Books, Brochures, and Chapters>Book: Sagan , Carl (2000-10-23), Carl Sagan's cosmic connection, Cambridge Univ Pr, Retrieved on 2012-01-01Source Material [books.google.com]
Folksonomies: science Memes
01 JAN 2012
Carl Sagan's Summary of the Selfish Gene
In a very real sense human beings are machines constructed by the nucleic
acids to arrange for the efficient replication of more nucleic acids. In a sense our
strongest urges, noblest enterprises, most compelling necessities, and apparent free
wills are all an expression of the information coded in the genetic material: We
are, in a way, temporary ambulatory repositories for our nucleic acids. This does
not deny our humanity; it does not prevent us from pursuing the good, the true,
and the be... 1 
notes
notesWe are machines constructed by nucleic acids to construct more nucleic acids... sounds a lot like Dawkins.
01 JAN 2012
Overcoming Inherited Bias to Live In Peace
In our earliest history, so far as we can tell, individuals held an allegiance
toward their immediate tribal group, which may have numbered no more than ten
or twenty individuals, all of whom were related by consanguinity. As time went on, the need for cooperative behavior – in the hunting of large animals or large
herds, in agriculture, and in the development of cities – forced human beings into
larger and larger groups. The group that was identified with, the tribal unit,
enlarged at each s...
1 Humans evolved to trust a small select group of individual, but as we live in a world community, a biologically diverse community, and eventually an outer space community, we must evolve culturally to see appreciate our differences.
01 JAN 2012
Letters to the Editor About the Pioneer 10 Plaque and Con...
What sexuality there is in the message also drew epistolary fire. The Los
Angeles Times published a letter from an irate reader that went:
I must say I was shocked by the blatant display of both male and female sex
organs on the front page of the Times. Surely this type of sexual exploitation
is below the standards our community has come to expect from the Times.
Isn't it enough that we must tolerate the bombardment of pornography
through the media of film and smut magazines? Isn't it bad en... 1 notes
notesOne letter complained about sending pornography into space, a follow up letter made fun of the ignorance. Carl Sagan laments the failure of the plaque designers to make the two figures ethnically ambiguous.
01 JAN 2012
The Pioneer 10 Plaque
On the title page of this chapter is shown the message. It is etched on a 6-inch
by 9-inch gold-anodized aluminum plate, attached to the antenna support struts of
Pioneer 10. The expected erosion rate in interstellar space is sufficiently small that this message should remain intact for hundreds of millions of years, and probably
for a much longer period of time. It is, thus, the artifact of mankind with the
longest expected lifetime.
The message itself intends to communicate the locale, ep... 1 notes
notesCarl Sagan describes everything that went into the symbolism of this message sent to the stars.
01 JAN 2012
The Message Aboard Pioneer 10 as a "Cosmic Rorschach Test"
The message aboard Pioneer 10 has been good fun. But it has been more than
that. It is a kind of cosmic Rorschach test, in which many people see reflected
their hopes and fears, their aspirations and defeats – the darkest and the most
luminous aspects of the human spirit. 1 notes
notesIn which people see what they want to see, hopes and fears.
01 JAN 2012
We Need Experimental Societies
Our instincts and emotions are those of our hunter-gatherer ancestors of a
million years ago. But our society is astonishingly different from that of a million
years ago. In times of slow change, the insights and skills learned by one generation
are useful, tried, and adaptive, and are gladly received when passed down to the
next generation. But in times like today, when the society changes significantly in
less than a human lifetime, the parental insights no longer have unquestioned
validity... 1 notes
notesSociology is too complex to accurately predict how we should manage our society; we need to conduct experiments in order to determine the best path forward. In America, the States could serve as such laboratories.
