Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey

[peter grimes]

"The Cosmos is all that is, or ever was, or ever will be."

Sagan is defining the word. If something exists, then it is part of the Cosmos. If something will exist, then that will be part of the Cosmos as well. If the Multi-verse theory is correct, then every possible multi-verse exists within the Cosmos [according to this definition]. That's not philosophy.

Th fact that he said we don't know how life came to earth was what i wasn't expecting, but all that was done about the issue was basically hand waving about the issue and not address it head on, since the rest of the story is dependent on life and if life isn't here, then the rest of the story doesn't make any sense. Basically life to come from dumb chemicals is simply impossible and they know it, but won't allow that to be known, lest it destroy the whole story

I guess that's one way to view it. But can you see that just because we don't know the specific steps involved in abiogenesis as it happened on Earth doesn't imply that abiogensis is therefore impossible? Because these days, as I've mentioned nearly every time you bring this up, the problem is NOT that scientists have no idea how life started - the problem is that there are SEVERAL different ways it could have started, NONE of which involve divine intervention*.

I think it's likely that autochemoreplication arose many times on earth in it's early history, but only 1 instance took off and lead to the proliferation we have seen since. Only 1 instance gave rise to the RNA-DNA dance. The others weren't as effective, and were out-competed.

Dumb chemicals just doing what their electronic bonding characteristics allow. That's all that's necessary for life to start, and the people who study this professionally know it.

*even if there were a step to large to be bridged by chemistry and physics as we curretnly understand them DOES NOT imply divine intervention. It simply means we haven't yet discovered the mechanisms involved. Every time we didn't know how something worked (rainbows, eclipses, conception), science has discovered how eventually. There is no current reason to think that life will be any different at all. And even so, divine intervention would not in any way undermine the entire rest of the history of life on earth. The more we learn about the Universe and its history, the more we find there is almost no room for the Christian god of the bible to operate.

 

[classical_hero]

Quite frankly the gap is impossible for life to have originated simply from Materialistic means. Why don't you think that Francis Crick somewhat proposed panspermia as a result of his work on the genome, since he saw how massively complex DNA is. If someone were to make a device that holds only a small percentage of information that DNA has, they would receive a prize for it, yet somehow DNA is to have arisen without any intelligence and yet our current knowledge of data storage requires massive amount of human intelligence just to be at levels that are not even comparable to the amount of information in the "simple"form of DNA right now. Without a plausible being to life on earth, evolution isn't possible.

Also the first episode was historically inaccurate about the carton they used, but any story that will advance the "conflict thesis" will do, even though you have to ignor history to get to that point.
http://www.strangenotions.com/cosmos-and-one-more-telling-of-the-tired-myth/

Can we please, once and for all, dispense with the nonsense that Catholicism is the enemy of the sciences? When we do, we’ll expose the Seth MacFarlane telling of the story for what it really is: not scientific history but the basest sort of anti-Catholic propaganda

http://www.slate.com/blogs/business_insider/2014/03/12/neil_degrasse_tyson_s_cosmos_there_was_one_big_problem_with_sunday_s_episode.html

1. The idea of infinite space originated a century before Bruno, with the German philosopher Nicholas of Cusa.
2. Bruno wasn't a scientist. According to Powell, "his interests were theological, not physical, and his astronomical writings are considered amateurish and confused."
3. His writings were mostly theological in nature — and he was using them to push his own theology (set against the Catholic church). That simple fact was the real reason he was burnt at the stake.
4. The church listed eight charges against Bruno during his trial, and only one of these was related to his astronomical guesses. According to Powell, "the others involved denying the divinity of Jesus, denying the virgin birth, denying transubstantiation, practicing magic, and believing that animals and objects (including the Earth) possessed souls."
5. Unlike how he is portrayed in the Cosmos animation, Bruno didn't spend his life poor or alone. He was well-funded and held positions as a professor.
6. Bruno's wandering ways are more likely the result of his temperament than his cosmological ideas—he's described as "argumentative, sarcastic, and drawn to controversy."

 

[Kyriakos]

Peter's observation is correct, cause Sagan indeed just gave a definition of the term "Cosmos". Worth noting that the term has a number of meanings, so he did very well to provide info on which one the show's title is linked to, ie the one where Cosmos=Everything that exists (regardless of any theories as to how,why,or what exists).

There is also the term Pancosmos (or at least the adjective Pancosmion) which means "universal", so as to leave no space for linking Cosmos with merely a part of the totality in existence.
But in English the term Cosmos by itself denotes usually the same (Everything that exists).

 

[Valka D'Ur]

Well, that was interesting. The episode was pretty much all about Halley, Newton, and some other guy who kept insisting everyone stole his ideas. I hadn't known Halley had done all those other things. Interesting that there was no mention of the "Newton discovered gravity after an apple fell on his head" story, even to debunk it.

I'm getting really tired of the damn Disney cartoons, though.

 

[Cheetah]

The third episode is coming up on Sunday and there are NO threads about this series here yet?

