Never have I felt so joyous at being told that in the grand scheme of things, I’m utterly insignificant. That was my reaction after the first time I finished Carl Sagan’s Cosmos. Sagan, who died ten years ago today, was one of the great popularizers of science. There are many aspects of Sagan’s life, science and philosophies worth discussing this Carl Sagan Memorial Blogathon. But the book of his TV show Cosmos had such a profound impact on my outlook on life. What has always stayed with me is how small and tiny our planet is in the cosmos. But how very important it is for us to recognize that we are the cosmos self-aware and that is most wondrous in itself.
The essence of Sagan’s message is not nihilistic. Quite the opposite. Even given how fleeting our lives are compared to the time scales of cosmic history, we have a valuable gift. Those alive now, you reading this blog post, are part of the universe made manifest. The cosmos is self-aware and trying to make sense of it all. When you go out on a clear night, far from the city, and gaze up at the stars in the firmament, the universe is gazing upon itself.
My favourite passage of writing from Sagan is below. Written about a photograph of Earth, 4 billion miles distant taken by the Voyager space probe, it is an eloquent reminder of our place in the universe and how wondrous and amazing it is to be able to ponder its mysteries. It is something I’ve linked to before but a fuller quote will serve nicely as a reminder of Carl Sagan’s legacy.
But for us, it’s different. Look again at that dot. That’s here. That’s home. That’s us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every “superstar,” every “supreme leader,” every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there – on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.
The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors, so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner, how frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds.
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.
I prefer the psalmist David’s version of our seeming solitude in the universe, when he says, “When I consider Your heavens, the work of Your fingers, the moon and the stars, which You have ordained, what is man that you are mindful of him? And the son of man that You visit him?” (Ps.8:3-4)
For the atheist/uncertain/agnostic loneliness in the universe gives a shrinking feeling, and, as you confess for yourself, ‘utter insignificance’. For the believer, God’s attention despite our smallness gives us great and welcome significance, destiny and purpose.
FL, you have totally and utterly missed the point of what myself via Sagan is arguing.
I don’t feel shrunken, I feel incredibly lucky. Sagan’s point, that photo, scientific discovery — it puts everything into perspective, especially human suffering.
Thanks Shaun.
Carl is my hero.
Shaun, I’m not arguing, just adding! Without God we’re insignificant, as you say. With God, and given that he does pay attention to us despite our smallness in the universe, we have amazing, seemingly unwarranted significance. I didn’t rea;ise you were putting up an argument.
Which is why I don’t like the God hypothesis, FL. Sagan argued that various demotions (including us being the centre of the universe) were good for the human race. It is far better for us to acknowledge that we are alone (pending findings by SETI) and that we need to find it within ourselves to do what is right by each other and not hope that help will come from elsewhere.
There is plenty of significance, destiny and purpose in such a view.
Agree with Shaun utterly – and thanks for sharing the picture and Carl’s beautiful words.
I cannot understand why FL and similar folks cannot see the huge abrogation of individual responsibility that comes with externalising their self-worth as a supernatural entity, or why anyone would regard the latter as desirable.
Without God, we remain significant to ourselves, those who live with us, and our planet, and have a duty to pay attention to them and look after them ourselves. If we do not, we should bear in mind that we and our home are indeed a tiny speck in a huge Universe, containing inanimate, implacable forces which can overwhelm us utterly. A Universe which remains mind-bogglingly intricate and beautiful, for all that.
It was Shaun who coined the phrase ‘utter insignificance’ for himself. I prefer the idea of significance despite our seeming solitude in comparison to the size of universe. I believe God gives us significance by paying attention to us despite our shortcomings and cosmic isolation, and by giving us responsibility within our universe.
I agree that we have a duty of care for our home planet, and faith in God doesn’t make our responsibility for it any less, in fact he has charged us with looking after it well.
Indeed but the phrase is insignificant to the point of the post. By focusing on that you are not reading anything after that line.
Fantastic post, Shaun, thank you. I have unbounded admiration for poetic scientists, and vice versa.
I particularly love this bit:
I always though the first sentence set the tone for the whole. I missed your point, then, and apologise, except for saying that I don’t consider you in any way insignificant!
