Carl Sagan
Random House 1977
5/5 Masturbating Monkeys.
After reading the scheissdreck that was The Road, this was a wonderful and much-appreciated change.
Carl Sagan, in case you didn't know, was a badass. His work lives on, and continues to influence our lives today. He is best known for his Cosmos series, and for writing Contact, upon which the 1997 film "Contact" was based (Jodie Foster).
As I was reading Dragons, and now that I'm finished with it, it stays with me. I can't stop thinking about some of the arguments Sagan has put forward, and the implications of his observations. Sagan covers a wide range of topics from evolution to abortion, but not at all in a controversial way. Sagan never was attempting to create controversy. His goal was to educate, and answer questions.
His discourse is elevated above the "rights" and "wrongs" of the contemporary nonsense we are surrounded by. There is a short list of books which have really touched me, which have really helped me to understand my place in the world and which I feel like I could read over and over again, each time gaining something new.
This is definitely one of those titles.
If you're an intellectually incurious or boring person, then this isn't for you. This isn't entertainment. It's enlightenment.
That may scare some people away, but Sagan is about as scary as a beach ball. The accumulated wisdom he offers in Dragons is accessible and delivered in a stimulating way. He writes, as always, for the layperson.
Sagan is largely responsible for the popularization of real science (as opposed to science fiction) which took place after the 1950s. He understood how important it was for us to be a people who understood the fantastic power of science; how it could both improve and destroy our lives. He has a unique voice and an ability to bring new ideas to the door of the mind which is difficult to find in the hard sciences.
I cannot recommend this book enough. I feel like any attempt I make to review it will really do it an injustice.
Cool tidbits:
"There is some recent evidence that the two types of sleep, dreaming and dreamless, depend on the lifestyle of the animal. Turett Allison and Domenic Ciccheti of Yale University have found that predators are statistically much more likely to dream than prey, which are in turn more likely to experience dreamless sleep"
Want to know why? Read the book.
"I sometimes wonder whether the appeal of sex and aggression in contemporary American television and film offerings reflects the fact that the R-complex is well developed in all of us, while many neocortical functions are, partly because of the repressive nature of schools and societies, more rarely expressed, less familiar and insufficiently treasured. "
Sagan said this in 1977. How far have we come in 30 years? More importantly, how far have we fallen?
"There is a place in the brain that makes "dirty" words (and apes may have it)."
Fuck yeah!
"Finding a solution to a problem is helped enormously by the certain knowledge that a solution exists."
That's pretty powerful. It's simple, but it's also very insightful. I wish I had thought about that more earlier in my life when I felt like there were no real solutions to some problems. I'm taking this a little out of context, but in a different context, the words are just as meaningful (if not more), and can be applied to just about any difficult situation.
"There is today in the West (but not in the East) a resurgent interest in vague, anecdotal and often demonstrably erroneous doctrines that, if true, would betoken at least a more interesting universe, but that, if false, imply an intellectual carelessness, an absence of tough-mindedness, and a diversion of energies not very promising for our survival"
This is the closest Sagan gets to criticizing religion as a retarding force for scientific progress. I think he understands that conflict isn't going to change minds, but if a person is genuinely curious about the world they live in, it's this kind of thinking that will spur them on to question not only the nature of the world they live in, but their own belief structures.
Note how Sagan suggests that if these demonstrably erroneous doctrines were true, that would suggest a more interesting universe. The universe is interesting enough as it is without adding magic.
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