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.
– Carl Sagan
Image: Pale blue dot taken by Voyager 1 in 1990.
Tag: carl sagan
Carl Sagan: I would suggest that science is, at least in part, informed worship
I would suggest that science is, at least in part, informed worship.
– Carl Sagan, The Varieties of Scientific Experience: A Personal View of the Search for God
Yes, science can certainly be a form of informed worship.
Science is a more formalized way of learning about our world, and it can be approached with curiosity, receptivity, and awe. And a recognition that we are, in a very literal sense, the local eyes, ears, thoughts, and feelings of the universe. We are the universe bringing itself into consciousness. We are the universe, locally and in the form of us, exploring and discovering itself.
Carl Sagan: Science is a way of thinking
Science is more than a body of knowledge. It’s a way of thinking.
– Carl Sagan in interview with Charlie Rose, 1996
The body of knowledge from science changes. It doesn’t stay the same. As we have more information, discover new things, and for cultural and other reasons, the specifics of what we think we know change, as do our underlying assumptions and worldviews.
Science as a way of thinking is our approach to explore and learn about the world. It’s essentially common sense systematized. It’s more universal and timeless, although it too changes a bit over time as it’s is adjusted and refined, and varies a bit across cultures.
The scientific approach is a way of figuring things out about our world. We experience something. We explore something. We have some ideas about what’s going on. We find ways to test those ideas. We compare notes with others and share ideas and experiences. And so on.
Applying a scientific approach to spirituality
That’s useful in any area of life, whether it’s studying, working, relationships, sports, or anything else.
It also means that if we are serious about spirituality, we’ll tend to use a scientific approach whether we use that label or not.
What happens when I do this practice? When I explore that pointer?
What do I find? What do others report when they explore it?
What’s the most honest and grounded way of interpreting what I find? What can I know something about? What’s outside of what I can honestly speak about?
Can I know it for certain? Can I know anything for certain? How is it to approach it with a more open mind?
This is a way of being honest with ourselves and staying grounded. Where fantasy doesn’t get us much beyond fantasy, a pragmatic approach gives us some traction.
Carl Sagan: Science is not only compatible with spirituality; it is a profound source of spirituality
Science is not only compatible with spirituality; it is a profound source of spirituality. When we recognize our place in an immensity of light?years and in the passage of ages, when we grasp the intricacy, beauty, and subtlety of life, then that soaring feeling, that sense of elation and humility combined, is surely spiritual. So are our emotions in the presence of great art or music or literature, or acts of exemplary selfless courage such as those of Mohandas Gandhi or Martin Luther King, Jr. The notion that science and spirituality are somehow mutually exclusive does a disservice to both.
– Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark
There are many interesting connections between science and spirituality. And it all obviously depends on what we mean by spirituality.
Science inspiring spirituality
Science often inspires spirituality – as we see in deep ecology, the Universe Story, Epic of Evolution, ecopsychology, and different forms of ecospirituality whether outside or inside of existing religions.
The story of the universe, as told by modern science, is our story. It’s the story of how existence formed itself into this evolving universe, this evolving and living Earth, and us. As Carl Sagan said, we are the local eyes, ears, thoughts, and feelings of the universe. We are the universe bringing itself into consciousness. And this can be a profoundly meaningful and inspiring story.
It’s not the story of a universe “out there”. It’s the story of our own past and evolution, and how existence as a whole formed itself into who we are as individuals and collectively, our culture and civilization, and our experiences here and now.
In a similar way, science shows us this planet as a seamless living system, how all of us – all beings – share ancestors, and how closely our fates are profoundly intertwined.
Methods of science
The methods of science is common sense set into system.
It’s a set of pointers for how to test out things and make sense of how things work. And it’s a set of pointers for how to think about it in an honest and clear way.
We have an idea of how something works. We try it out and see what happens. We compare notes with others. WE may engage in a more open exploration and see what we find. We get new ideas and pointers and try those out. We record and share our findings. And so on.