I was going to, but every time I was thinking about it, I ended up rewatching one of the Cosmos episodes (originals and later the new ones)!

I really like it! Tyson is good, the CGI is pretty, and I really don't mind the cartoons.

However, I suppose I'm a bit to deep into it. Most of what is said I already know, and the few details that seem new to me I enjoy fact checking anyway. While the cartoons can leave some aspects wanting, so too can the scenes played out with actors in the original. It only requires a bit of an imagination to go around that however, and use one's own mind to make it look more awesome.

I was a bit disappointed by the extremely small time window set to show the inner life in the cell however. They didn't even name most of the things moving around in the CGI.

All in all, it's a great show though. I'm sure it can get some more people hooked on science!

Halley, Newton, and some other guy who kept insisting everyone stole his ideas.

"Some other guy"? I haven't seen the episode yet, but would I be wrong to assume that you're referring to some unknown guy named Leibniz?

Also, Newton did see an apple drop. It just didn't drop on him.

 

[Ziggy Stardust]

Science works on the frontier between knowledge and ignorance

Nicely put.

 

[downtown]

This will probably get me flamed, but I didn't really like the first two episodes. I normally enjoy Mr.Tyson, and I like science documentaries, but I guess I felt like things were a little too dumbed down maybe? I would have probably enjoyed watching another Planet Earth, or some nature documentary, a little bit more. I never watched the original series though...was that better?

 

[Valka D'Ur]

I was going to, but every time I was thinking about it, I ended up rewatching one of the Cosmos episodes (originals and later the new ones)!

I really like it! Tyson is good, the CGI is pretty, and I really don't mind the cartoons.

However, I suppose I'm a bit to deep into it. Most of what is said I already know, and the few details that seem new to me I enjoy fact checking anyway. While the cartoons can leave some aspects wanting, so too can the scenes played out with actors in the original. It only requires a bit of an imagination to go around that however, and use one's own mind to make it look more awesome.

I was a bit disappointed by the extremely small time window set to show the inner life in the cell however. They didn't even name most of the things moving around in the CGI.

All in all, it's a great show though. I'm sure it can get some more people hooked on science!

"Some other guy"? I haven't seen the episode yet, but would I be wrong to assume that you're referring to some unknown guy named Leibniz?

Also, Newton did see an apple drop. It just didn't drop on him.

I say "some other guy" tongue-in-cheek. Sorta. The cartoon where all this stuff among Halley, Newton, and Hooke is explained shows Hooke as some kind of crazy, weird hunchback character who apparently was so hideous (or reclusive) that only one portrait was ever made of him, and Newton was so angry with him, he threw it in the fireplace and burned it up.

This will probably get me flamed, but I didn't really like the first two episodes. I normally enjoy Mr.Tyson, and I like science documentaries, but I guess I felt like things were a little too dumbed down maybe? I would have probably enjoyed watching another Planet Earth, or some nature documentary, a little bit more. I never watched the original series though...was that better?

The new series goes into material that the original didn't - not necessarily new information - just different, although keeping to the same general pattern of the original series (so far).

Episode 1 - introductory

Episode 2 - evolution, natural/artificial selection

Episode 3 - laws of motion; how the Solar System is laid out and how the planetary orbits work; Original used Tycho Brahe & Johannes Kepler and New Cosmos uses Edmund Halley & Isaac Newton (and the other guy, who Newton was enemies with)

Yes, the original series was better. I welcome any material in the new series that I didn't know before, but the general way it's being presented is indeed dumbed down, and the cartoons are rather insulting to the audience ("look, we know most of you are not all that scientifically literate - although we can hope you might want to be someday, so we're going to not only save money by using cartoons instead of real actors, we're going to show cartoons that hit you over the head as to who is the Good Guy and who is the Bad Guy - it'll be real easy, since the Good Guys are drawn to be handsome and doe-eyed and the Bad Guys are ugly and frowny-faced like a Disney cartoon"). At least that's the impression I get.

Oh, and has anyone else noticed how Tyson's voice tends to squeak, and he uptalks in the middle of his sentences?

That said, I'm enjoying the series, although I periodically scrub my brain clean of the sight of those damned ridiculous cartoons by watching the Original Cosmos on YouTube.

 

[IAM]

In general I love space science shows. But this one is very disappointing. Still watched the first full episode but that's all.

 

[El_Machinae]

This will probably get me flamed, but I didn't really like the first two episodes. I normally enjoy Mr.Tyson, and I like science documentaries, but I guess I felt like things were a little too dumbed down maybe? I would have probably enjoyed watching another Planet Earth, or some nature documentary, a little bit more. I never watched the original series though...was that better?

Consensus seems to be "that's fair".

 

[Cheetah]

I say "some other guy" tongue-in-cheek. Sorta.

Heh, I only remembered Hooke as "that guy" who held the position before Newton myself.

I should report that this time I got a bit annoyed at the cartoons myself. Not so much from the drawings, but the terrible voice actors who felt totally out of place!

