Cosmos Will Get a Sequel
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If you haven't watched Cosmos already, I highly, highly suggest it. Start with Episode 1: http://www.hulu.com/watch/63317/cosmos-the-shores-of-the-cos...
If Carl was a poet, Neil is an orator. Here's a great example. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RQhNZENMG1o
Sure I'd love to have Carl back to do Cosmos II as well, but unfortunately that isn't possible.
I hope that the sequel also targets a sophisticated audience: those of us that loved the original when we were kids and have continued evolving our brains for decades.
This is great for children. But as an adult who already knows 95% of what he's talking about it comes across as a bit grating.
Carl Sagan could tell you what you already knew, and you'd still be happy to hear it, because he'd just remind you how awesome this stuff you already know actually is.
You know information is never truly destroyed. Bringing Dr. Sagan back will probably remain too difficult for a couple generations, but, eventually, we'll figure that one out.
And I can imagine the look on his face.
Information is always destroyed, and the universe uniformly has less net information now than it did a second ago; that's the second law of thermodynamics.
However, note my use of the term "god-like". Anything capable of doing this is so close to being a god that it makes very little difference from our point of view. There's also the theory that our universe is a simulation run by such an entity - the argument is something like "if it is possible to run a simulation of the universe, it is statistically far more likely that we're in such a simulation." Sort of makes sense, if you have the right mind-set or tilt your head and squint.
But, like I said, it's a problem to be solved by our smarter successors, not for us.
The big question I have is, being on a major network owned by a well-known conservative mogul, will the show be able to take the same stance on religion as its original incarnation. Will Tyson be allowed to refer to religion as, "a reassuring fable?"
For the sake of the integrity of a successor to Cosmos, I certainly hope so.
It's being written by the same writers (aside from Carl) as the first one, and produced by Seth MacFarlane, someone who doesn't take shit from FOX. Tyson also doesn't seem like a guy who would corrupt his morals, he knows the value of scientific passion.
FOX isn't Fox News, so don't worry too much. I'm not, at least.
What people don't realize is that Fox News serves a commercial rather than an ideological agenda. The rest of the news media (especially when Fox News started) has a slightly liberal bias, which means the big business opportunity for Fox was right-wing news. It's not that they have a political agenda, they're just giving people what they want--news coverage that aligns to their political bias. As the TV viewing population has skewed older, Fox News has pushed even further to the right to match their target market. Likewise, the business opportunity for the Fox network was young adults. (And for The Sun in 1970, the target market was presumably working class British males who wanted to see topless girls in their tabloids.)
I never intend to justify Fox News, only explain it.
Murdoch is Australian, and conservatism and Christianity don't have nearly as much overlap as they do in America.
I would be extremely surprised if Murdoch himself were anything other than agnostic/atheist.
Incidentally, I've never been sure why anyone ever thought that religion was supposed to be "reassuring". I was raised Catholic, and all I got from religion was the assurance that God was going to torture me for all eternity if I didn't correctly obey a set of impossible, largely contradictory and incredibly vague rules. That's the least fucking reassuring thing you can tell someone.
But don't try telling a Republican or a Democrat.
The religion v science dichotomy is quite prevalent here. Your suggestion that 'science' isn't belief in the mythological might not hold up so well given that 'science' today means expecting what comes from 'scientists' and bears little resemblance to classical science where anyone could reproduce the results.
Science has become so specialized, so expensive that you have to accept on faith that studies are true, or accept on faith the studies supporting the original or refuting it. Almost no one has the actual means to verify what we call science now.
If religion is based on faith, then it is hard to argue that science hasn't become a religion.
I know you can get away with it on HN because most people don't actually care, but there legitimate reasons for why it actually matters.
I think Sagan's approach was fitting. I only worry that Neil's wit could be misinterpreted as arrogance by those who could benefit from a deeper appreciation of science and existence. Either way, I look forward to an updated reflection on what we've learned and seek to learn in the very near future.