No, it doesn’t. And why would you presume to speak for others, anyway?
For me, loneliness in the universe, as described by Carl Sagan does not give a shrinking feeling – it gives me a sense of immense awe.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_Sagan
Smoke a joint, and you no longer feel insignificant!
OK, so the tiny little dot in the universe doesn’t give you a shrinking feeling, Rebbeka, which is great, but I thought the whole thing was about the smallness of earth and earthlings compared to the vastness of creation, which, of course would give any thinking person a sense of awe and wonder, which is precisely why I quoted David in the first place. His awe wasn’t just at the fact of our comparitive tinyness, but at his observation that God gives us the time of day, and amazingly, considers us a significant part of the greatness of the universe. Mr Sangan reached a conclusion that we have a responsibility for our part of the universe, which I agree with. Sadly he didn’t see the same inclusiveness in the universal plan of God that David saw.
“inclusiveness in the universal plan of God”
Not that universal if you listen to the many and very varied explainations of the plan by all the multivaried god-bothering sects, cults and religions.
No one saw Carl’s words as an excuse to pester their fellow humans, except perhaps over NASA and SETI budgets.
“that God gives us the time of day, and amazingly, considers us a significant part of the greatness of the universe.”
To paraphrase JS Haldane, God seems to have found beetles even more significant. All hail Dynastes Hercules!
I don’t think Carl fell short of the odd side-swipe or snipe at ‘god-botherers’, though, Nabakov! Not quite as abrasive as the ridiculously fanatical and causticly cynical Dawkins, but still stubournly anti-supernatural. I’m glad he saw the universe the way he did. I’m sad he missed the bigger picture, and guided others into the same void.
God likes beetles!
Not sure if “ridiculously fanatical” and “anti-supernatural” are the best phrases to use in terms of advancing an argument that an intangible yet omnipotent being is playing us for ends that often seem to end in earthly bloodshed.
A great post, Shaun; thank you. And here’s my own contribution to the carl-blog-a-thon: http://airminded.org/2006/12/20/still-at-the-edge-of-forever-for-carl/
This quote from Contact seems relevant to the above discussion.
And no, he wasn’t talking about the love of some putative supernatural being, either.
Hey, Sagan was a pothead? That’s really cool man.
“Son, if you smoke that stuff, you’ll end up as a highly respected, very wealthy person doing what you like most. Just watch it with the fatty Green Room food platters.”
So falling short of God men deify the man, and make him an idol. It’s been the same through all ages, and is indicative of the human desire for heroes and supernatural beings. Not seeing the Creator behind it they worship the creation.
The blood is on the hands of those who kill without justification, Nabakov. In view of your comments on the other thread ‘Stopgap fighter planes’ (which I agree with BTW), I wouid have thought you’d have a good grasp of that fact. People fight each other becau they can’t legally aquire what they most desire, or becasue they dopn’t know how to ask for them in the right way. They fail to see the vastness of the universe or their place in it because they are so full of this world’s idolatry.
I applaude Sangan for coming as close as he did, in much the same way I applaude Attenborough for being such a good fellow and so adoringly appreciative of the creation he stares at in micro and macro without actually being able to see the Cause. It’s fascinating to observe. All I’ve said is that I prefer the advanced logic and philosphy of David, who went one step closer to truth than Sangan.
Or not being able to grasp the true wonder of creation, some people search for a one stop shop creator.
I think the creation generally follows the Creator, Nabakov, but searching isn’t bad, and I quite like the ‘one-stop-shop’ deal! Makes more sense than shopping around. Easy to find really. He’s the One who made everything that was made.
Nice post Shaun.
So who created the Creator? Are you a Big Banger or Steady Stater?
You don’t create the Creator. He just is. Just as eternity just is. It can’t be, yet it must be, was and will be. We call Him God, because God is our Word which fits Someone impressively, expressively beyond all that we can think, say or do. God decided it, spoke it and it did, and is, and will be.
Steady Stater then?
The Logos!
I seem to be suffocating in the condescension over here *gasp cough gasp*
It’s Sagan. Not Sangan.
