*@S Stills* Ah! Thank you for reminding me about those gents. Im getting flakey in my middle age To my GenX generation & that of my parents the Boomers, I didnt realize just how many heroes we had, many of them very scientifically-minded: Leonard Nimoy, Rod Serling, Isaac Asimov, Julius Sumner Miller, & although they didnt appear in front of a camera often, Alan Landsburg & Jameson Brewer. Other than being addicted to PBS Specials, as host of In Search Of..., Leonard Nimoy's profound shaping of my way of thinking as a 70s child cannot be overstated I spent 25 years of life in the automotive repair industry. I still work, but Im planning on finishing my bachelor's while I continue to teach music. Point is I was always an artistic type, not an analytic type. But when I look back at the richness we had in learning about science, science history, & archaeology thanks to these men, its mind-boggling. Throughout the 70s & 80s our education was supplied by the National Geographic Specials, Nova, In Search Of..., Nature & a nonstop supply of one-time BBC & PBS specials Thankfully today we still have Morgan Freeman, Benedict Cumberbach, James Earl Jones, William Shatner & a few others. I shudder to think what a void today's children & 'teens will be stuck with when theyre gone Thank You for contributing! 💜
@@magnificentmuttley154 well automotive repair requires analytics, so don’t sell yourself short. I’m a driveway mechanic myself and have only owned older cars. We have to sometimes get inventive when it comes to repairs. I was born in 85 so only caught Carl Sagans end career. But there are great thinkers out there for the younger generation. Prof Brian Cox is great. I’ve fallen asleep to his stuff many times.
When I watched _The Cosmos_ for the first time at Age 11 (in 1982), I watched to understand science. When I watched _Cosmos_ again as a young man (I was 20 in 1991), I watched to understand the man, Carl Sagan To me it always stood out that although an Atheist, Carl said he would accept the existance of God if only he could prove it. His humility & neverending questioning of himself are the heart of his intelligence Can't help but think that if he is in heaven, he talks for hours about time, space, matter, & the countless phenomena of it all, whether among the angels, or among his greatest contemporaries: Albert Einstein Julius Sumner Miller Edwin Hubble Isaac Asimov Leonard Nimoy Jameson Brewer Alan Dinehart George Carlin
@@magnificentmuttley154did you know that Hugo Weaving when he played the role of Agent Smith modeled his speaking voice after Carl Sagan? I think he did a fantastic job!
@@DreamsOfLegend Im at a loss, because if I'd seen whichever movie that is, I would know who Agent Smith is! 🤷 But thank you for mentioning him & Hugo Weaving. I will find that movie
Eternally thankful to Carl Sagan for this series. It put me on a path in my college years, and haven't suffered from diminished curiosity since. Couple of brief notes: Democritus inherited 100 talents from his father. So that puts the idea of "Rather being poor in a democracy than rich in a tyranny" in perspective. The persecution of Anaxagoras can be seen as intolerance against science, but it's more likely that he was prosecuted by Cleon for being an ally of Pericles. The sculptor Phidias was also prosecuted in an attempt to undermine Pericles' power and Athenian democracy.
After reading Plato's 7th Letter, with its account of the intrigues between Dion and Dionysius of Syracuse, it puts me in a mood to not doubt that someone like Anaxagoras could have gotten caught up in anti-Pericles sentiment.
I agree 100%. Carl Sagan, Leonard Nimoy, Burgess Meredith, Keith David, & numerous other PBS hosts each have a body of work in film, easy to envelope yourself in. They have done for modern science education what Ken Burns & Marc Samels have done for history
@@k.t.5405 spoken exactly like someone who's always lived in a first world country and never lived in such poverty, anybody who says they would prefer third world poverty over living working class in a Chinese like society, is someone who's never lived in third world poverty, I'd rather not be aloud to criticise the government and have a roof over my head, clean water and food than live in a shack with no electricity, no access to clean water and little medical care. It's obvious you're talking from a privileged first world position.
I recently watched this part of Cosmos, and wondered how much of what we have from the Ancients was originally theirs and how much of it was introduced by later scribes who could introduce their ideas while copying manuscripts. Not to diminish the contributions of the Ionians, but it might be that some progress was still being made in secret through the Dark Ages, in forms of modifications of already existing texts / pseudepigrapha, to hide the thinker from the Church. If so - THANK YOU!
@toragpoons Ya gotta hand it to Sagan, the man had swagger. I've noticed he also had a thing for apples. He uses them in so many of his lectures. Truly a beautiful soul. RIP.