01 JAN 2012
Thinking About Aliens Stretches the Imagination
The virtue of thinking about life elsewhere is that it forces us to stretch our
imaginations. Can we think of alternative solutions to biological problems already
solved in one particular way on Earth? For example, the wheel is a comparatively
recent invention on the planet Earth. It seems to have been invented in the ancient
Near East less than ten thousand years ago. In fact, the high civilizations of Meso-
America, the Aztecs and the Mayas, never employed the wheel, except for children's t... 1 notes
notesThe possible life that could evolve in other environments is an imaginative treasure chest.
(TODO: The wheeled organisms described here appear in the Amber Spyglass by Pullman)
01 JAN 2012
We are Part of the Cosmos
Charles Darwin's insights into natural selection have shown that there are no
evolutionary pathways leading unerringly from simple forms to Man; rather,
evolution proceeds by fits and starts, and most life forms lead to evolutionary
dead-ends. We are the products of a long series of biological accidents. In the
cosmic perspective there is no reason to think that we are the first or the last or
the best.
These realizations of the Copernican and Darwinian revolutions are profound –
and, to som... 1 notes
notesAs it is, not as we wish it to be.
01 JAN 2012
The Military is Good For Space Exploration
The experience of space exploration gives no unique philosophy; to some
extent, each group tends to see its own philosophical view reflected, and not
always by the soundest logic: Nikita Khrushchev stressed that in the space flight of
Yuri Gagarin no angels or other supernatural beings were detected; and, in almost
perfect counterpoint, the Apollo 8 astronauts read from lunar orbit the Babylonian
cosmogony enshrined in Genesis, Chapter 1, as if to reassure their American
audience that the exp... 1 notes
notesThe competition against other militaries unites them against the public. Space flight would move them into a peacetime occupation.
01 JAN 2012
Space Flight May Mature Us as a Civilization
In all the history of mankind, there will be only one generation that will be first
to explore the Solar System, one generation for which, in childhood, the planets
are distant and indistinct discs moving through the night sky, and for which, in old
age, the planets are places, diverse new worlds in the course of exploration.
There will be a time in our future history when the Solar System will be
explored and inhabited. To them, and to all who come after us, the present
moment will be a piv... 1 notes
notesIt's the first step in realizing our place in the bigger picture.
01 JAN 2012
Venus is Hell
Venus thus seems to be a place quite different from the Earth, and alarmingly
unappealing: Broiling temperatures, crushing pressures, noxious and corrosive
gases, sulfurous smells, and a landscape immersed in a ruddy gloom.
Curiously enough, there is a place astonishingly like this in the superstition,
folklore and legends of men. We call it Hell. In the older belief – that of the
Greeks, for example – it was the place where all human souls journeyed after
death. In Christian times it has be... 1 notes
notesVery similar to it as Carl Sagan describes the planet.
01 JAN 2012
Sports on Phobos
Because of their small sizes, Phobos and Deimos have very low gravitational
accelerations. Their gravities do not pull very hard. The pull on Phobos is only
about one one-thousandth of that on Earth. If you can perform a standing high
jump of two or three feet on Earth, you could perform a standing high jump of
half a mile on Phobos. It would not take many such jumps to circumnavigate
Phobos. They would be graceful, slow, arcing leaps, taking many minutes to reach
the high point of the self-p... 1 notes
notesHow the low gravity and tiny size of Mars' moon would affect the game.
01 JAN 2012
The Century When the Dreams of Man are Realized
At the very beginning of the twentieth century competent scientific and lay
opinion held that airplanes were impossible. The end of the century, barring the
dark specter of nuclear or ecological catastrophes, will probably see joint Soviet
and American manned space expeditions to the nearer planets.
This is the century in which some of the oldest dreams of Man have been
realized, in which mankind has sprouted wings and realized the aspirations of
Daedalus and da Vinci. Air-breathing, man-car...Folksonomies: culture space exploration
Folksonomies: culture space exploration
1 notes
notesSpace Exploration only happens to one generation, and when it did, there were people alive for whom the planets were only distant untouchable points.
