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Carl Sagan asked a question: "Who are we?" And answered it with, 'we find that we live on an insignificant planet of a humdrum star lost in a galaxy tucked away in some forgotten corner of a universe in which there are far more galaxies than people.' Carl Sagan had highlighted our minuscule place and role in the universe, it is quite a shock for the creationists that life does not revolve around us; however it can be argued that until other intelligent aliens are discovered, we are the masters of the universe.
The way we humans, in a very short span of cosmic time, have unfolded the expanse of universe with the help of Copernicus, Galileo and Carl Sagan suggests that though we are in an insignificant corner of our own galaxy and there are billions and billions of galaxies, our limited minds through the help of Hubble and next generation telescopes will soon be able to set the moment of our creation -- the Big Bang; we are not too far from deciphering the moment of our creation. Keeping company with the right crowd keeps one guessing all the time, Carl Sagan, amongst many other great human beings, is one of my heroes, I keep him alive in my mind and that always keeps my mind inquisitive over the answers I shall never discover. I believe earnestly that"Imagination is more important than knowledge" Albert Einstein
Our expanded horizons make us so unique and so outstanding - the very reason we will not be surprised if an alien walks through our living area - this is the success of our insignificant minds that can unlock mysteries which are celestial. Thank you Sagan for provoking our limits of intelligence. I would have liked to ask Sagan this finicky question if he was alive..
Carl Sagan is quoted as saying that 'It is of interest to note that while some dolphins are reported to have learned English -- up to fifty words used in correct context -- no human being has been reported to have learned dolphinese.'
A chimp may learn few acts of humans or Dolphins may speak fifty words. Perhaps it is the law of nature that lower function entities have the ability to expand their neural wiring through prodding and continuous training, conversely, higher function aliens or humans may not be able to perform the act of chimps or dolphins although they can replicate such acts without a problem (dolphins' cries are mimicked). On the other hand, Dolphins or Chimps in foreseeable future will not be able to grasp their insignificance and still interpret dark matter and the 'The Big Bang.' What an insignificant mind we have that has no boundaries or horizons. So are we really that insignificant in the cosmos? If we can think of the 'unthinkable', obviously we are bound to be significant?"
Most of us are able to walk. In fact, in a life time the average human being spends about a year ( 8766 hours) walking. We instinctively take our first steps after just a couple of months of life. Prior to that, we live a miserable four legged existence using crawling as our preferred method of transportation.
We are born to think and question. The study of the evolution of our birth trends over millions of years indicates how the size of the brain, and not locomotion, was the key feature. Humans are born as dependents (need of long social bonding to create a society) provisionally incapacitated, dependent on goodwill of the mother. During the first year, the child is busy developing coordination and muscle strength throughout his body. He'll learn to sit, roll over, and crawl before moving on to pulling up and standing at about 8 months. From then on it's a matter of gaining confidence and balance. Most babies take their first steps sometime between 9 and 12 months and are walking well by the time they're 14 or 15 months old. In contrast where brain has less to play a role and locomotion is the prime motive, calves are born after a gestation of nine months. They usually stand within a few minutes of calving, and suckle within an hour. As are foals who are born after a gestation period of approximately 11 months. Birth takes place quickly, consistent with the status of a horse as a prey animal, and more often at night than during the day. Foals are born with an ability to quickly escape from predators; normally a foal will stand up and nurse within the first hour after it is born, can trot and canter within hours, and most can gallop by the next day.
Two conflicting evolutionary needs control human birth. Intelligence required large brains and thus large cranial sizes. Bipedalism required that the legs be close enough together so that the person can walk without a waddle, this causes the pelvic opening to be small. These two conflicting features lead to the tight fit of the infant through the birth canal. A million year ago Homo erectus tripled its brain size from birth to adulthood. The size of the erectus pelvis relatively would have required as much help in birthing as is required by modern humans.
"This remodelling [of the pelvis-grm] likely reflected further modifications for efficiency in bipedal locomotion and pressure to alter the birth canal for delivering neonates that had larger brains than those of their predecessors. I will argue later that it was at this point that assistance at childbirth made a critical difference in mortality and morbidity for Homo mothers and infants. Not only was parturition more difficult, but the genus became encumbered with a unique need of obligate midwifery. This need was further intensified with encephalization in Homo erectus and Homo sapiens." ~ Wenda R. Trevathan, Human Birth.
Aristotle described our journey on this lonely planet of ours as 'We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.' We as a race have worked on betterment, we are net builders and not net destroyers, excellence is part of our norm. Lois McMaster Bujold had put it very eloquently 'It's important that someone celebrate our existence... People are the only mirror we have to see ourselves in. The domain of all meaning. All virtue, all evil, are contained only in people. There is none in the universe at large. Solitary confinement is a punishment in every human culture.'
Insignificant as we may be, our ability to think about our origins and our zest to find the 'Big Bang,' the defining moment of our existence, makes us the greatest on the planets; it is not about the size but about the ability to think the unthinkable. . One example is The Borg a fictional pseudo-race of cyborgs depicted in Star Trek. The Borg have become a symbol in popular culture for any juggernaut against whom "resistance is futile." If thousands of years from now, our future generation encounters aliens who exhibit no desire for negotiation or reason, only to assimilate an amalgam of cybernetically enhanced humanoid drones of multiple species, they shall not be surprised at all; we are leaving behind a culture that is unique, asking a lot of questions, creating new myths and debunking others.
Any 'nation' that can challenge the frontiers of thinking is bestowed with the highest levels of functions; there can be no functions higher than thinking about aliens who travel at the speed of light or travel through time. Achievements are always secondary to what we can achieve in our minds, what we can think of is already half achieved, in minds of humans nothing has been left to imagination, nothing more can be discovered that is not thought about, or imagined about, however great, however distant, however vulgar.
Hallelujah to our new world of inquisitive minds and that should not die. The spirit of discovery makes us 'the most insignificant' as the 'most heroic.' The inquiry shall not die, the questions and the quest shall never end, and that is what we are in the end. As we set into the twilight of our lives, these are the guiding issues that should keep us going, otherwise life to eat, drink and be merry only is not worth the while to live. In this insignificant corner of ours we are unlocking cosmic mysteries, 'specks' defining colossal moments. What a matter of pride for mankind! Let's rejoice in this.
Carl Sagan, thank you for showing us the way to live perpetually, live with hope and enquiry.
