“We go about our daily lives understanding almost nothing of the
world. We give little thought to the machinery that generates the
sunlight that makes life possible, to the gravity that glues us to an
Earth that would otherwise send us spinning off into space, or to the
atoms of which we are made and on whose stability we fundamentally
depend. Except for children (who don’t know enough not to ask the
important questions), few of us spend much time wondering why nature is
the way it is; where the cosmos came from, or whether it is always
here; if time will one day flow backward and effects precede causes; or
whether there are ultimate limits to what humans can know.”
-Carl Sagan from an introduction to A Brief History of Time By Stephen Hawking
After
hearing and reading your peer's reactions during class about the listed
quotation, what new insight can you add to this quotation analysis?
Please respond during your first class on Wed., Mar. 10th
Sunday, March 7, 2021
Metacognition?
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13 comments:
I think that even though mythology is kinda dying breed it is still very interesting and something that can withstand the test of time. Often mythology is used as an answer to the unknown but for all we know it can be the truth. I think it is something we should try and keep and figure out more and more as we go on.
I thought it was interesting to think that we do not really ask the hard questions. We go about our daily lives with no thoughts as to why we are doing what we are doing and how we go to that point. It is just what life is, but why?
I think it is very weird how we go about our daily lives not even thinking about how or why our very existence is real. We take almost everything for granted.
We should continue to think and ask the questions that we used to ask when we were kids. As kids we didn't know much and thought that asking an adult they would know the answer to almost anything however, as we get older I find that we still know very little about the wonders of life.
Sagan makes an interesting point about the decline in curiosity as we get older. Humans tend to stop wondering "how & why" and become more focused on the simple day to day things. The Greeks did not seem as afflicted with this problem. Their mythology, even if it is scientifically incorrect, shows an interest in the workings of the world. It begs the question what about modern life has made us stop asking the big questions about life and the universe.
Morgan B.
After reading this a second time outside of class I took something different out of this quote. I asked myself, why are we taught to control our minds and not ponder the questions that we are taught not to ask? When we reach a certain age we stop asking the questions that leave us puzzled. Is this age different for everyone? Or do we all stop asking important questions at a certain age? Would our minds be more developed? Would we become more critical thinkers? Or would we be the same?
From this section I take from it that it says that we don't often observe, realize or pay attention to what is behind our everyday things and things we need to live such as the sun and gravity. -Natalia
I agree with this quote. I think people should be more inclined to ask questions they don't know the answers to, and people should appreciate what they have. People need to understand how the Earth works and how humans came to be. By doing this, people can understand who they are and how they fit into the world.
Sagans' ideas here are really interesting. Thinking about how people go through their lives being so heavily affected by the things around them but paying very little attention to what's behind it. It is telling because people live such busy lives many don't have the time to stop and look deeper.
Sagan's thinking makes me take a second and look in the perspective of a more in depth and realized life.
I think that this really pointed out that as we grow older the things that we see everyday become less interesting, and fade into the background. We began to take things for granted, and think very little about what makes our life possible. -Emma T
how when we get older time goes faster. things are less fun,like birthdays or holidays. but then at a certain older age time speeds up again.
- Mia M
I think the saying “ignorance is bliss” holds true when it comes to the quote from Stephen Hawking. In life we go through the motions - maintaining good hygiene, earning money, human interaction, etc. These motion keep us happy, they give us a purpose. Yet, if we spent our lives worrying about the questions, “why are we here,” it would lead us to worse ideas such as death. Questions like these cause us to drift away from the actual act of enjoying life as is. Stephen states that “or wether there are ultimate limits to what humans can know,” and I believe that in order for humans to remain happy, they’re are ultimate limits to what man can know.
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