01 JAN 2012
The Earth is Overcrowded Psychologically
The Earth is overcrowded. Not yet in a literal sense: Our technology is
adequate to maintain comfortably a population significantly larger than our
present 3.6 billion. The Earth is overcrowded in a psychological sense. For that
restless and ambition-driven fraction of mankind that has blazed new paths for our
species, there are no new places to go. There are places inside of ourselves, but this
is not the forte of such individuals. There are the ocean basins, but we are not yet
committed to ...Folksonomies: space exploration overcrowding
Folksonomies: space exploration overcrowding
1 notes
notesEvery frontier is explored, there is only one place to go for adventure and that is outward.
01 JAN 2012
Space Exploration Costs the Same as Exploring the World
The Solar System is much vaster than the Earth, but the speeds of our
spacecraft are, of course, much greater than the speeds of the sailing ships of the
fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. The spacecraft trip from the Earth to the Moon
is faster than was the galleon trip from Spain to the Canary Islands. The voyage
from Earth to Mars will take as long as did the sailing time from England to North
America; the journey from Earth to the moons of Jupiter will require about the
same time as did t...Folksonomies: economics space exploration
Folksonomies: economics space exploration
Europe spent as much money proportionally to discover America as it would cost us to venture to Mars.
01 JAN 2012
We Will Retrieve Pioneer 10
Pioneer 10 is the first interstellar spacecraft launched by mankind. It was also
the fastest spacecraft launched, to the date of its departure. But it will take eighty
thousand years for Pioneer 10 to reach the distance of the nearest star. Because
space is so empty, it will never enter another Solar System. The little golden
message aboard Pioneer 10 will be read, but only if there are interstellar voyagers
able to detect and intercept Pioneer 10.
I believe that such an interception may occ...Folksonomies: space exploration astronomy
Folksonomies: space exploration astronomy
1 notes
notesAs it has 80,000 years until it reaches the nearest star, we will overtake it, which will be like Columbus being overtaken by an aircraft carrier.
01 JAN 2012
Sagan's Positive View of Advance Alien Civilizations
It is at this point that the ultimate significance of dolphins in the search for
extraterrestrial intelligence emerges. It is not a question of whether we are
emotionally prepared in the long run to confront a message from the stars. It is
whether we can develop a sense that beings with quite different evolutionary
histories, beings who may look far different from us, even "monstrous," may,
nevertheless, be worthy of friendship and reverence, brotherhood and trust. We
have far to go; while th... 1 notes
notesWe need to understand animal minds as practice for understanding alien ones.
01 JAN 2012
Stanley Kubrick Sought Insurance Against the Discovery of...
During the filming of 2001, Kubrick, who obviously has a grasp for detail,
became concerned that extraterrestrial intelligence might be discovered before the
$10.5 million film was released, rendering the plot line obsolete, if not erroneous.
Lloyd's of London was approached to underwrite an insurance policy protecting
against losses should extraterrestrial intelligence be discovered. Lloyd's of London,
which insures against the most implausible contingencies, declined to write such a
policy.... 1 notes
notesBecause it would ruin the premise of his film 2001.
01 JAN 2012
We Are Made of Star Stuff
The fate of individual human beings may not now be connected in a deep way
with the rest of the universe, but the matter out of which each of us is made is
intimately tied to processes that occurred immense intervals of time and
enormous distances in space away from us. Our Sun is a second- or third-generation
star. All of the rocky and metallic material we stand on, the iron in our
blood, the calcium in our teeth, the carbon in our genes were produced billions of
years ago in the interior of... 1 notes
notesThis might be the original source of this quote.
01 JAN 2012
We Have Announced Our Presence to the Stars
There are those who predict a dire catastrophe if we broadcast our presence to
another star. The extraterrestrials will come and – eat us, or something equally
unpleasant. (Actually, if we are especially tasty, they need only sample one of us,
determine what sequence of our amino acids makes us appetizing, and then
reconstruct the relevant proteins on their own planet. The high freightage makes
us economically, if not gastronomically, unappetizing.) The message aboard Pioneer
10 was criticize... 1 notes
notesJazz-band radio broadcasts are our first emissaries into space, now nearly 100 light years out.
