Don Quixote and Carl Sagan's Pale Blue Dot

I read the Edith Grossman translation of Don Quixote.

Miguel de Cervantes’ Don Quixote is full of brilliant passages. One example of marvelous and creative writing can be found when Don Quixote’s squire, Sancho, believes that he has been transported through the heavens on the back of a magical, wooden horse. At ths point in the narrative Sancho is anticipating a ridiculous and false promise that has been made to him that he will soon be appointed governor of a province.  He describes the experience below. 

“I looked down at the earth, and it seemed to me that it was no larger than a mustard seed, and the men walking on it not much bigger than hazel nuts, so you can see how high we must have been flying then.

After I came down from the sky, and after I looked at the earth from that great height and saw how small it was, the burning desire I had to be a governor cooled a little; where’s the greatness in ruling a mustard seed, or the dignity or pride in governing half a dozen men the size of hazel nuts? It seemed to me that this was all there was on the whole earth.”

The above is a very interesting passage for several reasons. Comparing Earth to a mustard seed seems to reference The Mustard Seed parable of the New Testament. In the gospels of both Luke and Mathew, a mustard seed is compared to the Kingdom of Heaven. However, this passage is reminding me of something else, something more contemporary. In a public speech, and in his book, Pale Blue Dot, Carl Sagan commented upon a picture of Earth taken by Voyager One,

“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.”

The Voyager One Photograph refereed
to in  Carl Sagan's quotation. 

I find the sentiments in these two passages similar in several ways. These quotations written hundreds of years apart seem to have a lot in common. Both refer to the insignificance of Earth. What is remarkable about Cervantes’s writing is that it was written in the 17th century, before the age of technology. The 17^th century writer did not have pictures of Earth from space to inspire him. Yet, based mostly upon intuition and reason, he was able to express, very eloquently, something of the smallness that is our planet.

Both quotations also try to grapple with the apparent insignificance of human endeavors. I find Sagan’s words so moving as well as eye opening. He encapsulates human thought and efforts from the beginning of time in just a few sentences.

Likewise, Sancho’s dream of being a governor is diminished when he sees how small all of Earth and its people are. He compares the planet to a plant seed and its inhabitants to hazelnuts. He realizes, to paraphrase Sagan, that he is trying to become a momentary master of a fraction of a dot. Once again, this is all the more striking when one realizes that Don Quixote was written many centuries ago.

Sagan often talked and wrote about how humans tend to overinflate Earth’s importance and place in the Universe. Within the pages of Cervantes’s work, we find similar ideas. In this way, Cervantes seemed very ahead of his time. The Spanish author also expressed these thoughts in an eloquent and aesthetically pleasing way. This passage is one of the many gems that can be found in the epic that is Don Quixote.

Lonely Planets: The Natural Philosophy of Alien Life by David Grinspoon

David Grinspoon is an adjunct professor of Astrophysical and Planetary Science at the University of Colorado. He is also the curator of Astrobiology at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science and has held several positions with NASA. In Lonely Planets: The Natural Philosophy of Alien Life the astrobiologist takes on the question of whether there is life, and ultimately the related question, is there intelligent life to be found in places other then Earth. 

Grinspoon covers a lot of territory here. This book contains a lot of hard science, but, as the author himself asserts, it is not a pure science book. Instead, it is a work of speculation, opinions, philosophy and general musings concerning the “Big Picture” as it relates to humankind, possible alien civilizations and the universe. 

Grinspoon does treat the reader to fascinating explanations covering the history of the Cosmos, from the Big Bang on through the formation of the galaxies, stars, planets, etc. He further delves into the history of life on Earth and the rise of human civilization.

Scientific discoveries relating to the subject are explained and analyzed. What we know about the solar system’s planets and major moons as well as the exoplanets are explained and analyzed.  Included is a look at the history of human speculation concerning extraterrestrial life from the time of the ancients through today. Grinspoon explores both philosophic as well as scientific based speculations concerning alien intelligence. Though the author disagrees with them, modern UFO, paranormal and New Age driven belief systems are also explored with a surprising amount of seriousness and respect.

