I was pleasantly surprised when I recently learned that Carl Sagan's Cosmos series is available through Netflix's streaming video service. I don't know if it's a new addition to the service, but it is a welcome one. I've seen most of the series' short thirteen episode run here and there in various different ways over the years, but this gives me the opportunity to watch it all in order and at my own leisure, which, naturally, is the nice thing about the Netflix service. I find that, like all works that resonate deeply with me, I return to it time and again with a different perspective that reflects my own progress as a person. It becomes like a touchstone or a familiar place; it remains constant and serves as something to mark your own change and growth by.
For instance, watching it now, I keep thinking about recent conversations with my friend Vincent, who has a somewhat passing, almost mild, antagonism towards science, depending on what kind of mood you catch him in. Vincent isn't alone, of course, and there are plenty of other people with similar feelings. Yet, I can't help but wonder if their problem isn't as much with science - as a collection of data and a discipline of factual inquiry - as much as it is with the attitudes and mind-sets of certain scientists who rub them the wrong way. One might be tempted to cynically conclude that they just resent more sober minds raining on their fairy tales, and that they lash back with any means at their disposal. But I'd like to think there's a little more to it than that. I suspect that when Vincent thinks of science, he tends to think of Richard Dawkins or someone similarly disposed.
Yet, the problem with Dawkins isn't necessarily that he's a scientist or even that he's an atheist. Rather, the problem is the implicit insistence on an almost militantly prosaic viewpoint whereby he arrives at his conclusions. He comes off as the sort of smug jackass who subjects a religion to ruthlessly "logical" interrogations, not as a way of trying to learn more about it and gain insight into its tenets, but as a way of holding it up to mockery as an irrational farce. It's the sort of game a person is up to when they ask how Noah fit all the animals on the Ark or how reincarnation accounts for population growth. These aren't necessarily invalid points, but the people raising them usually aren't looking to know; they're looking to deflate. Consequently, some people come to feel like they are under fire from science and reason. The irony is that the prejudice and dismissive close-mindedness that underpins such smug games goes against the very spirit of science and reason.
Most likely, Sagan would have agreed with Dawkins on nearly all matters of scientific fact, but it's the man himself that makes all the difference in the world. His Cosmos series was billed as "A Personal Voyage", and it takes a moment's pause to appreciate the significance of this. Clearly he wasn't talking about "personal" in the sense of "biographical", and there's little about the man himself throughout the series. What is personal is Sagan's passion and wonder for his subject matter, his sense of amazement when he tells us that we are all "made of star stuff", his hopefulness of finding intelligent life out there in the universe, his benevolent optimism towards the human race, and his urgent concern about the possibility that we might destroy ourselves which he mentions again and again as a warning and a leitmotif through the series. Sagan sees poetry where Dawkins insists on prose. They may draw many of the same conclusions and believe much of the same things, but for entirely different reasons.
Throughout the Cosmos series, Sagan displays a boundless enthusiasm that fits him well in his role as a teacher. He constantly puts things in a perspective that's deliberately designed to evoke awe and curiosity. I particularly liked the calender model he uses to try to bring the fourteen billion year existence of the universe down to a manageable scale that the mind can grasp. He stands on a stage with a giant illustrated calender laid out on the floor. The calender year represents the entire life-span of the universe, and down in the right hand corner is a tiny little spot, the last few seconds of December 31st, which represent all of recorded human history. "Everyone we've ever known, every story ever told, happened right here.", he tells us, and suddenly the majesty of the universe, and our fragile place in it, is as clear and touching as it has ever been. This is the amazing achievement of Cosmos. "What we do at the beginning of the next cosmic year is up to us.", he continues, touching again on the themes of optimism and concern.
So, I come away from all this wondering if there isn't another dimension to how we draw the lines between us. We get hung up on the differences between our beliefs and ideologies that we tend to lose sight of the fact that it's the people behind those differences that really matter. Whatever side of whichever line someone falls on, it's the spirit of the person, the humanity, the compassion, that bright eyed warmth that really matters. A heart in the right place is worth far more than the details of any particular dogma, as far as I'm concerned. We focus on the difference between things like science and religion, and we forget about the difference between people like Dawkins and Sagan. We're all on the same journey, turning and revolving out here among the stars. Sometimes it's how we feel about that journey that makes all the difference.