We know we cannot know anything for certain. We know that the content of science and what we think we know always change. We know that also goes for our worldviews and most basic assumptions about the world and ourselves. We know that our thoughts, models, and maps are questions about the world.
And that’s something we can apply to whatever we do, including spirituality.
What we are
Science and spirituality are, in essence, about exploring reality.
When we explore what we are to ourselves, we find we are capacity for the world. The world as it appears to us happens within and as what we are.
So whether we take a science approach or a spiritual approach, or use logic or direct perception, we find the same.
Although it does require taking logic to its full conclusion, and following our direct noticing here and now, and setting aside what we have been told we are from society and culture.
Carl Sagan: If we are to survive, our loyalties must be broadened further, to include the whole human community, the entire planet Earth
Human history can be viewed as a slowly dawning awareness that we are members of a larger group. Initially our loyalties were to ourselves and our immediate family, next, to bands of wandering hunter-gatherers, then to tribes, small settlements, city-states, nations. We have broadened the circle of those we love. We have now organized what are modestly described as super-powers, which include groups of people from divergent ethnic and cultural backgrounds working in some sense together — surely a humanizing and character building experience. If we are to survive, our loyalties must be broadened further, to include the whole human community, the entire planet Earth. Many of those who run the nations will find this idea unpleasant. They will fear the loss of power. We will hear much about treason and disloyalty. Rich nation-states will have to share their wealth with poor ones. But the choice, as H. G. Wells once said in a different context, is clearly the universe or nothing.
– Carl Sagan, Cosmos
Carl Sagan: I like a universe where much is unknown
I like a universe where much is unknown and, at the same time, much is knowable. A universe in which everything is known would be static and dull.
– Carl Sagan
In a conventional sense, we know some things about the world and the universe and there is a lot we don’t know. We don’t even know how much we don’t know. There may even be many things we don’t know that would turn our whole worldview inside-out and upside-down if we knew them.
Looking a little closer, we see that we don’t know anything for certain. Our brain constructs our perception of the world from our senses and with an overlay of mental images and other thoughts to make sense of it. It’s all constructed. Our perceptions and ideas about the world are not the final word on anything. It’s all created to help us orient and navigate in the world. It has nothing to do with any final truth.
So in a conventional sense, we know a little and we know there is a lot we don’t know. And looking closer, we see that we cannot know anything for certain. Not even that which seems most basic, obvious, and what we take the most for granted.
Space exploration and the epic of evolution
And we who embody the local eyes and ears and thoughts and feelings of the cosmos we’ve begun, at last, to wonder about our origins. Star stuff, contemplating the stars, organized collections of 10 billion-billion-billion atoms contemplating the evolution of matter, tracing that long path by which it arrived at consciousness here on the planet Earth and perhaps, throughout the cosmos.
Carl Sagan, Cosmos, episode 13
When I was a child, I was strongly influenced by Carl Sagan’s Cosmos, and especially the quote above. It touched something in me. It resonated with a knowing in me.
Later, in my early twenties, I read The Overview Effect by Frank White, and that too resonated deeply with how I already experienced the world. In it, he describes how astronauts, when they see the Earth from space, often viscerally realize that the Earth is one seamless whole, fragile, with a thin layer of air supporting life. For some astronauts, and especially those who went further away from Earth, it was a deeply transformative experience.
All of us have access to it through photos, movies, and first-person accounts. And also through seeing the starry sky at night, and any time we are reminded of the Earth as one seamless whole. In my case, I had a profoundly transformative experience when I was 10 or 12 years old, in a sleeping bag under the vast starry sky on a mountain in Norway (Sølen) with an equally vast view of the landscape stretching
I see that Frank White has a new book coming out in a few weeks: The Cosma Hypothesis – Implications of the Overview Effect.
