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Would you argue that Carl Sagan’s Pale Blue Dot and subsequent writings…
Posted on 8/4/25 at 8:49 pm
Posted on 8/4/25 at 8:49 pm
are inspiring or make people feel small and insignificant?
quote:
Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.
The Earth is the only world known so far to harbor life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit, yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment the Earth is where we make our stand.
It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we’ve ever known.
16
Posted on 8/4/25 at 8:50 pm to CollegeFBRules
I’m cool with being insignificant if it prevents some badass alien civilization from fricking with us
Posted on 8/4/25 at 8:57 pm to CollegeFBRules
All I know is that Cosmos is AWESOME to watch at night as you are trying to fall asleep. Fascinating and soothing
Posted on 8/4/25 at 9:06 pm to CollegeFBRules
I remember a lot of that kind of talking down that got done when I was a kid. It was after the rash of apocalyptic environmental shite (Silent Spring, the China Syndrome, etc.) that flooded every weekly mag. I get why they spoke to us that way, and I dislike it. But, still a lot of good info generally, and it was before the climate change (warming, not cooling) fiasco, and it was a bit more pure in comparison. I don't hate Sagan for it, it's just what everyone else was doing. But it's not bullshite in the face of data in hand like we have now (COVID, climate change, etc.) when people continue to spew BS in the face of it.
TL;DR: Academics are always soft and leftie.
TL;DR: Academics are always soft and leftie.
Posted on 8/4/25 at 9:10 pm to CollegeFBRules
Seems like everything we know on earth is finite, there is a beginning and end. It’s difficult to comprehend that space could be endless. What is this? How did this happen that a thinking society of people could develop here in this vastness of a universe.
And how can we frick it up…….
And how can we frick it up…….
Posted on 8/4/25 at 9:15 pm to Clark14
Whether you believe in a God or not, the fact that no matter where we look into the heavens, space is a quiet infinity where we know only of ourselves giving it consciousness. That's an incredible endowment and responsibility that gives the most important of meaning to humans.
This post was edited on 8/4/25 at 9:22 pm
Posted on 8/4/25 at 9:17 pm to CollegeFBRules
Earth is the center of the universe which is not an insignificant thing. The science has to make the earth insignificant because they don’t want to face the implications of an earth centered universe.
Posted on 8/4/25 at 9:19 pm to Zephyrius
Posted on 8/4/25 at 9:19 pm to CollegeFBRules
if you have not read “the variety of scientific experience”, and you enjoy sagans work, you must attend to that immediately. It’s a transcript of lectures he gave in England in the mid eighties on natural theology. It might be the most illuminating book I’ve ever read.
The man was absolutely brilliant. It is a great tragedy he did not live to see the things we have discovered in just the most recent years
The man was absolutely brilliant. It is a great tragedy he did not live to see the things we have discovered in just the most recent years
Posted on 8/4/25 at 9:20 pm to CollegeFBRules
If you keep up with some of the astrophysicists that post on YT, they will tell you it is quite possible we are the only, light sending, radio signal sending, information sending beings in our galaxy of billions and billions of suns and solar systems. It is 100,000 light years across the galaxy and a civilization that flourished 100,000 years before us and sending these signals; we'd be receiving but, we aren't. It is a humbling feeling for me that with the collections of elements found across the universe, they organized here and formed life. It blows my mind. The stuff in coal is the main element in our chemistry. All off these elements are the product of fusion in stars. Blows my mind.
Posted on 8/4/25 at 9:20 pm to Zephyrius
quote:
Earth is the center of the universe which is not an insignificant thing. The science has to make the earth insignificant because they don’t want to face the implications of an earth centered universe.
You've got an uphill battle to prove Earth is the center of a universe comprised of trillions of galaxies.
Science, I find, gives Earth exponentially more significance as our knowledge expands and the universe is still silent of intelligence except for our own.
Posted on 8/4/25 at 9:21 pm to Zephyrius
quote:.
Earth is the center of the universe which is not an insignificant thing.
I mean it's not at all wrong to say earth is the center of the known universe.
Posted on 8/4/25 at 9:23 pm to cgrand
quote:
if you have not read “the variety of scientific experience”, and you enjoy sagans work, you must attend to that immediately. It’s a transcript of lectures he gave in England in the mid eighties on natural theology. It might be the most illuminating book I’ve ever read.
The man was absolutely brilliant. It is a great tragedy he did not live to see the things we have discovered in just the most recent years
Thank you for this, brother. I have not read it, but I will immediately.
Posted on 8/4/25 at 9:25 pm to forkedintheroad
quote:
I mean it's not at all wrong to say earth is the center of the known universe.
Objectively, it almost certainly is.
Posted on 8/4/25 at 9:26 pm to CollegeFBRules
quote:
You've got an uphill battle to prove Earth is the center of a universe comprised of trillions of galaxies.
When it comes to life, we may be the center of life in the universe. When you tell me there has to be life, intelligent life elsewhere, I refer you to the Fermi Paradox.
The next galaxy is 2.something million light years away. Any being in that galaxy has had ample time to get some faint signal to us.
Posted on 8/4/25 at 9:29 pm to CollegeFBRules
I don’t know, but the pale blue dot is a fricking badass picture and an absolutely incredible feat if you stop and think about it for a minute.
Posted on 8/4/25 at 9:30 pm to CollegeFBRules
If you really want to blow your mind, watch some Donald Hoffman videos. He argues that spacetime is a construct of consciousness, that reality is information and that our perception of reality is a user interface that enables us to interact with that information.
Posted on 8/4/25 at 9:30 pm to aTmTexas Dillo
quote:non sequitur to Sagan, but do you know why we have coal deposits in the first place? Coal is undigested lignin (trees). Trees don’t go undigested today, if they did the entire land surface of the planet would be buried in dead trees. So why is there coal underground?
The stuff in coal is the main element in our chemistry
Because trees evolved as lignin allowed them to be structurally sound enough to grow tall. But there wasn’t a fungi capable of digesting lignin which is one of toughest organic compounds ever to exist. So for millions and millions of years, dead tree matter compounded on the surface and was eventually buried, and became coal, and in the meantime a fungus evolved to eat lignin.
This post was edited on 8/4/25 at 9:31 pm
Posted on 8/4/25 at 9:32 pm to CollegeFBRules
Posted on 8/4/25 at 9:32 pm to CollegeFBRules
quote:
Objectively, it almost certainly is.
Can't wait to hear what is more objective than that which is observed.
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