A lot of educated speculation is devoted to the likelihood of alien life and alien intelligent life, the nature of such life, what alien civilizations might be doing out there, as well as how we might discover its existence. There are positively fascinating ruminations on speculative and far out subjects, such as machine-based intelligence, giant alien engineering projects involving the movement and creation of stars, alien messages contained in DNA and all sorts of other good stuff.

This is a very personal book. The author infuses the narrative with personal recollections, stories and feelings, as well as numerous references to what I would consider the more interesting aspects of popular culture. There are allusions to television shows like Star Trek and the X-Files, science fiction literature, jazz and rock music, etc. Humor and jokes are also sprinkled throughout the narrative. Sometimes Grinspoon’s comedy falls short and slips into the silly, diminishing this otherwise extraordinary work.

In pondering this book, it is inevitable that I mention two other scientist-thinkers whose shadows loom large in context to what I will label as modern science-related philosophy. The first is Richard Dawkins, who also writes this sort of non-fiction as he attempts to put it all together while ruminating about life, the universe and everything else. Fortunately, Grinspoon avoids the outright nastiness and disrespect for the ideas of others that have characterized Dawkins’s recent writings. At one point in this book, Grinspoon even takes Dawkins’s to task for his hostile nature.

Grinspoon outlook and attitude are extremely tolerant; in fact, his outlook is highly reminiscent of the views purported by late Carl Sagan. Sagan was a friend of Grinspoon’s parents and, later, of Grinspoon himself. 

Like Sagan, Grinspoon clearly believes in a rationalistic universe and in where empirical truths can best be discovered through scientific methods. Where Sagan and Grinspoon differ from Dawkins is that they not only respect others and the ideas of others, but they go out of their way to calmly examine ideas that they disagree with, without attempting to belittle them. Grinspoon actually goes further, he often explores how viewpoints contradictory to his, relating to science, religion, etc. might be correct and points out how and why he could be mistaken! He also turns a critical eye upon theories as well as belief systems that he himself agrees with.

For instance, in what I find to be an amazing moment of intellectual honesty for someone with Grinspoon’s worldview, 

It is certainly not immediately obvious that the beauty and complexity of life on Earth all came about through billions of years of random variation and selection. Our prescientific forebears can be forgiven for their intuitive inference that such a wonderful design requires a superhuman designer. Science has given us reason to doubt this need, but science has also revealed the design to be far more intricate, complex, and finely tuned than anyone imagined hundreds of years ago. Modern thinkers, too, are reasonable to doubt that natural selection could come up with all this. If you have never, ever, doubted it, then you’ve never really thought about it, only accepted the ideology and authority of your teachers.   

Grinspoon lays out his personal philosophy here. He connects the possible existence of alien intelligence to the basic meaning of human existence.  Grinspoon views this entire process that has occurred over billions of years as a process of “Cosmic Evolution”. The history of the universe from the Big Bang on to the modern technological civilizations, both ours and potential alien, is viewed by the author with a sense of awe and meaning. The author sees humankind’s best outcome in a combination of advanced technology and what he labels a new spiritualism; a kind of combination of universal compassion and love for others mixed with a deep understanding of the universe that embraces of our place in Cosmic Evolution. Our place in this process involves the universe becoming intelligent through humanity. All of this, according to the author, should lead to the global intelligence that is capable of avoiding an environmental cataclysm and other existentialist threats to humanity.  I am grossly oversimplifying the author’s beliefs. Grinspoon spends many pages developing these ideas. He also connects his worldview to other natural philosophers of the past, such as Konstantin Tsiolkovsky, Iosif Shklovskii and, of course, Carl Sagan.

