As smug and pretentious Neil deGrasse Tyson is, he said it best, something along the lines of: What does this mean to us in the grand scheme of things? Nothing.
As I often do, I disagree with Tyson, the model may help us understand the origin or nature of the universe someday. It’s just a model, but when a model can be tested or studied in some way, we generally tend to learn new, grand things about everything.
It’s not sensational, because it doesn’t say anything radical, other than show a very similar relationship between information systems in event horizons and the way our whole universe can be modeled as an information system.
We’re turbofucking the climate, even though we’ve understood the warming effects of CO₂ for 170 years, and had viable solutions to climate change for like 50. And yet we’re increasing CO₂ emissions year after year. It’s not certain the human civilization as it currently is will survive the next century.
We’re throwing non-biodegradable plastics everywhere, even though we’ve known for like 50 years that it is devastating for many ecosystems and human health.
Capitalism is squeezing the global working class ever harder with each passing day, and yet class consciousness is not growing fast enough, despite us scientifically understanding the unsustainability and evils of capitalism for like 160 years.
So yeah, in that grand scheme of things, making models of the larger universe is not actually that important. First we need to make use of the discoveries made way over a century ago.
If the knowledge of our problems prevents you from appreciating and finding any wonder in life and the larger universe, you have been defeated long before any of the actual threats have gotten to you.
I hope you find something that gives you joy or inspiration or a sense of grandeur in at least something. If it wasn’t for science we wouldn’t know about 2 out of three of those things, so maybe think how well your message is going to go over with people who are already aware of all that and just trying to find something greater in life than the perpetual, life altering struggles we’ve been dealing with and surviving for the last 200,000 years.
I am able to find joy in science and life in general. I will state it in a different way: this is not something the average person needs to worry/think about, unless they are interested themselves.
The original tweet (or whatever this is) has the same energy to me as “are we just gonna ignore <the latest Marvel movie>?”. For people who are interested: they are likely already aware; for people who are not interested: it’s safe to ignore it.
If the knowledge of our problems prevents you from appreciating and finding any wonder in life and the larger universe, you have been defeated long before any of the actual threats have gotten to you.
Are you saying that he said that about this in particular or that it’s a quote he says about loads of things? xD
On a side note: I don’t think we should hate on DeGrasse Tyson, because hating on him seems to be a meme that’s just gone too far. Isn’t it rooted in a literal 4-chan greentext? But I think he’s polite, nice, and the things people interpret as disingenuity are just his presenting quirks. Like the “tweeting the same mirror joke every month” actually has a more neat explanation.
It’s been a while so I’m a little hazy on the details, but in one of the Culture books by Iain M. Banks there’s a part where a bunch of Minds (for those unfamiliar: kind of beyond godlike artificial intelligences that run a utopian civilization, the eponymous Culture) are talking about how they can create simulations within simulations so perfect that it would be impossible to tell if you were in one, and what if their entire reality was just one in a long chain of nested, perfect simulations? But in the end they come to the conclusion that there’s no way to tell and nothing they can do about it anyway, so they might as well just get on with it lol.
As smug and pretentious Neil deGrasse Tyson is, he said it best, something along the lines of: What does this mean to us in the grand scheme of things? Nothing.
As I often do, I disagree with Tyson, the model may help us understand the origin or nature of the universe someday. It’s just a model, but when a model can be tested or studied in some way, we generally tend to learn new, grand things about everything.
It’s not sensational, because it doesn’t say anything radical, other than show a very similar relationship between information systems in event horizons and the way our whole universe can be modeled as an information system.
In the grand scheme of things:
So yeah, in that grand scheme of things, making models of the larger universe is not actually that important. First we need to make use of the discoveries made way over a century ago.
If the knowledge of our problems prevents you from appreciating and finding any wonder in life and the larger universe, you have been defeated long before any of the actual threats have gotten to you.
I hope you find something that gives you joy or inspiration or a sense of grandeur in at least something. If it wasn’t for science we wouldn’t know about 2 out of three of those things, so maybe think how well your message is going to go over with people who are already aware of all that and just trying to find something greater in life than the perpetual, life altering struggles we’ve been dealing with and surviving for the last 200,000 years.
I am able to find joy in science and life in general. I will state it in a different way: this is not something the average person needs to worry/think about, unless they are interested themselves.
The original tweet (or whatever this is) has the same energy to me as “are we just gonna ignore <the latest Marvel movie>?”. For people who are interested: they are likely already aware; for people who are not interested: it’s safe to ignore it.
Bars.
Are you saying that he said that about this in particular or that it’s a quote he says about loads of things? xD
On a side note: I don’t think we should hate on DeGrasse Tyson, because hating on him seems to be a meme that’s just gone too far. Isn’t it rooted in a literal 4-chan greentext? But I think he’s polite, nice, and the things people interpret as disingenuity are just his presenting quirks. Like the “tweeting the same mirror joke every month” actually has a more neat explanation.
All I know is that with a mirror, you can kiss yourself but only on the lips
It’s been a while so I’m a little hazy on the details, but in one of the Culture books by Iain M. Banks there’s a part where a bunch of Minds (for those unfamiliar: kind of beyond godlike artificial intelligences that run a utopian civilization, the eponymous Culture) are talking about how they can create simulations within simulations so perfect that it would be impossible to tell if you were in one, and what if their entire reality was just one in a long chain of nested, perfect simulations? But in the end they come to the conclusion that there’s no way to tell and nothing they can do about it anyway, so they might as well just get on with it lol.