Good one, Seth, I've used that quote on this very site before. Sagan also said something like, "Life is one of the more amusing properties of hydrogen, if you give it enough time." Most people don't really get it though. They still try to think of the universe as something made FOR humanity, istead of thinking of humanity (and every other living thing) as a natural product of an evolving universe. We won't last as a species over cosmic timescales; scientific evidence suggests that every species has a finite lifetime. Once we are gone, the universe will continue for a long, long time. The falling tree does make a sound even if no-one is there to hear it. On 8/21/07, Seth Jarvis <SJarvis@slco.org> wrote:
"Do the stars gaze back?"
Since this thread is eliciting Sagan quotes, I offer my personal favorite:
"Life is a way for the stars to know themselves."
Think about stellar evolution, nucleosynthesis, and the inevitable consequences of stirring together hydrogen, physics and time.
We ARE the stars gazing back.