Source: Zero Gravity interview (2006), p. 76
Source: Zero Gravity interview (2006), p. 75
“Yes, the universe had a beginning. Yes, the universe continues to evolve.”
2000s
Context: Yes, the universe had a beginning. Yes, the universe continues to evolve. And yes, every one of our body's atoms is traceable to the big bang and to the thermonuclear furnace within high-mass stars. We are not simply in the universe, we are part of it. We are born from it. One might even say we have been empowered by the universe to figure itself out — and we have only just begun.
In response to David Letterman's question, "What do we now know [about the universe] we didn’t know before?" on The Late Show (23 March 2005)
Context: Well, a big question is how did the universe begin. And we, cannot answer that question. Some people think that the big bang is an explanation of how the universe began, its not. The big bang is a theory of how the universe evolved from a split second after whatever brought it into existence. And the reason why we’ve been unable to look right back at time zero, to figure out how it really began; is that conflict between Einstein’s ideas of gravity and the laws of quantum physics. So, string theory may be able to — it hasn’t yet; we’re working on it today — feverishly. It may be able to answer the question, how did the universe begin. And I don’t know how it’ll affect your everyday life, but to me, if we really had a sense of how the universe really began, I think that would, really, alert us to our place in the cosmos in a deep way.
"From tail to tale on the path of pilgrims in life" http://news.scotsman.com/scitech.cfm?id=374772005, The Scotsman ()
5 September 1748
Letters to His Son on the Art of Becoming a Man of the World and a Gentleman (1774)
Quoted in Seth MacFarlane donates Carl Sagan's papers to Library of Congress http://articles.latimes.com/2012/jun/28/entertainment/la-et-st-seth-macfarlane-carl-sagan-library-congress-20120628, Los Angeles Times, 28 June 2012.
Writing for the court, Roth v. United States, 354 U.S. 476 (1957).
Source: The Apophenion (2008), p. 62
Context: Does the universe as a whole exhibit any kind of consciousness that we can interact with? Does the universe seek to evolve greater complexity and more sophisticated consciousness? Could it use some help from us in this? Do all species seem worth preserving regardless of their economic value to us? Does some mysterious circularity in time connect consciousness and the very existence of the universe?
Most Neo-Pantheists like to think so.
