Neil Degrasse Tyson: "If you're scientifically literate the world looks very different to you"

Full interview link: Conversations at KCTS 9: Neil Degrasse Tyson (Airdate: July 3,2009)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PrTTta...

"At least once a week, if not once a day, we might each ponder what cosmic truths lie undiscovered before us, perhaps awaiting the arrival of a clever thinker, an ingenious experiment, or an innovative space mission to reveal them. We might further ponder how those discoveries may one day transform life on Earth."
~Neil Tyson

Also please check out the channel RevTyson for more NDT videos.

http://www.youtube.com/user/revtyson

• Category

  Education

[Glucoperon]

his point is certainly valid. If there is a (why) to our existence than, you assume a form complex enough to perceive reason is behind our existence (god). But if a god didn't produce our existence than our existence is the result of infinity, and the infinitely small chance this all could exist, the question is (how do we exist) not (why do we exist). If god created us, how did god get created ? and the thing that created that, and so on...

[Squiglypig]

Awww hells naaaw! *throws dolla-dolla bills around*

[jonisaok]

But you're not doing any investigating, otherwise you'd know the truth, dolt.

[jonisaok]

Well I don't think he's trying to convince you to not be a neo-nazi, so it's not exactly "insane" by that definition. (which is misattributed to Einstein)

Also, that definition has absolutely no correlation with what is colloquially referred to as "insanity"... not sure why everyone always brings it up.

[EdCranium]

Simple. If chance hadn't resulted in us then we wouldn't be here to notice. Further, if we were not here, our questions about the nature of existence wouldn't exist either.

[TheMightyTed]

why does thefact that we are merely biological machines (which i agree with) make a life worthless, surely the pursuit of happiness is to be valued, positive experience is our only measuring tool for value, so therefore the preservation of those things most dear to us, that that we love and enjoy, and helping others to experience happiness is a worthwhile cause for our own existence.

[kingcam0775]

Everything you said is completely arbitrary, still. And I'm not morbid, I just refuse to compromise so that I feel better. A life experience is completely useless besides the fact that it is your own, there's no other value to it. We're hardwired to look for value/meaning because our level of intellect demands it for the amount of work we do to survive, but that doesn't make us anything more than survival machines.

[TheMightyTed]

well then i guess that doesnt come down to academic ignorance but just your general morbidness as a person, without trying to insult you, if you cant find value in your own life experience for its own sake, and need some form of superficial task like meaning to be imposed upon it, then you probably dont enjoy life enough

[kingcam0775]

I'm pretty well educated on it. My senior philosophy thesis was on it; I still think at it's best it's a quite bleak view.

[TheMightyTed]

making our own meaning in life is all we can do- its actually called existentialism, a whole school of thought, you should read about it.

[TheMightyTed]

I SO wish he was my dad haha

[kingcam0775]

But that's certainly not his(Squiglypig) point.