Captain Kirk got beamed down from space to Earth: It was a hard landing

Views of the total blackness of space and the  
brilliant blue of Earth induce the overview effect 


Ouch! Upon Captain Kirk (William Shatner) viewing the blackness of space and the brilliance of Earth, he was hit hard by a cognitive phenomenon called the overview effect. Medium writes:
William Shatner cried upon returning from space. The “overview effect” explains why

The “overview effect”, experienced by astronauts when they view the Earth from outer space, irrevocably changes your perspective as a human. 

In all of human history, only a few thousand people have ever reached the final frontier: breaking the gravitational bonds of Earth and experiencing the wonders of being present in space. On October 13, 2021, William Shatner — best known as Star Trek’s Captain Kirk — became the oldest person, at age 90, ever to experience it. Almost immediately, he recounted a feeling that other astronauts have reported: a cognitive shift in awareness that’s known as the overview effect.


Reported by a large number of astronauts and cosmonauts, from the first person in space (Yuri Gagarin) right up through the most recent (Shatner), the sense of compassion and fragility for all of humanity, and perhaps even all life on Earth, is something that you have to experience for yourself to truly understand. 
In 1961 — a full 60 years ago now — Yuri Gagarin became the first human in space. Upon his return, many expected him to emerge with a message of pro-Soviet Union propaganda, but instead he began remarking on the beauty of Earth and the feelings in his heart. “Orbiting Earth in the spaceship, I saw how beautiful our planet is. People, let us preserve and increase this beauty, not destroy it!”

[Shatner commented:] “I can’t even begin to express. What I would love to do is to communicate as much as possible the jeopardy, the moment you see the vulnerability of everything, it’s so small. This air, which is keeping us alive, is thinner than your skin. It’s a sliver. It’s immeasurably small when you think in terms of the universe. It’s negligible, this air. Mars doesn’t have any. And when you think about… the oxygen, the 20% [of the atmosphere] that sustains our life, it’s so thin! To dirty it… I mean, that’s another whole… <waves hands>.


Shatner tries to explain what it's like
"I hope I never recover from this"
-- not sure Bezos is paying much attention


By Germaine: The cognitive biology and anti-global warming guy

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

That Uplifting Tweet You Just Shared? A Russian Troll Sent It

Image
Here’s what Russia’s 2020 disinformation operations look like, according to two experts on social media and propaganda. By   DARREN LINVILL   &   PATRICK WARREN Internet trolls don’t troll. Not the professionals at least. Professional trolls don’t go on social media to antagonize liberals or belittle conservatives. They are not narrow minded, drunk or angry. They don’t lack basic English language skills. They certainly aren’t  “somebody sitting on their bed that weighs 400 pounds,”  as the president once put it. Your stereotypical trolls do exist on social media, but the amateurs aren’t a threat to Western democracy. Professional trolls, on the other hand, are the tip of the spear in the new digital, ideological battleground. To combat the threat they pose, we must first understand them — and take them seriously. MORE: https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/russia-troll-2020-election-interference-twitter-916482/ Posted by Jamie B.
Read more

The Nightmare Scenario That Keeps Election Lawyers Up At Night -- And Could Hand Trump A Second Term

Image
The Nightmare Scenario That Keeps Election Lawyers Up At Night -- And Could Hand Trump A Second Term   (Photo: Photos: Getty Images) Americans will almost certainly go to bed on Nov. 3 without knowing who won the presidential election. Since millions of people will vote by mail, constraints on time and resources will slow ballot counting into potentially a weeks-long process. Voting patterns suggest it’s likely that President  Donald Trump  could end Election Day in the lead in certain key states, only to be overtaken by Democratic opponent  Joe Biden  when more votes are tallied.  This could create a nightmare scenario during the three months stretching from Election Day to the Jan. 20 inauguration: a battle on the state and congressional level over who is the legitimate winner. This could include Congress reconvening on Jan. 6, presided over by Vice President  Mike Pence , with no consensus over its potential role in choosing the next president. This is arguably the most likely of th
Read more

Philosophical Question #14 – Lifestyle Choices

Image
Here is an interesting question in my list of philosophical questions: 1.) Should governments have penalties for those who live unhealthy lifestyles? A list of unhealthy lifestyles would include things like smoking, drinking, illegal drugs, prostitution, and other “vice” type activities. I guess the “government penalties” would be referring to monetary punishments, withholding medical treatments (insurance companies would love that), possibly imposing/regulating very high (exorbitant) prices on things considered unhealthy in order to cut down on their use, and other possibilities. 2.) Or, would you say that living an unhealthy lifestyle, likely resulting in a LOT of eventual personal pain and suffering, should be punishment enough for unhealthy lifestyles? When people make bad choices in life, often in their youth where ignorance and immediate gratification takes them over,  3.) Should a society be obligated to help "fix" them, by way of tax money?   Is that part of
Read more