In regards to traditional and non-traditional religion, Grinspoon explains that he is not a believer in the actual nuts and bolts contentions of these systems. However, while occasionally critical, he is more often complimentary about various religious views and incorporates many ideas espoused by religion into his views. This incredibly open-minded thinker even delves into the possibility that he could be wrong and how it could possibly turn out that certain religious beliefs, as well as beliefs in UFOs, certain paranormal activity, etc. could be correct.

Grinspoon does not shirk the possibility that humanity, as well as alien civilizations at one time or another, may be on a cusp, between a bright future and utter destruction. He writes,

Science may be a candle in the dark but it is also a lit fuse, and our future depends on an ability to grasp a truth that comes from somewhere beyond science: that if we don’t do a much better job of loving one another here on this Earth, then we are going to miss the galactic party. 

The “candle in the dark” is clearly referring to Carl Sagan’s The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark, which extolled the enlightening aspects of science. I find that connecting this imagery to the imagery of a lit fuse is so very clever and poetic. Humanity will join the “galactic party” if and when we contact alien civilizations.

Grinspoon writes further,

We don’t know the odds, but this is the game we’re in. The problem of survival is not fundamentally technological. It is spiritual and moral. It is evolutionary. Technical solutions may provide temporary Band-Aids, but they do not save us from our nature. If we want to be one of the survivors, we must create a global society where curiosity is tightly bonded to compassion, and where (this is hardest to picture) not a lot of people want to do violence to others.   

Grinspoon’s reference to the survivors is that some presupposed alien civilizations inevitably destroy themselves while others inevitably survive.

One may think that this mix of science, history, philosophy and personal observations would be unwieldy. However, Grinspoon melds it into a seamless whole. 

Readers of this blog will know that I love reading about the ideas espoused by others that are contrary to my own beliefs. Though, of course, there are areas where I disagree with this author, Grinspoon’s worldview and attitude is, as was Sagan’s, more in line with my own then most. Add that to the fact that Grinspoon is so refreshingly tolerant towards diverging belief systems. All of this adds up to a highly recommended book. My conclusion is that Grinspoon is a very important thinker and a worthy intellectual heir to Carl Sagan.

I have also read Venus Revealed by Grinspoon. This is a fantastic encapsulation of what we know about the planet Venus. It is a pure science book, however Grinspoon also opens it up to many big scientific ideas.

Grinspoon’s fun and informative website is here.

Astounded by Reality

I am astounded by reality. When I think about what I am, what everyone is, and what the universe is, I am amazed by the magnitude of it all. Of course we do not have all of the answers. However when I take a step back from everyday life and try to get an idea of the part of the picture that we seem to understand, I am in awe!

When I imagine that, the observable physical universe started with the seemingly bizarre event that we call the Big Bang (really a misnomer) and that it led to all THIS, I am overwhelmed with wonder. How all that we call energy and matter, and even time itself came to be in that instant.  How over immense periods of time stars and planets formed. How chemistry on Earth led to life. How life evolved from single cell organisms on to creatures of astounding variety and complexity. How humans came to be. How the great mystery of consciousness came about. How over a relatively short time period (but from my point of view a long time period), people developed culture, science, technology, civilization etc. The totality of it all is really beyond comprehension.

The way that the universe got from the Big Bang to the world today in our tiny piece of the Cosmos is a mind- boggling wonder of wonders that most people scarcely think about.  Often I stop to ponder how odd it is that in this little corner of the Universe it has thus far cumulated into cars, gourmet food, Shakespeare, bad television, Mozart, Da Vinci, pop music, war, politics, capitalism, communism, Nazism, morality, computers, on and on and on! The path that reality has taken seems so long and strange yet it is the fabric of our existence.

As I alluded to above, I find consciousness to be one of the most baffling phenomena of it all. What is this thing that we call “Self?” I have read a bunch of books and articles on it. It is still very mysterious.  A belief that seems common, though not universal, with both researchers as well as modern philosophers is that when a certain high level of information processing organization occurs, the phenomena that we call consciousness ensues. I believe that this set of theories and beliefs likely to be true. Yet as David Chalmers points out in The Conscious Mind, this is an extremely unsatisfying explanation if one is intuitively trying to get at the nature of what we call awareness!