Here’s my question for you Facelift: every single religious person I’ve spoken to is sure their way is the WAY. From an objective perspective, how do I know your way is the WAY? Why isn’t Buddhism the way or Islam or Hinduism or Wicca? I am here, outside of religion, staring into the ‘void’. Why should I pick your particular religious code?
Kate, if you look at the final sentences of FaceLift’s 11.06 pm and 12.06 am posts, you’ll have your answer.
FL, your posts usually don’t bother me but I sometimes wonder whether you realise how emetic an effect they can have. At this point even a normally mild-mannered commenter like myself is starting to get very grumpy about Shaun’s wonderful post having been hijacked by your sermonising, despite the earnest efforts of myself and others to hijack your hijacking. If you want to put even more people off Christianity than are well off it already, you are, at this point, going exactly the right way about it.
And as Kate correctly points out, the sight of you making condescending remarks about a man of Carl Sagan’s intellectual stature (or David Attenborough’s, if it comes to that) leaves some of us completely lost for words.
My point was not really my sense of awe or otherwise, except in the context of pointing out that (a) your assumption about atheists feeling a shrinking feeling when confronted by the vast emptiness of the universe was completely wrong, and that (b) your arrogance in assuming that you could speak for people whose beliefs differ so vastly from your own is astounding.
This kind of contradicts your first claim that:
doesn’t it? Or are you actually saying that atheists, or agnostics (I am not sure why you include uncertain as a different category, since an agnostic is uncertain by definition), can not be “thinking people”?
I object to your calling the universe “creation”, by the way, but I suppose that’s to be expected.
I didn’t really need that passage of the bible explained to me, it was pretty self-explanatory. But I suppose if you think we’re all unthinking kinda people…
The arrogance! Perhaps the reason Sagan didn’t see the “universal plan” was because, unlike David who was not so far removed from the stone age and whose understanding of the world was limited to supernatural beliefs because there was no more rational world view at the time, Sagan actually strove to understand the universe scientifically, and as such did not falsely assume a teleological purpose to the universe.
This is what really bothers persons who believe that there is some kind of covenant between a deity and humans (or at least a selected group of humans).
What Sagan is saying here is that in the normal course of natural events the speck of space dust we call home will be entirely consumed leaving no evidence at all of our existence, except for a few satellites drifting through interstellar space and re-runs of “I Love Lucy” running in a band that began (our time) in the early 1950s, and ending heaven only knows.
I guess Trifalmadorians across the universe will be able to pick up “I Love Lucy” for the foreseeable future, long after the earth, and eveything that ever lived on it, has been turned into cosmic dust.
And, of course, after this disintegration has happened, the universe will go on as if nothing has happened, which is almost an exactly accurate assumption.
The point is, God won’t close down the universe. The universe will go on.
But if humans really have a covenant with a covenanting God, why would that God bother to keep running the universe after all humans have been pulverised into a floating cloud of their constituent atoms?
So I ask all persons of intelligence: “Would you buy a used covenant from such a God?”
The question answers itself, really.
Why does contemplating the vastness of the universe not make human kindness and compassion and responsibility seem ultimately insignificant as well – aren’t these things also human conceits?
I have to admit to being unable to follow Carl Sagan’s logic, though the mood of the writing is inspiring. I’m sure it’s my failing not Sagan’s. But I don’t quite get it. Actual space (as opposed to imagined space) doesn’t interest me: that’s part of it. But I sort of think that putting earthly problems (and earthly treasures) into a perspectival relation with the infinite must end up diminishing the earthly, and not just rendering the earthly ego down to a less inflated size, but shrinking it down to nothing. And then that leaves you somewhere breathtaking, but pretty strange.
Laura,
What Sagan is trying to say is that by realizing our place in the cosmos, a humility is achieved that should bring humankind together. Sagan was not diminishing “earthly problems” but pointing out that source of such problems is often petty, localised delusions of importance. Therefore “human kindness and compassion and responsibility” are very significant if all we have is ourselves and this planet.
Compared to the vastness of time and space, my existence is fleeting and of no consequence. But to myself, family friends etc there is great significance in what I and they do.
That make a little more sense?
Thanks, Shaun. I will have to think about it some more.
My perspective is that if life is so random and relatively insignificant, then the fact that I am alive and conscious is a pretty amazing thing.