Following the pattern set in The Overview Effect, the book draws on interviews with astronauts about the ways in which spaceflight shifted their understanding of our relationship with the universe. The Cosma Hypothesis suggests that our purpose in exploring space should transcend focusing on how it will benefit humanity. We should ask how to create a symbiotic relationship with the universe giving back as much as we take, and spreading life, intelligence, and self-awareness throughout the solar system and beyond.
From the Cosma Hypothesis book description.
I obviously haven’t read the book yet, but again it resonates with me.
As Carl Sagan said in the quote above, we are the local eyes, ears, thoughts, and feelings of the universe. We are the universe bringing itself into awareness. We do it in all the different ways we live our lives, individually and collectively, no matter how exciting and novel or mundane and familiar it seems to us. All beings are the local senses, thoughts, and feelings of the universe. All beings are the universe locally bringing itself into awareness.
And so it also is with space flight and space exploration. That too is the universe bringing itself into awareness. The universe exploring itself beyond this one living planet. It may even be how the universe spreads the life on this one living planet beyond this planet through colonization and terraforming. From the Earth’s perspective, we may well function as the reproductive organs of Earth.
The universe brought itself alive through this living planet and us, and it’s very natural for it to wish to explore itself beyond this one planet, and even to spread life beyond this one living planet, and to do so through us. We happen to be the social and physical organs of the Earth that are equipped to do just that, and the time for the first small steps happens to be now.
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Carl Sagan: We who embody the local eyes and ears and thoughts and feelings of the cosmos
And we who embody the local eyes and ears and thoughts and feelings of the cosmos we’ve begun, at last, to wonder about our origins. Star stuff, contemplating the stars, organized collections of 10 billion-billion-billion atoms contemplating the evolution of matter, tracing that long path by which it arrived at consciousness here on the planet Earth and perhaps, throughout the cosmos.
– Carl Sagan, Cosmos, episode 13
Carl Sagan: We are a way for the cosmos to know itself
We are a way for the cosmos to know itself.
– Carl Sagan
And that is literally true. We are – quite literally – the cosmos knowing itself.
We are the local eyes, ears, feelings and thoughts of the universe, bringing itself into awareness.
As a kid, this shifted my perception of everything, and it still does. It brings a sense of awe into the most ordinary of experiences and activities.
Gods and people
It’s said that men may not be the dreams of Gods, but that the Gods are the dreams of men.
– Carl Sagan, Cosmos
Words – including any form of philosophy – can be helpful (a) as a way to identify beliefs, and (b) as pointers for own exploration.
So I can say that reality (God) dreams up a world, this world, what’s here. That dream includes images of being a human and identification as that image. And as this apparent human, reality dreams up a wide range of Gods, all images and projections of what’s already here.
And that’s not really helpful until I explore it for myself, for instance through The Work, sense field explorations, or the Living Inquiries.
It is said that men may not be the dream of gods….
It is said that men may not be the dreams of the gods, but rather that the gods are the dreams of men.
– Carl Sagan in Cosmos, The Edge of Forever
Both may be true.
Men are the dream of gods. This human self, and all human selves, appear within and as awareness, within and as capacity for all there is.
Am I within content of experience, or is experience within me?
Gods are the dreams of men. Our images of gods – of anything – are images only. They are our dream.
When we take them as true, they seem real. When we see them as images only, they are just that – images.
Compassion and meaning through the story of evolution
A friend of mine is a psychologist, and in a recent conversation, she expressed a dislike for evolutionary psychology. In her view, it justifies a cynical and sometimes brutal view on humans.
As any story, the story of evolution is a tool, and it can be used in many different ways.
It is true, some have used a particularly distorted versions of Social Darwinism to justify brutality and injustice. The Nazis are probably the most extreme example.
And yet, the story of evolution can also be used with great wisdom and compassion, as a support for ourselves and others, and even for non-human species and future generations. And more and more scientists, psychologists and others are catching on to this.
Ann Druyan: At Home in the Cosmos
A longish interview with Ann Druyan about her and her life with Carl Sagan at PodJockey. Subscription required.