For the past several weeks, I have been watching the Discovery Channel’s reissue of Carl Sagan’s Cosmos<\/i>. And I am impressed by how well this has held up over the decades.<\/p>\n
And I am so amazed at the way he ties the Abyss to the Infinite. This is classic.<\/p>\n
I mean, this is all remedial for me: Sagan knew nothing of 11-dimensional String Theory, or Quantum Computing. On tonight’s episode, he marvels at the New York Public Library’s “1015<\/sup> bits of information.” <\/p>\n I think that’s a gross underestimate. But no matter. Sagan also prophesized the emergence of a “global intelligence.” And is that not what we are approaching with the Internet?<\/p>\n But yet, Sagan also prophesizes about mankind’s rise above the lizard’s instincts of territoriality and homopredation. And I don’t see that we’ve made any progress on that front.<\/p>\n Here, I chose to quote Gene Roddenberry and C. J. Holland (via Patrick Stewart<\/a>)1<\/sup> quoting Shakespeare:<\/p>\n \nOh, I know Hamlet. And what he said with irony, I say with conviction: “What a piece of work is a man! How noble in reason! How infinite in faculties. In form, and moving, how express and admirable. In action, how like an angel… In apprehension, how like a god!”\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Irony or conviction – your call.
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