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteYes, I think that in the scientific strategy for world domination, Dawkins is the fall guy, the clown who comes out to draw the enemy’s fire while the battalions quietly get into place unnoticed. You may see it as a war between science and religion. But in essence it’s a war about reality, and the relation between perceiver and perceived.
ReplyDeleteI have my scientific heroes too. One of them is John Archibald Wheeler.
Wheeler: We are participators in bringing into being not only the near and here but the far away and long ago. We are in this sense, participators in bringing about something of the universe in the distant past and if we have one explanation for what's happening in the distant past why should we need more?
Martin Redfern: Many don't agree with John Wheeler, but if he's right then we and presumably other conscious observers throughout the universe, are the creators — or at least the minds that make the universe manifest. (From a radio interview, quoted in Wikipedia.)
And I would say that all of us are participators in bringing into being. Science is not the only show in town, and has no business interfering with the others.
When someone speaks for science, I tend to hear an Old Testament echo: “Thou shalt have no other gods before me.”
I wasn't aware that there was a scientific strategy for world domination. I must have missed a meeting somewhere. And yes, I know that your specific grievances with Dawkins aren't necessarily of a religious nature. I was speaking more generally, as in: it's generally religious people that he antagonizes.
ReplyDeleteAs for the ongoing debate between us concerning the nature of things, I'm coming to think that the crux of the dispute lies in the fact that you see subjectivity as a matter of reality, while I see it as a matter of experience.
Take the example I used during our project, the idea of "visible" light. I said, basically, that we tend to think that there's a privileged band of the EM spectrum in which the universe makes its appearance on the stage of existence, while X-Rays and Radio Waves all operate behind the scenes. In actuality, visible light is a meaningless concept outside the function of our eyes. Frogs and house-flies may have very different ideas of what visible light is. So, now, we might be tempted to say, the world we see is not what the world really looks like. This begs the question: What does the world really look like then? What does the world look like when no one is looking? The problem is that these are pointless questions. The question of what something "looks like" is a question of how something is experienced. Something has to be looked at to look like something. So we can't talk about what the world would "look like" when no one is looking, we can't even properly imagine it as invisible or black, NOT because the universe depends on us to exist, but because we're asking the contradictory question of how something would be experienced when no one is experiencing it. We can only talk about what the world looks like to us or the frog or the fly. This is where we part ways. From here you draw the conclusion that there's a different reality for us, for the frog, for the housefly, ect. I maintain that there is a common reality, but we all experience it differently. I'd almost chalk this up to a semantic difference, if you weren't always expanding on this theme as you do above.
I can see how you would draw the conclusion you do, and I feel that it's an easy mistake to make, but I must insist that it IS a mistake. If a tree falls in the woods, there's so sense in trying to talk about what it would sound like. From there, it's quite natural to assume that means that sound exists entirely through the ear and the mind. The experience of the sound does, NOT the phenomenon which gives rise to that experience. If a tree falls in the woods, it makes that which we would experience as sound if we were there. What would that be like? It's impossible to say, not because we'll never know what it "really" sounds like or because the sonic vibrations depend on us to exist, but because imagination is a simulacrum of experience and we're throwing ourselves into a loop of trying to imagine what it would be like to experience something without experiencing it.
And that's all I'm gonna say about that. God help us both.
Okay, I said I was done, but let me throw a quick thought experiment at you:
ReplyDeleteLet's say that in all the universe there's only one conscious, perceptive being. It's always been that way, from the beginning till the end of time. We'll call him Bob. Now, if we were to ask what the universe looked like, we'd have to say, "However it looks to Bob." If we were to ask what the universe sounds like, we'd have to say, "However it sounds to Bob." If we were to ask what the universe smells like...well, you get the idea. If Bob is blind, then the universe doesn't look like anything. If Bob is deaf, then the universe doesn't sound like anything.
Now, this is where you have to be very, very careful to skirt the abyss. The moral to walk away from this story is not that reality can only exist and manifest itself through Bob, but rather that that reality can only be experienced through Bob. The deaf-Bob universe may be brimming with everything it needs to make a majestic cacophony of noise; it's just that Bob's damn ears can't hear it.
Jeez. You two need to meet and decide whether to shake hands or duke it out. Or both. Beat each other about the head with your favorite book.
