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I have spent several days watching Carl Sagan’s “The Pale Blue Dot” YouTube video as well as reading the transcript located in the description section of the video. Panic stricken, I fought to conjure up a great thesis that will explain what I think the meaning of this video is. I am struggling with creating an essay that casts my personal reflection upon people that don’t know me from Adam, in the meantime watching the clock tick as I lose daylight once again with a blank sheet of good quality paper. So, I will proceed by stating that I am stuck in the idea that Carl Sagan, while being the well respected scientist that he was, wrote The Pale Blue Dot to challenge humans to stop fighting and get along, cancel the belief that there is a “higher power” that cares or loves us or impress upon his audience that there is no other place to dwell in this universe. I believe differently.
Sagan indicated that humans have, “the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe.” I agree with him in the sense that humans have carried themselves in a way that has displayed entitleme...
In 1936 a sixth-grade student by the name of Phyllis Wright wondered if scientists pray, and if so, what for. She decided to ask one of the greatest scientists of all time, Albert Einstein. A while later he wrote a letter back to Phyllis with his response. Understanding the context and purpose of his response assist in analyzing its effectiveness. After receiving a letter from such a young student, Einstein aimed to provide Phyllis with a comprehensible answer. He intended for his response not to sway her in one way or another, but to explain science and religion do not necessarily contradict each other completely. By using appeals to ethos, pathos, and logos, Einstein achieved his purpose by articulating a response suitable for a sixth grade
In the article The Cosmic Perspective by Neil deGrasse Tyson he examines a range of topics from human life coming from Mars to how our perspective of the universe relates to religion. In the year 2000, a new space show opened at the Hayden Planetarium called Passport to the Universe, which compared the size of people Milky Way and beyond. While a show like this might make someone feel minuscule and insignificant, Tyson says that seeing the size of the universe actually makes him feel more alive not less and gives him a sense of grandeur. I agree with his idea that looking at us as a people in comparison can actually give you a sense of grandeur. However, when I compare myself to the vastness of space, it puts events on Earth in perspective while showing how influential we can be as a people even if we are small.
Not only is human connection vital to live a happy and joyful life, but it is necessary to create a legacy, and thus live on through others. But in order to do this, one must first overcome their ego and their sense of self. Once all of the “I” thoughts are gone, one can relate, but fully understand, the higher powers as well as other human beings around us. However, it is important to accept that we may never fully understand the driving force of this universe. While it can be experienced, and we can briefly get an idea of what it is, it is impossible to define these concepts in words, because we don’t have a language that transcends what we can understand. And though many recognize that these concepts could never be fully understood by the human brain, determined minds continue to ask questions that will never have an answer, “pushing their minds to the limits of what we can know” (Armstrong,
Feeling good about oneself is an inherently good thing; however when this is intensified so severely that it becomes the focus of everyday life, complications and consequences may occur. Jean Twenge tries to warn today’s “Generation Me” about the dangers of their obsession with the self in her piece, “An Army of One: Me.” This desire to look out for only the individual has dramatic effects on the direction of today’s society. What has also evolved out of this self adoring society is a seemingly endless need for argument, especially in the educational field, an issue addressed by Debora Tannen in her essay, “The Roots of Debate in Education and the Hope of Dialogue.” Of course, no researchers or educational experts expected the negative results such as narcissism and argumentative culture that followed from these teaching methods. These are unintended consequences and displaced risks, just as the types addressed in Edward Tenner’s, “Another Look Back, and A Look Ahead” but applied to a different subject. In effect, one problem causes another as an excess of self-esteem more often than not leads to narcissism. That development of narcissism promotes an argumentative culture in which everyone thinks they are right because confidence in oneself is far too high. Revenge effects may include constant irritability and excessive sensitivity, a lack of obtaining a good education, or in some cases pure laziness. Through a flawed system of education and the development of Generation Me, the attitude of the United States has unintentionally drifted towards narcissism and discontent.
