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I don’t disagree with your point. The earth is pretty special as the only known location for intelligent life. However: 1) Most people haven’t internalized at

I don’t disagree with your point. The earth is pretty special as the only known location for intelligent life. However: 1) Most people haven’t internalized at all how big and empty and terrifying the universe is. This is a rhetorical device to make that point. 2) Carl Sagan also famously said “We are a way for the universe to know itself” so I think you may be straw-manning his overall position just a little bit here.

card_zero 1y ago
He plainly says "the folly of human conceits". It's nice if he does a u-turn on this elsewhere, but the speech is still gleefully wallowing in putting down humans as big-headed ... for what? And why are "superstar" and "supreme leader" in quotes like that? Those superstars and supreme leaders on earth are the actual genuine ones. I know of no others elsewhere, do you? I mean OK important people may tend to be pompous, but some people are indeed important. Sagan, for instance, was a celebrity, meaning that he was celebrated by other people on account of his being some good. I don't need him to deny it, and I don't need him to make this speech vicariously denying the importance of everybody else.
lo_zamoyski 1y ago
This is pretty flakey reasoning. First, the only reason “internalizing” the size of the universe would have any relevance here is if you were going to use that to draw the bad inference of insignificance. That was the context. Otherwise, it is, at best, an interesting fact that can be equally interpreted as awe-inspiring (I do not see why it would be terrifying; I think it is grand and wonderful). I think Sagan was, in his clumsy way, perhaps trying to recover something lost in the loss of religion, a kind of reverential humility that recognition of God previously inspired. The closest thing he could find was the universe. Naturally, this leed toward a kind of pagan materialist pantheism (which likely explains his interest in Hinduism).

card_zero 1y ago

He plainly says "the folly of human conceits". It's nice if he does a u-turn on this elsewhere, but the speech is still gleefully wallowing in putting down humans as big-headed ... for what? And why are "superstar" and "supreme leader" in quotes like that? Those superstars and supreme leaders on earth are the actual genuine ones. I know of no others elsewhere, do you? I mean OK important people may tend to be pompous, but some people are indeed important. Sagan, for instance, was a celebrity, meaning that he was celebrated by other people on account of his being some good. I don't need him to deny it, and I don't need him to make this speech vicariously denying the importance of everybody else.

lo_zamoyski 1y ago

This is pretty flakey reasoning. First, the only reason “internalizing” the size of the universe would have any relevance here is if you were going to use that to draw the bad inference of insignificance. That was the context. Otherwise, it is, at best, an interesting fact that can be equally interpreted as awe-inspiring (I do not see why it would be terrifying; I think it is grand and wonderful). I think Sagan was, in his clumsy way, perhaps trying to recover something lost in the loss of religion, a kind of reverential humility that recognition of God previously inspired. The closest thing he could find was the universe. Naturally, this leed toward a kind of pagan materialist pantheism (which likely explains his interest in Hinduism).