ReplyDeleteWhen I was much, much (much) younger I attended a Star Trek convention. I was a Trekkie and a science geek. Two of the speakers there were J. Allen Hynek and Carl Sagan. Both of them spoke basically on the same subject: the future of space travel and the chances of encountering alien life. Hynek was kind of dry and school-teacher-ish with his beard and rumpled suit with the leather patches on the elbows,showing slides of graphs and numbers and fuzzy pictures of UFO's taken from all over the place showing "proof positive" that aliens have visited here, ergo they must exist and that space flight is possible and doable. He was good and interesting and filled our little heads with scholarly thoughts.
Then Carl Sagan got up in his blue jeans and hiking boots and t-shirt and proceeded to dance all over the stage, waving his arms and showing us pictures of nebulae and star clusters that were more exclamation points to his words rather than mere data. He talked about theories and possibilities about what might be out there when we leave this planet. He asked us what we thought was out there. He asked us! He didn't tell us what we would find, he made us wonder. He filled our fuzzy little heads and hearts with wonder and hope and enthusiasm and when he was done speaking we all vowed as a man to walk out of there and join NASA at once.
Both men were good scientists in their own field. But Carl Sagan was more like a recruiter, looking to find the next generation of researchers to help finish the work he couldn't complete in his lifetime.
He will be missed.
"Recruiter" almost sounds cynical, like a salesman, although I'm sure you didn't mean it that way. Unlike a salesman, Sagan's enthusiasm always seemed quite sincere and genuine, and it was infectious for that very reason. The incident you describe fits well with my impression of him. I would have like to have met him like that. Maybe I should start going to Star Trek conventions ;D
ReplyDeleteOK, I have been thinking the thought experiment. Yes, I like it. Bob’s world is brimming with sound, but he can’t hear it. The underlying phenomenon which produces sound in our universe to those beings who have ears would still be there. You could still design instruments which could respond to vibrations in the air at varying frequencies. It would still be an aspect of reality, albeit one with no practical use.
ReplyDeleteI'm glad to see we agree. And of course, there are more subtle issues that can be considered as well, like we touched on back then as things were drawing to a close. Like, if there are a series of tonal and rhythmic vibrations with pattern and structure in deaf-Bob's world, can this properly be called music if Bob is unable to hear it and have his passions evoked by it? Is there such a thing as the color red in blind-Bob's universe? Tricky questions, for sure, but I think the answer has to be found in how much of a thing and what aspects of it exist through experience. That isn't always easy to determine, and sometimes language itself seems to get in the way. When we use the word "sound", it isn't always clear whether we're talking about our experience of hearing something or the thing which provides the occasion for that experience. Thus, the question of whether there's "sound" in deaf-Bob's universe depends on how we mean the word.
ReplyDeleteOn the other hand, there are some things which exist completely and unequivocally through our experience of them. If Bob is unable to feel pain, then we can quite rightly declare without hesitation that there is no such thing as pain in Bob's world. Bob can be injured or damaged, but the actual pain can only exist as a feeling of pain. I remember an old SNL sketch where they were selling a Home Headache Test, so you could tell whether you had a headache or not. The joke, of course, being that a headache that you don't know you have is no headache at all.
As for these related three things you referred to above--subjectivity, experience, reality--there is some very interesting stuff which could be said, but it would take a whole book, one which has been already written. I’m reading it now: The Spell of the Sensuous, by David Abram. It’s his first book. I’ve already written a little about his second book, Becoming Animal. Never mind, I will in my usual fashion say things more concisely than they merit, and speak on my own account.
ReplyDeleteExperience is inchoate. As John Muir said (you can find him on Wikiquote) “When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the Universe.” We sift what resonates for us from that experience, and call it reality. Everyone approaches life subjectively, including scientists, and extracts from it that which they find interesting or useful.
For most of us, real means what’s real to us, what exists in our world, so to speak. This kind of real is not the same as experience. A teenager infuriates his parents because much of what is real to them passes him by as of no importance whatsoever. And much of what is real to him, what obsesses him, is actually outside his experience.
Coming back to your thought experiment, it has a lot of relevance to the present world we share here on earth.
One might say, and many would say, that an atheist is analogous to your deaf man Bob. Just as for Bob, there is no sound, so to many there is no God, for they lack the experience to hang the concept on.