01 JAN 2012
Our Radio Broadcasts into Space are a Monologue
Some individuals find the absence of a dialogue distressing – as if meaningful
dialogues were commonplace on this planet. Philip Morrison, of the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology, has pointed out that such cultural monologues are
entirely common in the history of mankind; that, for example, the entire cultural
patrimony of classical Greece, which has influenced our civilization in a profound
way, has traveled in only one direction in time. We have not sent our wisdom to
the Greeks. The G...Folksonomies: culture communication
Folksonomies: culture communication
1 notes
notesDistressing some that it is not a dialogue, but the wisdom of the ancient Greeks is a monologue as well.
01 JAN 2012
Measuring Cultural Information
But there may be more significant ways to characterize civilizations than by the
energy they use for communications purposes. An important criterion of a
civilization is the total amount of information that it stores. This information can
be described in terms of bits, the number of yes-no statements concerning itself
and the universe that such a civilization knows.
An example of this concept is the popular game of "Twenty Questions," as
played on Earth. One player imagines an object or conc... 1 notes
notesThe number of bits communicated in our radio broadcasts is quite enormous, conveying a great deal of information about our culture.
01 JAN 2012
Homogenization of the Milky Way
It is possible to speculate on the very distant future of advanced civilizations. We
can imagine such societies in excellent harmony with their environments, their
biology, and the vagaries of their politics, so that they enjoy extraordinarily long
lifetimes. Communications would long have been established with many other
such civilizations. The diffusion of knowledge, techniques, and points of view
would occur at the velocity of light. In time, the diverse cultures of the Galaxy,
involving a...Folksonomies: culture homogenization
Folksonomies: culture homogenization
1 notes
notesJust as human culture is undergoing a process of homogenization, culture of the Milky Way will eventually undergo the same.
01 JAN 2012
Universal Intelligence Cannot Exist
We conclude that there cannot be a strongly cohesive network of
communicating, unifying intelligences through the whole universe if (1) such
galactic civilizations evolve upward from individual planetary societies and if (2)
the velocity of light is indeed a fixed limit on the speed of information
transmission, as special relativity requires (i.e., if we ignore such possibilities as
using black holes for fast transport: See Chapter 39). Such a universal intelligence
is a kind of god that cann... 1 notes
notesAt best, aliens advanced enough to be gods could only exist at a galactic level.
01 JAN 2012
Black Holes are Separate Universes
In fact, our own universe is very likely itself a vast black hole. We have no
knowledge of what lies outside our universe. This is true by definition, but also
because of the properties of black holes. Objects that reside in them cannot
ordinarily leave them. In a strange sense, our universe may be filled with objects that are not here. They are not separate universes. They do not have the mass of
our universe. But in their separateness and their isolation they are autonomous
universes. 1 notes
notesA strange conceptual idea, that implies our own Universe is a Black Hole as well.
01 JAN 2012
Big History as a Fable
Once upon a time, about ten or fifteen billion years ago, the universe was
without form. There were no galaxies. There were no stars. There were no
planets. And there was no life. Darkness was upon the face of the deep. The
universe was hydrogen and helium. The explosion of the Big Bang had passed, and
the fires of that titanic event – either the creation of the universe or the ashes of a
previous incarnation of the universe – were rumbling feebly down the corridors of
space.
But the gas of ...Folksonomies: wonder big history
Folksonomies: wonder big history
1 Carl Sagan tells the story of our Universe's history as a fairy tale.
01 JAN 2012
Big History as a Fable Part II
Sex and death evolved – processes that vastly increased the rate of natural
selection. Some organisms evolved hard parts, climbed onto, and survived on the
land. The pace of production of more complex forms accelerated. Flight evolved.