No doubt there are wonders that are yet undiscovered. However, maybe in some areas our view of the big picture is nearly complete. Perhaps the above explanation of consciousness is pretty much all there is to it and science just needs to fill in the details. In regards to awareness and our minds, current theories just seem so inadequate. I feel a similar sense of not really intuitively understanding the seemingly paradoxical concepts relating to the Big Bang, Quantum Physics, Time, singularities, the nature of matter and energy and thus existence itself, etc.

Yet it may very well be that my brain, which evolved to mostly deal with hard practical problems of survival and reproduction on a tough planet whose rules are mostly governed by animal behavior, chemistry and Classical Physics, is just not capable of intuitively understanding concepts such as consciousness, the Big Bang, Time itself, etc. It is a wonder that we are beginning to get at these elusive truths in the form of scientific observation, theories, experiments and mathematics. Alas, real gut level comprehension may elude us forever.

Some will attribute much of this wondrous Universe to a God. Personally I see little evidence of the existence such a Being. However the reality of such an entity is possible. If there is a God I would guess it to be very, very different from that conceived by most religions and philosophies. There are so many rarely discussed possibilities that seem much more likely then those traditionally conceived. Just one example, a variation on Deism comes to mind. Imagine a super powerful intelligent entity that created the part of the Universe that we can observe. This Being is not omnipotent and needs to play by the rules and laws of a much larger Universe. It is extremely long lived on the order of tens of billions of years but not necessarily immortal. This Being cares little for humanity or what we call morality. I do not believe that this hypothetical entity exists. I do think it to me more likely then the traditional conception of God. I describe it just an example of many possibilities.

We humans in 2012 are traveling the cusp to time. We find ourselves awake and aware in an enormous Universe that has been here for billions of years. All the past has gone before. The future has not has happened yet (Many Physicists contend that there is nothing special about the forward movement of time and such may just be based upon our perception. I cannot claim to fully understand this concept and I find it near impossible to write a Blog from that perspective!). We are only able to look back at all that has gone before and wonder about what is to come.

I am hesitant to recommend too many books on these topics as advances in our knowledge quickly make information obsolete. I love all the writings of Carl Sagan. He combined astronomy, physics, biology, history, culture, philosophy, as well as a very humanistic and tolerant worldview to weave a picture of the universe that very much parallels my own. Of course Stephen Hawking’s writings on physics and the nature of the Universe are classic.

In terms of biology, evolution and what I call the philosophy of science and understanding I agree with much of the worldview espoused by Richard Dawkins. However, I find Dawkins to be too angry and disrespectful towards those whom he disagrees with for me to advocate for his writings too strongly. Daniel Dennett and David Chalmers have really good books and articles on the subject of consciousness.

There are many others thinkers of note, some that I have read of and I am sure some that I have not. There is much exploration available to the curious person. We live a great time to possess and inquisitive mind!

I think that if and when we discover extraterrestrial intelligence it will in the very least help and change our perspective on many of these issues. Imagine how such a discovery will impact upon our views concerning science, philosophy, our place in the Universe, and almost everything else! In the meantime, I urge everyone to take a step back and think about the ALL.

Human Extinction: Should We Care?

I recently wrote about some of my thoughts on David Benatar’s Better Never to Have Been: The Harm of Coming into Existence. While this book was not the beginning of my thinking about the big picture for mankind, I have been pondering this subject since childhood, reading Benatar did prompt me to organize some of my thoughts on the matter. The big question for me is should, or do I care, if the human race continues. Does it really matter whether or not people become extinct? To some this may seem like a ludicrous question, but to adventurous thinkers this inquiry is fair game.