But we need not drag God into the discussion at all. In The Spell of the Sensuous, Abrams maintains that conventional science maintains a distinction between subjective (the observer) and objective (the observed). In his world and that of the philosophers he quotes, such as Merleau-Ponty, the distinction is an artificial one. He recognizes that we cannot easily break out of the usual way of thinking unless we have forms of expression which will hold this alternative view. Merleau-Ponty uses the word “flesh” as a collective word incorporating our own flesh (our bodies, us) and the flesh of the world—all the stuff wrapped around us. In calling matter “flesh” he is open to the idea that all matter is both sensible (detectable to sense) and sentient (able to feel with senses).
Referring back to our thought experiment, Bob’s situation as the only sentient being in the Universe would not make sense any more. The Universe is full of reciprocal relationships, and the idea of man as somehow above the rest of creation has nothing to support it. My own thought is coloured by these ideas, and I hope to tantalize you with them, whilst recognizing that they go beyond the scope of your post.
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteReinstated your comments, which ended up in the spam file somehow. I'll try to get a chance to look at them and respond further. Right now, I'm headed out the door.
ReplyDeleteSee ya' later!
That figures. Google had gone into a panic, thought I had stolen my own identity, insisted I prove I am me.
ReplyDelete(revised second comment)
ReplyDeleteI should try and clarify my previous comment. In your previous thought experiment where Bob is alone in the Universe, suffering from deafness, some would say that Bob resembles someone who is deaf to the existence of God. He might be an atheist, or he might be a believer without any personal evidence to support his belief.
In the same manner, some people don’t have the sense that we are all connected to Mother Earth, are formed from its substance, are part of it, are brothers to every animal and plant and rock.
But some do! And those who do, like to shape their lives upon it, and may challenge any Science which attempts to dictate what is and is not real.
"...some would say that Bob resembles someone who is deaf to the existence of God." On the other hand, some would say that those people are delusional.
ReplyDeleteBut seriously, I do realize that some people are obviously more sensitive to things than others. I don't know if it extends to the lengths that you're saying, but who knows?
I remember when I was in school (private school) and people were always talking about their "love of God." I felt nothing of the sort, not even if I had wanted to. I remember searching people's faces when they sang the hymns in chapel, looking for some traces of this "love", looking to see whether there was genuine emotion there, or whether they were putting on airs. The results of my study were...inconclusive.
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDelete1. It was a joke, as evidenced by the fact that it was followed up by the words "But seriously..."
ReplyDelete2. I didn't say that I necessarily thought such people were delusional. You're putting words in my mouth.
3. The "immature" people in question were mostly the teachers and the staff, not my fellow students. And my interest in their professed love was a sincere one.
4. I didn't reach any definite conclusions about people who claim to have a "personal experience with God" from any of this. It was just a passing thought at the time, my mind drifting, wondering. Something I was well within my bounds to do at the time. You make it sound as if I did something wrong for even being curious about people who profess a love for God. This curiosity apparently makes me "extraordinarily dismissive."? You sound like the idiots who kicked me out of that school for asking too many questions. I'm not even allowed to wonder about these things!?
5. Now I'm "hunting Christians" like Saul? Where do you come up with this shit? Disagreeing with people is the same as tracking people down and murdering them?
6. Finally, you accuse me of "prejudice." That's pretty rich. Your whole "deaf to the existence of God" scheme is based on the giant assumption that there's a God to be deaf to, which you seem to take as a self-evident given these days. I guess from that I'm supposed to infer that you're one of the blessed who can "hear" God's existence and knows it for a fact. Well, as one of the poor blighted souls that isn't so blessed, you'll forgive me if I still have some doubts, as God didn't see fit to endow me with similarly equipped ears. I'll stumble on in my deafness the best I can trying to figure it all out for myself and humbly begging your indulgence.
Sorry, Bryan, have deleted my last two comments. Least said the better. I don't want to go there.
ReplyDeleteWell that's a shame, because that last comment seemed like it would help reconcile things.
ReplyDeleteSometimes Vincent you seem to act as though we just met, or as though you're not willing to see past your own assumptions about me. I find myself continually in a position of having to defend myself in matters that should have been laid to rest between us a long time ago. Have I not shown time and again that I at least TRY to keep an open mind on the subject of God and even Christianity? Haven't I, on more than one occasion, taken Richard Dawkins and other such people to task for the very smug presumptuousness that you accused me of in your deleted comments - what you called the "liberal persecution" of Christians? Do you even read the posts when you come here? Look back at the archives. Nearly any post that touches on religion has been generally positive in tone. Yet, you constantly insist on labeling me an "atheist" just because I've been honest about the fact that I don't really know. Yes, I have no great love for the self-righteous, belligerent, Bible-thumping people that I grew up around, and my bitterness about them may come through from time to time, but I really do try not to judge the entire religion on the basis of such people. I would have thought that much would be clear by now.