Enormous four-legged beasts thundered across the steaming jungles. Small beasts
emerged, born live, instead of in hard-shelled containers filled with replicas of the
early oceans. They survived through swiftness and cunning – and increasingly long
periods in wh...Folksonomies: wonder big history
Folksonomies: wonder big history
Carl Sagan's account of the history of our Universe continued.
01 JAN 2012
Carl Sagan Summarizes Evolution of Life On Earth
Eventually, many billions of years ago, a molecule was formed that had a
remarkable capability. It was able to produce, out of the molecular building blocks
of the surrounding waters, a fairly accurate copy of itself. In such a molecular
system there is a set of instructions, a molecular code, containing the sequence of
building blocks from which the larger molecule is constructed. When, by accident,
there is a change in the sequence, the copy is likewise changed. Such a molecular
system – ca...Folksonomies: evolution big history
Folksonomies: evolution big history
From molecules competing for materials, to life, all the way up to humans.
01 JAN 2012
The Wonders of the Universe
There is a place with four suns in the sky – red, white, blue, and yellow; two of
them are so close together that they touch, and star-stuff flows between them.
I know of a world with a million moons.
I know of a sun the size of the Earth – and made of diamond.
There are atomic nuclei a mile across that rotate thirty times a second.
There are tiny grains between the stars, with the size and atomic composition
of bacteria.
There are stars leaving the Milky Way. There are immense gas cloud...Carl Sagan describes some of the amazing things science and astronomy have discovered in our universe.
01 JAN 2012
Dyson Spheres
The
mathematician Freeman Dyson, of the Institute for Advanced Study, offers a
scheme in which the planet Jupiter is broken down piece by piece, transported to
the distance of the Earth from the Sun, and reconstructed into a spherical shell – a
swarm of individual fragments revolving about the Sun. The advantage of Dyson's
proposal is that all of the sunlight now wasted by not falling upon an inhabited
planet could then be gainfully employed; and a population greatly in excess of that
which n...Folksonomies: extraterrestrials solar power
Folksonomies: extraterrestrials solar power
A hypothetical sphere surrounding a star, harnessing all of its power.
01 JAN 2012
Carl Sagan's Encounter With a Dolphin's Theory of Mind
I was swimming in a large indoor pool with Peter. When I threw the pool's
rubber ball to Peter (as was natural for me to have done), he dove under the ball as it hit the water and batted it with his snout accurately into my hands. After a
few throws and precision returns, Peter's returns became increasingly inaccurate –
forcing me to swim first to one side of the pool and then to the other in order to
retrieve the ball. Eventually, it became clear that Peter chose not to place the ball
within...The dolphin began to experiment with him during a game of catch.
01 JAN 2012
Disproving Santa Claus with a Back of the Napkin Calculation
There is another approach to the extraterrestrial hypothesis of UFO origins.
This assessment depends on a large number of factors about which we know little,
and a few about which we know literally nothing. I want to make some crude
numerical estimate of the probability that we are frequently visited by
extraterrestrial beings.
Now, there is a range of hypotheses that can be examined in such a way. Let
me give a simple example: Consider the Santa Claus hypothesis, which maintains
that, in a ...At one house a second, it would take Santa three years to visit all the houses in America alone.
01 JAN 2012
Pioneer 10 Poetry
For me, some of the most moving responses to the message are the works of
art and poetry that it evoked. Mr. 'Aim Morhardt is a painter of water colors of
the desert and sierras who lives in Bishop, California, where, perhaps not
coincidentally, the giant Goldstone tracking station, which commands Pioneer 10, is
located. Mr. Morhardt's poem follows:
Pioneer 10: The Golden Messenger.
The dragon prows that cruised the northern seas,
Questing adventure with the fighting clan;
The gallant merma...Two poems inspired by the Pioneer 10 probe. Surely the first of many.