I think religious people think that nihilism is the only possible response to the idea that your life doesn’t have some predetermined purpose, or that ‘this life’ is all we get. But for me, and what I think Sagan is saying, is that given what we know of the universe and its size and the chances of there being life anywhere else, that what we have is really a gift.
It’s an accidental gift, but it’s still a gift, and we should do our best to treat ourselves and other life with the reverance and awe that it deserves in what is largely a lifeless universe.
This isn’t a void, really, it’s a hugely humbling and profound thought. This is it. This life is all we have. Make it good.
Which leads to the question of what ‘good’ is, and I definitely don’t think ‘good’ is making the earth uninhabitable for our ancestors and doing our best to destroy the majority of other life.
Sagan’s sentiments are elegantly worded and deeply humanistic. They certainly appeal to me.
I read “Dragons of Eden” as a youngster and thought it brilliant. I haven’t been able to get through all of “The Demon Haunted World” because supernatural booga booga raises my blood pressure.
FaceLift, if you are so certain in your faith why do you feel the need to constantly foist it on others? I suspect supernaturalists who do this obsessively are doing it selfishly: if others can be convinced, their own faith is bolstered.
So, PC, Kate, Rebekka, whoever, it’s not on for me to have a different opinion to Shaun and spoil his wonderful contribution by merely pointing out that David had reached exactly the same conclusion as Sagan, but added his wonderment that, despite our smallness, God considered us significant, and that I prefer his version of events?
Added to this, I can’t, in your opinion, have the rudeness to make the observation that these marvellous men with their great intellect and observational skills missed the point of the incredible world and worlds they have studied so tenderly, and the connection, not with mere random events, as they espouse, but with an ordered, sophisticated creation, beyond human comprehension.
Are we to be in such awe and respect of their great intelligence that we never dare say they may have missed something vital simply because some of us might be lower in the intellectual pecking order? When I watch Attenborough’s programs, I occcassionally have to switch off the sound of his random-order-adoring commentary to appreciate the glory and amazing arrangement and beauty of nature magnificantly displayed by the incredible technology at his disposal. Does this mean I don’t respect his intellect? No! I’ve learned alot from people like him. All I’ve said, hopefully in a nice way, is that I think he’s missed something vital and revealing about our world and the worlds. Mr Sagan wasn’t shy of hinting that Christian intellectuals have missed the point by believing in a Creator, by the way.
No, it was your tone, Facelift.
It doesn’t bother me if you think you know better. Lots of people think they know better. It’s just that you can’t say “I respect their views, but I believe this.” Instead, you say, “I know there is more to the universe than this and even though I have no proof I shall pity those men because I believe they are ignorant.”
I guess this rubs my fur the wrong way. I don’t feel like I’m missing anything. You don’t need to pity me or Attenborough or Sagan. I don’t feel ignorant or lacking. I don’t mind if you think I am, but it irritates me when you tell me.
What is this, pick on the supernatural entity time? Stacks-on the faithful? I’m with FaceLift. If you can’t unravel the infinite complexity of the universe and comprehend the mysteries of time, puny humans, try the *brown* acid, and turn up the volume on Koyyanisqatsi. Trust me.
King David, since we’re on the topic of that graciously saved psalmist, did some stuff that would have shamed Richard Nixon. Can’t say the same about Sagan, alas, whose claim to notoriety was (alas) just a few dinnertime spliffs.
That’s not it at all. It’s that rather than just disagreeing with Sagan’s version of events, you’re expressing the rather offensive and arrogant view that you feel sorry for him for what you see as missing the truth -
“I’m sad he missed the bigger picture, and guided others into the same void.”
It’s pretty darn arrogant to assume you and your ilk alone have a grasp of what the “point of the incredible world” is. But as Kate said, it’s the way you’re expressing it – as pity for them for not getting it.
Well, no, Kate, you can’t say what you think I said in your own words to suit your opinion of what I really said, which I think was closer to “I respect their views, but I believe this’, than you interpreted it to be. I made a comment early on, which was challenged, and I’ve been answering questions about it ever since, which doesn’t make me a kind of serial ‘foister of opinions’ on others, as steve nunn claims (I haven’t commented for about a month actually), but someone who is engaging in conversati0on with others, although, in fact, doesn’t everyone ‘foist’ opinions on blogs, including your own, otherwise blogs like these ain’t blog like these, or maybe you prefer the boredom of utter agreement continually?