It is clear, Bryan, my fault. That's why I deleted the comments.
ReplyDeleteAnd, at the risk of beating a dead horse, I want to be clear about my "joke."
ReplyDeleteFirst of all, I was saying "some people" not "me", and I certainly wasn't making the point that I agreed with them. Consider this formulation:
Some people claim to know God exists.
Some people claim that those people are kidding themselves or trying to deceive others.
This is just the way of the world, Vincent, the perennial stalemate on the subject. I'm not here to judge; I'm just stating the facts.
Now, my point, my "joke", is that reframing the 1st part of that formulation as an accusation of "deafness", while admittedly clever, ultimately does nothing to resolve this stalemate because the other side will just reformulate their position to match. It's a metaphysical arms race of sorts. I'm sorry, but there's a cynical part of me that just has to shake my head and laugh at that. It's unfortunate, and I would change it if I could...but all I can do is laugh my weary laugh.
You're right. A metaphysical arms race. Which is why I think it's important to understand the other side, and disarm. I'm going to try harder.
ReplyDeleteWell, you could just admit that you took the joke the wrong way. That would be simple enough, and understandable really, since I probably wasn't very clear.
ReplyDeleteInstead, I feel like I'm getting the infamous Vincent Answering Service. You know the routine:
"Hi, Vincent isn't available right now. He's created this program to screen his calls. Please leave a message after the tone and the program will generate a response which hollowly echoes it's sentiments so as to forestall further discussion. *Beeeeeeeeeep*"
Yeah, yeah. Actually I did more than take the joke the wrong way, I think. You in all innocence were the red rag to my bull. Or I was the rider and righteousness was my high horse. In imagination I was bringing peace to the world by declaring anathema and abomination on the ungodly.
ReplyDeleteMore freshly-minted offerings from the answering service later.
Seriously, I feel my reactions from the beginning - Carl Sagan & the beauty of the stars - were as if I were the US President in the sixties and seventies, and those darn Russkies were doing peculiar exercises out in the Atlantic with their submarines. (Then it was the loyal versus the Unamerican. Now it's another kind of split.) "Damn! Don't tell me that my trusted colleague Bryan is a Commie sympathizer! Perhaps a stern rebuke will get him to see the error of his ways. Hopefully he isn't one, just unconsciously behaving like one. For those Commies are what's wrong with America, and by extension, what's wrong with the world. So I must not let tender feelings of friendship get in the way of righteousness. Allegiance to the Flag, and the cause of world peace, must over-ride all other loyalties."
ReplyDeleteSuch, if you will translate from my analogy, dear Bryan, were my misguided feelings as I wrote those now-shredded notes to you.
Yeah, that's pretty much exactly how I felt about that John Gray post.
ReplyDeleteMy purpose with this post was simply to express my admiration of Carl Sagan's spirit and enthusiasm. I realize now that framing it as I did, as a specific appeal to you that basically said, "See! Scientists can be good people too!" was probably more than a little condescending. I didn't mean for it to be that way, but I apologize.
It's funny. I decided a long, long time ago that as a writer I was going to try to steer clear of philosophy and politics. I didn't want to get tangled up in the endlessly frustrating arguments that seem to inevitably result from discussions of these subjects. They go round and round. No one ever changes their minds; nothing ever gets decided. I didn't want to end up some angry crusader constantly butting my head against other people's walls. All I ever wanted to do as a writer was entertain people, move them, maybe give them something interesting to think about. For the most part, that's what I've tried to do here. I knew I was straying close to the line. I knew that some things would be up for discussion and I would run into differences of opinion. I knew that I might venture into controversial territory from time to time, just by being honest about my thoughts and feelings. But the absolute last thing I wanted when I started this blog was to get into bloody knuckle fights over philosophy.
Not that I'm blaming you, or anyone else for that matter. The fault is as much mine as anyone's. I get too sensitive, too reactionary about these things. If someone challenges a post I wrote, I feel like I have to draw my sword and defend it as though it were my own child. I have to remember that these things aren't carved in stone, and I can make mistakes the same as anyone.
Wow. I feel like I have just seen an episode of "Dawson's Creek." Or maybe "The Real World" Religion & Space. I think someone should throw Puck out of the house until he learns to behave himself.