Scientists do not join hands every Sunday and sing "Yes gravity is real! I know gravity is real! I will have faith! I believe in my heart that what goes up, up, up must come down, down, down. Amen!" If they did, we would think they were pretty insecure about the concept. - DAN BARKER
It has happened again and again throughout human history and it leads to misery. It is happening now with those who promote the laughable so called creation science. Societies that allow the mystics to rule fall behind those who support science.
Although Carl Sagan is no longer with us, he as achieved a sort of immortality few can know. His existence made the world a better place and he has enriched the lives of those he left behind.
@Skedarking85 - I admitted this today in a meeting with co-workers about people who had influenced me--that I wish I had been more into science while Sagan was alive.
We watched Cosmos when it first came out. My dad (in his late 40’s) hated the series because he had no clue what he was talking about. My mother (early 40’s) only watched to see and hear him talk. Me - senior in school and science geek, on the other hand - knew a bunch of stuff and was learning from him.
That is admirable for the time. It's amazing to think of how difficult it would be to intuitively come up with that, having no means to empirically verify it. However, if nothing exists except atoms and space, and everything else is just opinions, then would that mean that that statement is an opinion? Or, is consciousness more than a sum of it's parts?
There could come a time when that would no longer be true. Genetic research into the aging process has found some amazing things, it's just a question of how long it takes us to make the things we've learned applicable.
At the end of the clip, speaking (ironically enough) of intolerance for unconventional views and the religious persecution of Anaxagoras, he says, "The mystics were beginning to win." I do hope he got some letters from scientifically informed mystics and scholars of the history of mysticism about that. Mystics have often faced persecution by religious authorities. Unlike literal minded forms of religious orthodoxy, mystical traditions tend not to be at odds with the empirical sciences. I hope he eventually got his head out of his butt about that.
I think you're partly right. There are many different senses that the words 'mystic' and 'mystical' have for different people in various contexts. I think Sagan's context, here, was the battle he saw himself engaged in on behalf of science and reason against the forces of irrationality and religion. Many people in both the sciences and religious or spiritual communities have an oversimplified, dichotomizing view of the relations between them. Sagan continues to inspire some of us who appreciate mystical religious traditions anyway.
Where is any verification found that Abdera was considered the home of dumbells? I'm inclined to think he made that part up in order to equate himself with Democritus, with his "the Brooklyn of its time" remark.
yes, except for chemistry, microbiology, biology, neurophysiology, psychology, sociology, anthropology, microeconomics, macroeconomics, political science, astrology and all the intermediate sciences connecting and aligning these patterns together. H20 is not the same as Hydrogen and Oxygen. Hydrogen burns while Oxygen fans the flames. However, in combination, these elements extinguish flame. While everything may be made of atoms, their synthetic forms are not irreducible to atomic substances.
People who use books for fire dislike Carl Sagan. This isn't shocking. These people are very linear and hateful people. I suggest actually reading books, instead of pretending to read them.
@Monstratic0900 Agent Smith was loosely based around Sagan. When Sagan started his career he was a bit like the 'Neo' of science, a poacher if you like, but then became a gamekeeper, or agent, spewing out 'official' science.
This isn't the way Carl Sagan sounded in real life, was it? He was probably a very nervous guy most of the time, which could explain the marijuana use in his case.
Carl Sagan was noted for his soothing calm deep voice. I followed his career from his Cosmos days 1980’s & he always a appeared a calm guy. He is sadly missed.
You misunderstood what Sagan was saying. The ancient city of Abdera was a wealthy trading site, so it was invaded and sacked many times. By the mid 300's BCE, Abdera had lost its prominence, and it had become synonymous with stupidity (according to some people, like the Romans).
...........I watched these Carl Sagan "things", on TV, years ago. And failed then to see them for what they are. Incomplete and pretentious. Even his "friendly" style, now sounds overbearing. Presumptuous not a little bit.
I get so annoyed at Carl Sagan's constant pushing of atheistic materialism. He literally says here that "the conclusions of Democritus were right." Lol (face palm). This includes that the soul doesn't exit. It's annoying when materialists assert things they have no idea about. The conclusion of Democritus that "the soul doesn't exist," or that perceptions themselves are atoms of different shapes, is totally wrong or at the very least one could never say with certitude. Arrogant materialists, like Sagan, talk out of their ass too much. This is why physicists make terrible philosophers. If Sagan wanted to TRY to represent reality better, he would've said "Some of Democritus' basic conclusions indeed apply to aspects of THE PHYSICAL world." That's as far as you can go. Going beyond that makes Sagan a bad philosopher.
