The Perplexed Observer: You Are Here: Pale Blue Dot by Carl Sagan

Monday, December 17, 2007

You Are Here: Pale Blue Dot by Carl Sagan - Audio Book and ebook

Second Annual Carl Sagan Memorial Blog-a-thon

You Are Here

PIA00452: Solar System Portrait - Earth as 'Pale Blue 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, ever king and peasant, every young couple in love, every moth 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 momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel 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. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.

The Earth is the only world known so far to harbor life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit, yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment the Earth is where we make our stand.

It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we've ever known.

Look back again at the pale blue dot
[from just beyond Saturn this time]

Earth From Saturn

Take a good long look at it. Stare at the dot for any length of time and then try to convince yourself that God created the whole Universe for one of the 10 million or so species of life that inhabit that speck of dust. Now take it a step further: Imagine that everything was made just for a single shade of that species, or gender, or ethnic or religious subdivision. If this doesn't strike you as unlikely, pick another dot. Imagine it to be inhabited by a different form of intelligent life. They, too, cherish the notion of a God who has created everything for their benefit. How seriously do you take their claim?

The above are just a few of the inspiring passages that make up Carl Sagan's Pale Blue Dot. I have provided a link to the ebook and the audio book for those who would like to explore this stunning manuscript further. Much of the audio book is narrated by Sagan himself which is a real treat. I have also provided links where you can purchase a hard copy of the book and I encourage you to do so if you find yourself enjoying it at all. You really don’t get the full experience of Pale Blue Dot unless you view the images that beautifully illustrate its pages. This book along with The Demon-Haunted World changed my life for the better and hopefully it will do the same for those of you who have not had the pleasure of reading them already.

Enjoy,
TPO

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