Numberwareness

I've heard the speculation that a person's perspective of human kind's centeredness in the cosmos is directly proportional with one's understanding of math.

In other words, the less math a person understands, the more likely that person will think human kind is the apex and center of the Universe. However, the more math a person understands, the more that person will realize humanity is not even a blip when considering the grand scale of the Universe. Again, this is speculation.

Among the industrialized democracies, the United States lags behind in primary and secondary education. Math does not seem to be an exception. Also, I am no exception within this scenario and I long to better understand the important skill of understanding numbers. So, to do my part to educate myself and any who will listen, I will share some interesting comparisons that I've recently read. Perhaps this information could help us put ourselves and our cosmos into perspective-- a perspective largely described using numbers:

If you count at a rate of one number per second, you will need to count for practically 12 days before you reach one million.

At this same rate, you will need to count for 32 years to reach one billion (10⁹).

To finally count to one trillion, you will need 32,000 years.

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McDonald's claims to have served one hundred billion customers. If you took one hundred billion hamburgers and laid them end to end, the burger chain could circle the Earth 230 times! No wonder we've got obesity problems!

And you'd still have burgers left over to stack to the moon and back!

Those people at McDonald's are some rich Mo'Fo's.

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If a person making $25,000 a year finds $0.25 on the side walk, then this is the same proportion to Bill Gates finding $25,000 laying around on the floor somewhere! In other words, $25,000 is merely twenty-five cents when compared to Bill Gates' wealth!

No wonder he can donate a billion dollars to AIDS research and not blink!

No wonder Gates only wants the world to use Windows!

(That Linux hater. Grrrrrr . . .)

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If we placed a soccer ball in the middle of a soccer field to represent the Sun, we'd have to walk about ten paces from our soccer ball to represent the distance between the Sun and Mercury. About 20 paces away from Mercury would be the Earth-- Venus would fall somewhere in between. The moon would rest about an inch away from the Earth at this proportion. Amazingly, this is the furthest any human has ever physically ventured so far.


Jupiter would be found about 130 paces away from Earth in our "soccer field rendition" of the solar system. And Pluto would end up being half a mile away from the soccer ball which represents our Sun.

The nearest star? We'd have to fly 4000 miles away from our soccer ball to represent Proxima Centauri, the closet star to our planet besides our Sun.

Now try to consider the countless stars our telescopes can see.

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If that doesn't put the universe into perspective, then take out the time to listen to what Carl Sagan has to say about our planet, the Pale Blue Dot:




A very humbling discourse indeed.

In light of all of this-- who are we to be cruel to one another? Who are we to think we are so much better than anyone who is different from us? Who are we to ever think that our minds are so high, that we don't have to turn skepticism towards ourselves?

Whether there be a god or not, each individual person is way too small to treat anyone else of lesser size.

To me, these humbling insights reveal the importance of "Numberwareness".


Sources:

Death By Black Hole: And Other Cosmic Quandaries by Neil deGrasse Tyson
Raising Freethinkers: A Practical Guide for Parenting Beyond Belief by Dale McGowan, Molleen Matsumura, Amanda Metskas, and Jan Devor.

The Lucifer Effect

Does morality have to come from god? What if religious people are susceptible to cruelty just as secular people are? The following study shows that people tend to obey authority figures even when the requests solicit immoral and cruel behavior. And in a series of requests which demand ever increasing immorality, people remain surprisingly obedient. Yes -- even when each subsequent request demands more and more cruelty, people still tend to comply.

People have a harder and harder time refusing subsequent requests once they have committed to the first request. And if the requests become gradually more demanding, people's tendency to continue to comply to cruel requests remain. And to make things even worse, people tend to trust and obey someone who appears to be an authority figure -- usually with little or no question.

If both religious and secular people are susceptible to these human faults, what does this imply about morality?

Read about the study: The Lucifer Effect

I also mention morality issues in these previous blog posts:

So, Now I can be an axe murderer, right?

A Little Perspective

Martin the Mean

On a side note, confidence schemes and cult leaders often use the tactic of gradually raising the steaks of their requests to their own advantage. Keep an eye out next time you run across some smooth talking scoundrel. Such people also like to paint themselves as authority figures, too. Victims don't question their predator's motives as often. Pushing victims outside of their comfort zone in small increments causes them to commit acts which they would hardly ever do under normal circumstances.

A Little Perspective

I've had the pleasure of receiving several great recommendations for short videos, books, and documentaries over the past week or two. I have a lot to soak in; there is much to see. I still haven't had the chance to follow up on all the suggestions yet, but I am eager to do so.

One short video so far has truly impressed me and has opened my perspective concerning this planet we all share.

Carl Sagan provides an amazing perspective concerning our existence in a short video called The Pale Blue Dot. Watch it. If my link doesn't work, simply visit YouTube and search for:

The Pale Blue Dot -- full speech

I found the film humbling and touching. Somewhat saddening and quite sobering; yet, somehow the film was still very inspiring and hopeful all at the same time.

And I must say . . . people who argue that morality cannot exist without god would be challenged after gaining this new and awesome perspective. After seeing where and what we really are in this universe, I can't help but to have the desire to cherish life. And not only my life, but the life of every other human being around me.

Isn't that sentiment morality enough?