Diana Moon Glampers, the United States Handicapper General is but one member of the government who demonstrates a failure to grasp the necessity of balancing fascism and extreme equitability. This also applies restriction in the sense of individualism and ideologies. To return to the original question: How does one 's perspective of an ideal society reflect their measure of self-worth? Through analyzing the text we resolved that when the standards of society are set by an individual’s perspective, others under the regulations will experience a lack of confidence, furthermore, dysphoria. In summation, although our strengths and weaknesses differ, we are “equal every which way”-Kurt Vonnegut
These ideas tie into John Berger's main points in his essay, About Looking, which is the fact that humans have distinguished themselves from all other beings, even though they are still animals, and see themselves as superior to other creatures.
Religion and Science are two conflicting forces that guide our rationality and our beliefs. Science takes a more practical and concrete approach to finding the answers to our questions through testing and evidence. Religion is centered on our minds and human spirituality and finding answers to things from our own perspective and ideology. However different they may be they serve the same purpose in our society; it is a means to answer some of the burning questions that we do not have answers to. The short story, “The Star” by Arthur C. Clarke plays on the idea of the two vastly different ideas and intertwining and portraying the narrator as both a scientific and religious figure. The narrator firmly believes that the two ideas are truly connected but faces a revelation and that forces him to rethink about his ideology.
We worship our own achievements, obsess over time, and in the end we lose what makes us human as we continue down a path that takes us farther away from each other and deeper into ourselves. Work Cited Reynolds, Richard. The. Superheroes: A Modern Mythology. Jackson, Mississippi: UP of Mississippi, 1992.
The discussion of superior has been brought up numerous times throughout the history of time. Whether it is superiority over a species, subject, or attribute people tend to render something better than other. In today’s modern age with a “peaceful” global world trying to be put into place, we have tried to eliminate superiority between others humans and promote equality. The elimination of superiority has also reared its head in business over time in the United States with the extinguishing of monopolies. Even though the United States has tried to “lead the charge” in trying to terminate superiority and inequality inside their country, men’s superiority still reigns as relevant in some aspects inside the country. Men superiority is still spotlighted in sports and in the government in the United States.
Taylor Hagood did a review on Tracy K. Smith’s “The Speed of Belief “ and observed how, while Smith’s father worked on the Hubble Telescope, “this tremendous thing he has helped create still cannot allow anyone to see far enough to find whatever beyond he might now inhabit” (Hagood). But that did not stop Smith. She was able to imagine him lost in the cosmos but still close enough to watch over her. She believed that even though she could not see or touch him, that he was still with her in a sort of way.In the last few stanzas of “The Speed of Belief “ Smith asks herself what her father will become.In the end, she finally decides
Dan explains that as humans we are more complexed than we then to think of ourselves. As humans we tend to not give ourselves the credit we deserve we tend to not see how much smart we are. He explains that as humans we are motivated by Purpose. Mastery and Autonomy.
Throughout my lifetime, I have been told to “be yourself” or that “you are the master of your own fate”. Each one of us is told that we are important because we are unique. However, it certainly hasn’t always been that way. The perceived value of individuals has evolved as we have advanced as a society. The progression of global religions over time is evidence of this. During the period from soon after the advent of religion many thousands of years ago until around 1900, humans saw themselves as relatively unimportant compared to the omnipotent gods. However, since 1900, humans, collectively and individually, have been seen as the utmost authority in the universe. The play Oedipus The King, written by Sophocles
The belief of human superiority, also known as anthropocentrism, is vague and a biased opinion. It can be thought of like the idea of racial, gender or religious supremacy. People cannot go and compare themselves as a whole and animals if they have little understanding about how animals, other than them, think. As humans, they would like to think of themselves as important, but in most cases people think they, as a species, are the most impo...
Every culture in this world has a somewhat different meaning for the idea of superiority. In capitalistic America, some people consider those who have established businesses and acquired wealth to be superior. Meanwhile in some cultures in Africa, the superior being is the person who has acquired the most land. This idea of a varying superiority is also a resounding theme in Plato’s The Republic (TR) and Chinua Achebe Things Fall Apart (TFA). In TR, superiority is simply being knowledgeable; however, in TFA, superiority goes to the individuals who fit their definition of being the manliest.
our opinion of ourselves, vanity to what we would have others think of us” (15).