by Socrates
The issue of religion is one of the more common questions that I ask most of my guests on Singularity 1 on 1. But this is hardly the most important thing during any conversation. Still, if we are talking about the future of humanity, it may be relevant to know a little more about the person’s past and present religiosity. In this way when we move on to topics such as cosmology, metaphysics, ethics or epistemology, we are more mindful of our own implicit presumptions. The danger in the above approach is that one might embrace the label a bit too tightly and thereby ruin the potential for a genuine conversation and exchange of ideas. Thus we must also be aware of all the religious, intellectual, political or other such shortcuts we are using. While they can be useful in the short term, in the longer term they omit so [...]
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by Socrates
Carl Sagan gave his last interview with Charlie Rose on May 27th 1996. During his 20 minute interview, Sagan discussed pseudo-science and religion, technology and exponential growth, politics and education, his personal love affair with science and his struggle with myelodysplasia, as well as other elements of his last book: The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark. The video also contains my all-time favorite quote from Carl Sagan: “Science is more than a body of knowledge. It is a way of thinking; a way of skeptically interrogating the universe with a fine understanding of human fallibility. If we are not able to ask skeptical questions, to interrogate those who tell us that something is true, to be skeptical of those in authority, then, we are up for grabs for the next charlatan (political or religious) who comes [...]
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