They are very different but both very great at what they do.
http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2009/03/the-two-elem...
What makes Carl Sagan so good is that he has an extraordinary amount of love for the audience. It's pretty clear that this stems from his use of empathogenic drugs like cannabis. (Or at least, it would be extremely rare for someone to be able to project that much love and empathy for others without the use of psychedelics or empathogens, at least in western society.)
edit: I would define charisma more as the ability to make yourself loveable, which is basically the opposite of what Sagan does so well.
I watched Cosmos on my teens, late at night (actually, past midnight on Fridays, which made my early Saturday classes painful, but that's another story) on a TV station not particularly known for their love of science or reality. A couple posts back, there was a discussion opposing science and religion. Both are quests for ultimate truths opposed only by the methods of their search.
When I look deep in the sky, when I contemplate the mindboggingly vast emptiness punctuated by countless whirlpools of countless stars being violently born and evolving during the ages to their fiery (or cold) deaths, of which we only see an infinitesimal fraction, or the extremely small and quick, the things we cannot see, that we can barely measure and that are so faint that border non-existence, or the irrelevance of existence of pure math, it it's impossible not to feel the same deep wonder that's associated with religious experience. Science is humbling.
I do not envy the religious (or those who call themselves such) for they take a shortcut into a comforting notion of their Truth when it's not the destination that matters - it's the quest. I hope this new Cosmos puts more kids like me on the right path.
Here are Sagan's own words about how cannabis use has increased his own love and empathy for others:
"The cannabis experience has greatly improved my appreciation for art, a subject which I had never much appreciated before. The understanding of the intent of the artist which I can achieve when high sometimes carries over to when I’m down." [...]
"The heightened sensitivity in all areas gives me a feeling of communion with my surroundings, both animate and inanimate. Sometimes a kind of existential perception of the absurd comes over me and I see with awful certainty the hypocrisies and posturing of myself and my fellow men. And at other times, there is a different sense of the absurd, a playful and whimsical awareness. Both of these senses of the absurd can be communicated, and some of the most rewarding highs I’ve had have been in sharing talk and perceptions and humor. Cannabis brings us an awareness that we spend a lifetime being trained to overlook and forget and put out of our minds." [...]
"I find that most of the insights I achieve when high are into social issues, an area of creative scholarship very different from the one I am generally known for."
source: http://marijuana-uses.com/mr-x/
It's rare with or without drugs, let's be honest. I've known lots of stoners and they didn't seem particularly empathetic.
I don't think Mr. Rogers ever smoked weed, and he's the best example other than Sagan of a TV personality that projected a lot of love and empathy for the audience.
And if they assume that people's attention span are about that of house plants (which sums up Fox sports and the rapid-cut crap), it's going to be rather lightweight. If this is coupled with the "show rather than talk about" trend I've seen in Nova, it's going to fail as it'll take too much time to get the points across.
It's not even accurate (to the extent that any counterfactual can be considered accurate). If Christianity had never existed, would that have prevented the fall of the Roman Empire? Unlikely. Even if it had, were the Romans in the 3rd Century AD making huge strides in science before Christianity came along? Nope. And you'll note that when modern science did eventually arrive, it showed up in the Christian part of the world rather than the other 90%, which suggests Christianity can't be retarding scientific or technological progress that much.
Hating Christians though? That is an unfounded allegation. For example, I hate all religions, including but obviously not limited to Judaism. However, if you said that I hate Jews, that would be slander. It is incredibly untrue.
So if he is good enough for Sagan, he is good enough for me.
One problem I have with a lot of science programs today is how they don't make it clear how we know what we know, or who figured it out. Science is presented as a bunch of facts rather than as something that was developed by people (who always have interesting stories). Carl Sagan didn't make that mistake, nor did Asimov, and I hope this new Cosmos sequel also takes the historical and human perspective.