Actually, I generally completely disagree with Devil Drink, and said personage understands this totally, but I have no problem engaging said personage in the spirit of blogdom without trying to fane offence because of the disagreement. A point challenged is either strengthened when it is defended well, or corrected in the right spirit.
I wasn’t aware that tones could be detected on blogs. I can be atonal at times, but nothing condescending or otherwise was intended. By the way, I don’t claim to ‘know better’, I just have an opinion, as do you.
Touching, FaceLift, and you’re probably wise not to write My name more than once in a row (bad things happen if you even consider chanting it). My point stands; God was still in the wrong to forgive David just ’cause he said sorry, and even wronger to take it out on the kid. Even a pre-modern Judge Judy would have made him not be King anymore, that’s some pretty nasty stuff. Katz is right: what kind of deity would do that, anyway?
Kids: Just Say No to having the husbands of the mothers of your illegitimate children killed on your orders.
Facelift, you’re getting tedious.
I’m surprised, FL, you missed this recent religion stoush:
http://larvatusprodeo.net/2006/12/15/delusional-gods/
Just sayin…
I’ve been away on a wonderful cruise, Kim! Eagleton did a splendid job and said it all. What he said!
There’s a fair bit of talk of arrogance, but when it comes down to the vastness of the universe and the origins no one, however intelligent, truly has the answers, so on that basis it’s just as arrogant to talk of accident rather than design when so much of what we are discovering is deliciously uniform and consistent, and yet uniquely and ingeniously original. I’m sorry to be contrary to you on this, and it’s unlikely I’ll change, or you’ll agree, so I’ll bow out and not add to the tedium.
Devil Drink, it’s been a long time since your name had any power over me! You’ll know that the name of Jesus used well has a far more powerful effect than yours ever will over those who leave your control.
Merry Christmas to those who still believe!
No need to be so exclusive FL.
A Merry Christmas to all those that believe, do not believe, think Christmas is humbug, a part of a faith that does not celebrate Christmas and anyone not of any of the above.
Yeah, well, he talks big, FaceLift, but we’ll see who finishes it. Until then, by all means, though, if you’ve got a Jones that needs satisfyin’, get your Jesus onnnn.
It’s unfair to say that I’m into ‘control’. Control is for Maxwell Smart types, the Temperance movement, moving vehicles, managerialists, the Junior Baptist Anti-Drug Crusaders, and Marxism-Leninism. Naaah, I’m more the anarch-iste type.
Pass the pipe, would you, Hunter? Now let’s sit back in this gutter of ours and look at the stars.
In the grand scheme of things we are insignificant? I don’t like the language used here. A scheme implies a schemer. It’s still a quasi-religious concept.
Humans are the universe looking back at itself? I don’t like this language either. It implies the universe is thinking through us, which seems to be attributing consciousness to bare matter.
When the Apollo 11 mission sent back that picture of the round blue Earth from space, it created a sense of global consciousness that we hadn’t had before as a species. Sagan, however, went too far … 4 billion miles too far. By viewing Earth from this distance, he reduced it to a speck of dust, and he lost that global consciousness.
The same thing happens when you’re smoking marijuana. One joint and a new world is opened up to you, but if you go that step too far and smoke that extra joint you’ve been saving when you are already stoned, the stone can be lost, and that beautiful world you once had starts shrinking. Sagan smoked one too many joints on that one.
I quite like the idea.
If you consider consciousness (gazing) the result of some system (a person), there’s no reason the ‘system’ should be considered to stop at the bounds of ‘the person’. You might consider it to include the input and output of ‘the person’, ie ‘the universe’. Hence ‘The universe gazing upon itself’.
The Devil Drink – Love your work but I’m surprised that if you are going to quote nasty fairy tales of a biblical nature that you could go past our old mate Jael and the Nail. It would be enough to scare the Devil out of anyone and turn them to drink. Read only if you have a thick skin. Here