At times I must admit, when I observe and think about all the mass and individual murders, the torture, rape, petty greed, oppression, narrow mindedness as well as a thousand other ills that mankind has heaped upon itself and other forms of life, both throughout history and into the present, I am tempted to say that the Universe would be better off without people. At the very least, perhaps I should be ambivalent about the future of our species.

It turns out that this train of reasoning is only a temptation for me. When I think about how I have pondered these concepts over the years, I do not believe that I ever really settled on such a view. Why have I not done so? Of course in the short run there are many people and animals that I love and care about. I want them to keep going for as long as possible. After eighty to a hundred years however, baring enormous strides in medical technology and our ability to access these advances, all of these creatures that I am attached to will be gone.

So why care about the long term? I see absolutely no evidence that there exists anything like a benevolent or caring Supreme Being. If such an entity does exist, it still does not logically follow that I should be concerned with future people. It would then the Deity’s concern! Of course, I do not want future people to suffer or die, as Benatar points out, one can be opposed to the potential suffering of future, unborn humans, while being indifferent or even against their coming into existence in the first place.

It turns out that I do care very much. First I need to point out that while my thoughts and opinions are my own, perhaps the biggest influencer in regards to the way that I think about the Universe and humanity’s place in it is the late great scientist-philosopher Carl Sagan. In his numerous books and television programs, Sagan paints a picture of the Cosmos that has influenced and often parallels my views.

 We know that the Universe, at least in local areas, has organized itself. Dust clouds formed planets and stars. Inside the nuclear interior of suns, complex elements formed. On at least one planet, these complex elements formed chemicals that have organized to become genes, then cells, then more complex organisms. One line of these evolutionary branches evolved into Homo sapiens, an animal with astounding brainpower. We humans proceeded to use these brains in ever more complex and interesting ways. We have developed language, culture and civilization. Eventually we began to understand science and develop technology. These advances have taken us into astounding territory. Such wondrous things are being discovered! Perhaps the most significant of which relates to understanding the fundamentals laws and facts that govern our Universe, biology, and even our own brains.

The fact is undeniable, the Universe is conscious! It has organized itself over the eons into these little bundles of extremely dense, intelligent and self-aware structures called people! As Sagan said on many occasions, “We are star stuff”. The elements produced inside of stars are what make up our bodies and hence our minds. We are conglomerations of energy and matter that has built up and formed itself over billions of years, first through stellar synthesis, planetary formation, chemistry, biochemistry, genetics, and finally human culture, reason and technology. We ARE the Universe, or at least part of it. We are groupings of matter and energy that are a part of a Universe that has become conscious. Though people, the Universe is beginning to know itself though reason and science.

To me this is a grand and awe-inspiring concept. I would even describe the feelings that it inspires as mystical. Religion and superstition have no monopoly upon such emotions. Those who have a basic understanding and appreciation of the natural world and science often experience them.

Other intelligent life in the Universe is not only possible but many believe probable. However, unless and until we find it and prove that it does exist, there is a chance that intelligence only happened here. Even if sentience does exist elsewhere, it may be so different from our own version of consciousness that it may be barley recognizable. There is a real chance that thinking and awareness as we define it could be unique to Earth.

Viewed through the prism of these ideas, it seems imperative that humanity continue to exist and strive to understand and expand into the Cosmos. It is of the utmost importance that we do so. We, who are the conscious part of the Universe, are striving to understand our self!  Premature extinction of this sentience would therefore be catastrophic on a cosmological level and extremely undesirable. I would argue our quest to know more about the Infinitum adds nobility to the existence of the human race. We are not really people striving to understand creation, we ARE creation beginning to comprehend itself.

I grant that there may be other reasons for us to go on as a species and civilization. However, striving for the ultimate fulfillment of a self- aware Universe is the most compelling argument on my list. At times I think that a similar premise can be made relating to the human creation of art and philosophy. However I am not certain that I am on such sure-footed territory on this concept. Perhaps I will explore that idea further in coming blogs.