ReplyDeleteI kind of forgot the point of the post at this point. Oh, before I forget and to take this in a better direction. Were you by chance, Bryan, listening to Pink Floyd when you wrote the old post on the dream blog about the Man in the loony bin with the tv? I am too lazy to ask this on the actual post, plus thought I could take this convo in a positive direction.
"Man in the loony bin with the TV" I know the post you're talking about. It got taken down when I cleared the archive. I'm quite touched that you remember it, though. I'm not sure if I was specifically listening to Pink Floyd when I wrote it, but I listen to them enough of the rest of the time to qualify, I think.
ReplyDeleteI ask because I was listening to them the other day and heard a song I have never heard before and it reminded me of that story. I can't think of the song as a whole, but it has something to do with a memorial...Saint something Memorial or something of the sort.
ReplyDelete"Fletcher Home Memorial" You know what's really crazy? I just picked up a copy of The Final Cut (the album that song is on) on Monday with some Christmas money.
ReplyDeleteI had a delayed reaction to your reference to "Puck", by the way. I walked away from the computer and started cracking up. I totally remember that. It was like season 3, I think. After that it kind of started a trend on the show where someone had to be kicked out of the house every season.
And they can appear to themselves every day
ReplyDeleteon closed circuit TV
to make sure they're still real.
It's the only connection they feel.
Passing over these references to blog posts, TV shows and Pink Floyd songs unknown to me, I’m fascinated by the parallelism you point out, Bryan, to our reactions: yours to my post on John Gray’s book, and mine to this. Could it be that we each have an imp in us that makes us deliberately provoke the other?
ReplyDeleteMy brother-in-law Padraic told me yesterday that he has two angels. He even told me their names but I forget that detail. One offers him encouragement towards acts of ill-advised spontaneity. The other offers him general protection, especially from the consequences of the first angel’s whisperings.
I should add that he’s an Irishman, plays the celtic harp, talks to his son Iontas (my grandson) entirely in Gaelic, and has been on courses in shamanism.
So I don’t know if he was serious or not. Was he just mirroring my own propensity for ill-advised spontaneity? Our conversations tend to be verbal duels, competing in outrageousness, when the tender ears of women and children are distant enough.
The upshot of which is that though it gets scary (I hate to offend) I could get addicted to provoking you, and might be immune to most forms of aversion therapy. You have been warned.
That IS a scary thought.
ReplyDeleteBeneath all these abstract differences in ideas and opinions, there's always a part of me that keeps a wary eye out, wondering about your character, wondering whether you're a good man at heart who genuinely wants to know and understand or whether you're a spiteful trouble-maker, a cantankerous grump venting your frustrations at science or reason or doctors or America or anyone else that tells you things you don't want to hear. I tend, generally and most of the time, to believe that you're the former, but there comes a point in one of our arguments, where I'm pushed into the red and I'm just about to decide once and for all that you're the latter. Then...well, you usually do something to surprise me and restore my faith in you. And that pretty much seems to be the situation between us.
Hm. Both identities have their allure. It seems a shame to drop either of them. I think you have an angel who wants to encourage you to be wary at all times.
ReplyDeleteBy the power vested in me I now pronounce you two wed. What the internet and intellectual truculence has brought together, let no man take apart!
ReplyDeleteSpeaking of Imps.
ReplyDeleteJeesh, I was just going to say that I started watching Cosmos on Netflix, too. How mundane is that comment?
ReplyDeleteI just skimmed the 2600 comments here, so forgive me if I'm repeating, and I don't want to end up internet-wed by darev, but I also wanted to say that I appreciate how your discussion of Sagan shows how views about science and religion have changed in the past few decades. I'm a religious person who loves to find out more about how the world works; I see no conflict between my spiritual beliefs and the physical world around me. But that's not what most of the rest of the world would have me think.
I'm going to stop there because I'm not sure where this will lead.
If I were Scott, I would find a way to spin that 2600 line into an Atari reference.
ReplyDeleteAnd yeah, I was thinking too about how things changed. I remember back when I was a kid, people were still very suspicious about the Theory of Evolution and The Big Bang. Not just the hardcore fundamentalists. It really hadn't caught on in the mainstream culture, either. (At least, that how it seemed to me at the time.) Back then, even that 14 billion year cosmic calender that I mentioned must have been a bit of an eye-brow raiser.