Aaand yeah... this might actually be a bit to dumbed down. Luckily I had just watched the original third episode (the one with Kepler and Brahe), so I could mentally pick up the thread from there to Halley and Newton. Note that the acting back in that episode was somewhat annoying as well...

This still looks pretty though. I'll definitely watch the rest.

 

[warpus]

Dude, it's CH. Anytime anyone would have mention the Big Bang or something like that, it's philosophy. And it's CH, so he'll drop that comment and not discuss it.

I know exactly what I'm facing and I don't really care. I'm treating classical_hero as a first time entrant to the conversation about the origins of the species, because he has not yet checked off all the boxes on the "i'm ready to have a real conversation guys, let's go" form.

I was just also kind of curious what exactly about it he found philosophical, because.. you know, just because he's so wrong about such fundamental things doesn't mean that he's always going to be wrong about every single thing related to the Big Bang or Evolutionary theory. I mean, yeah probably, but maybe he found some actual philosophy in there! I have no idea, I didn't even see the first 15 minutes of the show. Maybe it was a boring rant about Descartes. Who the hell knows. I had enough time to ask "Why?"

The very first statement i a philosophical statement when Sagan say "The Cosmos is all there was, is and ever will be." The only way he can know that is if he is God and knows there are no other alternatives.

That's what Cosmos means by definition, I believe. "All that ever was and all that ever will be".
If there was a larger thing than the Cosmos or anything outside of it - you would immediately redefine Cosmos to contain whatever that thing was that wasn't a part of it. In my mind "Cosmos" just contains everything in existence, which is why you can say what he said, because it's sort of true by definition.

It'd be philosophical if he defined what the Cosmos was directly, by outlining exactly what its constituent parts are. But instead essentially what he's saying is: "Everything that exists is everything that exists".

One thing i did like about the first episode is how honest he was about the origin of life. Th fact that he said we don't know how life came to earth was what i wasn't expecting

Why were you not expecting that? I mean, there are only two options: You didn't know that we haven't figured out exactly how life started, or you expected him to lie.

It troubles me that either one of these scenarios has to be true.

Basically life to come from dumb chemicals is simply impossible and they know it, but won't allow that to be known, lest it destroy the whole story.

Ahh now I know how you wanted the first episode to unfold:

"The cosmos is all there ever is, ever was, and ever will be.

Unfortunately we came from dumb chemicals, so it's pointless to walk you fine people through some of the beauty in the Universe and explain to you how stuff works.

Goodnight Godless heathens,

Signing off,

Carl Sagan"

 

[History_Buff]

This will probably get me flamed, but I didn't really like the first two episodes. I normally enjoy Mr.Tyson, and I like science documentaries, but I guess I felt like things were a little too dumbed down maybe? I would have probably enjoyed watching another Planet Earth, or some nature documentary, a little bit more. I never watched the original series though...was that better?

Yeah, that seems to be a pretty common opinion. If you know your basic science, this is probably all stuff you already know anyway. I still like it just because it's people talking about space and I don't mind the cartoons, but to each their own. It's goal to inspire children and people who don't know much about science, and I think it's doing a reasonably good job at that.

I haven't seen it, but I suspect the original series was probably better, if only because it gave us this:

Link to video.

 

[dexters]

Tyson is best when unscripted or semi-scripted and talking at topics at length 2-5 minutes on a single subject or more. I love his StarTalk stuff, and many of those clips are on youtube.
TV unfortunately doesn't offer that luxury when 5 minutes is pretty 1/6 of your entire episode.

In Cosmos:A Spacetime Odyssey Some of the cuts in Tyson's speech/staging are jarring. He lacks the fluidity in which Sagan could transition from one topic to another.

Sagan's style though is sometimes ponderous and a bit deep and people have complained about that too, popularized the use of 'billions and billions' to evoke Sagan.

That said, EP3 of Cosmos is fantastic and inspired the right amount of awe. I can only imagine what an 8 year old version of me would feel watching it.

http://www.hulu.com/watch/612410 (for those in the US)

I learned something new about Newton and Halley too.

P.S. Alan Silvestri's music is growing on me, though I think Vangelis still slightly edges it out. Silvestri's style is probably more familiar to kids today who expect 'epic' space music.


Link to video.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

It's nice, but I noticed that there are some parts that were lifted, note for note, from the soundtrack for Contact.

I prefer the music for the original Cosmos.

 

[dexters]

Silvestri also worked the soundtrack for Contact

 

[Valka D'Ur]

Tonight's episode was pretty decent - talked some more about gravitation, black holes, Albert Einstein, a very good explanation of the speed of light, and a cartoon of William Herschel voiced by Patrick Stewart.

And there was a dramatization at the end of Neil deGrasse Tyson and Carl Sagan at the bus stop when Tyson was a teenager.

 

[Shaihulud]

It was great! I had my picture taken with Neil deGrasse Tyson when he was in Singapore, very good communicator in person. The scientist that had a feud with Newton was Robert Hooke. Newton was a very strange personality from what has been recorded.

 

[Cutlass]

Damn. I forgot it was on.

 

[El_Machinae]

I can get it On Demand at my Fox website.