by something external. I believe Carl Sagan may have attempted to describe this from his perspective, that his understanding and scientific beliefs moved him spiritually.
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ReplyDeleteQUESTION: What did Carl Sagan find tragic about the Genesis creation story, and why did he find Darwinian science more spiritually satisfying? Do you?
According to the editor, Ann Druyan, Carl Sagan seemed perplexed concerning what he felt was a fallacy of the idea of creationism vs. what many genuinely understand to be scientific (Sagan, 2007). I have always thought about how one teaches science if it goes against this Creationism concept; I imagine those in the scientific field, such as himself (Sagan), scratching their heads. Druyan reflects on Sagan's perspective, "How was it, he wondered that the eternal and omniscient creator described in the bible could confidently assert so many fundamental misconceptions about creation?" (Sagan, 2007). Furthermore, Sagan found that the idea of human creation as separate from all other living beings was tragic and that Charles Darwin's theory of evolution was deeply compelling spiritually (2). Still, it also made far more sense scientifically. Why was it a more profound and more spiritual experience, though? Was it because the Creation story is told through past stories of thousands of years ago from those who no longer exist? Perhaps an aura of myth surrounding the story feels less tangible than the scientific lens Sagan could see for himself, asking questions about it followed by answers from current scholars on the topic. I am not sure why Sagan found it more spiritual, but I understand why it was easier for him to relate to the idea of natural selection based on his research and fact-based evidence.
Do I feel a sense of spirituality from Darwin's perspective, as does Sagan? I am not a scientist. However, based on my studies, I feel deeply inclined to agree with Darwin. Otherwise, it would seem that just the fundamentals I learned in Geology and Astronomy were utterly wrong. 4.5bil vs. 6k years as a discussion debate for Earth's age is a bit bewildering considering much of the current supporting data and scientific evidence. I understand why someone with a scientific background could view the gravity of information they study as "spiritual." Still, from an outside perspective, I simply see it as proven scientific fact, not spiritually driven. I suppose someone can have a spiritual perspective just by looking up at the stars or the wonderment and visual beauty of our galaxy. I think it depends on a person's interpretation of spirituality. I assume that is what William James was attempting to help us understand. I think that religious and scientific spirituality may, perhaps, have similar "feelings," but are clearly generated from different depths. I think I just can heard William James voice in my head asking, "But, are they from different depths?"
Sagan, C. (2007). The varieties of scientific experience: A personal view of the search for god. Penguin Books.
Upon reading Carl Sagan’s Gifford lectures on the Varieties of Scientific Experience and watching numerous videos, I discovered things I could appreciate. For example, his appreciation of nature and beauty around us was inspirational and hopeful. His amazing imagination and brilliant mind led to numerous discoveries in science. He was an excellent writer, made time to work with young children, and had a poetic way of appreciating the here and now. He certainly did not shy away from discussing controversial topics, and encouraged others to challenge and think skeptically about the issues. Sagan studied and was familiar with many religions, and was a champion for multiple social issues.
ReplyDeleteI thought his views regarding evolution, particularly macroevolution and the Big Bang Theory were supposing too much mutual assent on his part. He discussed these theories as though they were settled scientific laws, proven and definitive. As none of us were there at the time when earth began, it is presumptuous for him to declare a Big Bang or the age of the earth as proven. In fact, evidence exists on both sides of the evolution vs. creation argument, but neither has been proven conclusively. In the end, it still comes down to a belief system.
Sagan’s views regarding naturalism seemed to me to dismiss a large part of who we are as people – beyond cells, tissues, organs, neurotransmitters, and measurable data. In limiting his acceptance to empirical data, Sagan downplayed the non-physical connection that is not readily measurable. I believe our soul, consisting of our mind, will, and emotions, is very real. The day-to-day workings of the soul are not readily measurable, but that does not make them invalid. Just because Carl Sagan did not prove or measure a particular phenomenon or experience does not mean it does not exist.
ReplyDeleteWhether someone believes in Creationism or Evolution or some combination of both, the question of why we are here seems more important to me than how we got here in the first place. It seemed to me that Carl Sagan was more interested in studying how the earth came about than why the earth came about. People can choose sides in this very old evolution argument, but at the end of the day, our purpose and what we do now still waits for each individual to answer.
Cosmic Perspectives on Civilization "Life and Death" By Neil deGrasse Tyson
ReplyDeleteQuestion: Should we live forever?
This is an interesting question; Tyson describes what would happen if humans lived forever. Our overpopulation would strip the world of its resources, push us to seek alternative locations for life, such as other planets, and create infinite issues (Tyson). Infinite existence would be counterproductive to human existence, especially if nothing else were different, such as war, division, poverty, illness, pain, sadness, and so on. Humans and the rate of impact on global warming would lead us to live in bubbles, or as Tyson mentions, the sun would eventually disintegrate the Earth.
Nonetheless, all the other byproducts of human waste would also continue to grow. Tyson adds, "Humans commit homicide at a rate of 400 thousand per year" (Tyson, 2022). So while people may have the option to live forever, would this also mean that people can not be killed or potentially die? If death is still on the table, as long as there is war and division, we'd have a larger population to bury or cremate if we ran out of room on the Earth. So I don't feel we should live forever. We should, however, create legacies, whether as a direct contribution to the future of life or through our children so that they may carry the torch to provide a new road map for future generations just as our ancestors have done.
Thanks again for your thoughtful comments, here and in class. Hope to see you in the Spring, we'll dive deeper.
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